Dilemma and helplessness
"That kid wasn't quite normal. I always told his grandfather to let him take the child to the hospital to see, they are all 3-year-old babies, and they still don't talk. ”
Xiaolu (pseudonym) is 3 years old this year, grew up with his grandfather, his parents work in the county seat, and come back once a week. In many rural areas, such home configurations are common.
However, it was still a little surprising when I heard a 3-year-old barely speak. I take it for granted that 3 years old is the golden age of learning languages, and it is only natural to ask questions from morning to night.
Our arrival made Xiaolu's grandfather feel helpless. The path on the side dodged its eyes, unwilling to communicate with people.
Before he could say a word, Grandpa was ready to go down to the fields to do farm work. The old man skillfully tied the path behind him with two cloth bags, firmly tied the cloth bag, and the path also obediently lay on the grandfather's back, not crying or making trouble, and the small mouth was tightly closed.
When we asked to know about The Path's lack of talking, Grandpa's face darkened:
"My baby is very good, is introverted and does not like to talk, and then how healthy this can jump and run, go to what hospital!" They know what! ”
After further inquiry, we learned that Grandpa has always been not good at expressing, even in the face of grandchildren, can not say a few words, for many years, Xiaolu will only chat with his parents who come back on the weekend, do games, and over time, the news that the child will not speak will spread more and more widely, more and more mysteriously.
We have traveled through many remote rural areas and found that this situation is not unique.
I have seen such a case:
Because the parents go out to work, the children are raised by the grandmother.
Grandma naturally cares for her grandson, three meals a day are thoughtful, but when it comes to the early education of children, Grandma helplessly waved her hand.
When we pointed to the red apple on the picture book and asked him what it was, the child innocently replied, "Red bun!" ”
It is not difficult to see that the child's experience has not kept up with the growth of the years. In the early cognition of young children, family education plays a crucial role.
Even so, we know that Grandma has done all her care, she can let the child eat and dress warmly, food and clothing worry-free, but forcing her to provide a good early education for the child is undoubtedly too harsh.
In addition to this, we also met many children:
With the company of parents, parents usually linger on various short video platforms, without the heart to bring babies; One parent is at home, to take care of several children back and forth, lack of skills, all parenting knowledge is based on the Internet to check little by little; Parents go out to work, grandparents grow up with babies, do not know how to feed children, always worry about whether children grow up or not...
The result is that children's physical nutrition can not keep up, early education can not keep up, in the long run, 0 to 6 years old, this critical period of children's growth, is likely to be unconsciously abandoned. This is related to the healthy development of every child.
This may not be the case for most people, but as long as it is widespread, it is enough to attract our attention.
Examine and reflect
Behind the lack of early childhood education in rural areas is the difficult scriptures in every family.
The combination of migrant workers and left-behind children in the city is probably the group that many people hear the most about every day, but have the least contact.
Perhaps they are the most inconspicuous existence in life, parents are forced by the lack of material resources, often choose to go out to work, resulting in children staying in the countryside, the party left behind or the elderly at home are trapped in the backward educational concept, limited educational conditions, it is difficult to provide children with good early education... Faced with all kinds of real problems, people who are already full of weight seem helpless.
And in them, we can see a kind of simplicity, sincerity and helplessness:
An ordinary parent wants to provide a better living environment for his children, but he is helpless and sad about the lack of companionship for his children's growth, and it is difficult to break through the predicament he is in, and he does not understand and know how to use public channels to seek help.
The phrase "often go home to see" has become an unreachable existence in real life.
There is a set of figures that make us aware of the seriousness of the problem: 247 million children worldwide are at risk of poor early development; in our country, this number ranks second in the world, and 17.43 million children are facing this dilemma.
As the Early Childhood Development Study notes:
Children in rural areas and migrant children are far from the overall national level in terms of the three key factors that affect brain development – nutrition, parenting stimulation and nurturing environment. Under the current conditions of China's socio-economic and cultural development, the improper behavior of parenting has replaced absolute material scarcity and become one of the important factors restricting early childhood development, and improving the concept of parenting has become a major breakthrough point in improving the level of early childhood development in China.
This road, the road is obstructed and long, there must always be someone to do, there will always be someone to do.
Break the game and break out
Fortunately, there is already a group of people in action:
At present, the Health and Sports Development Center of the China Working Committee for Caring for the Next Generation, the Amway Charity Foundation, the Shenzhen One Foundation Charity Foundation, and the Tencent Charity Foundation have jointly launched the "Healthy Children's Paradise" Early Childhood Development Program (the "Healthy Children's Paradise" program has been blessed by the "Creator Brand + Plan"). "Chuangyi Brand + Plan" is a public welfare ecosystem for Tencent and brands to create sustainable social value).
The project aims to help rural parents change their parenting concepts and use scientific parenting methods to actively interact with children to improve the level of early childhood development in rural areas.
And through the provision of free early education kits and parent-rearing courses for children aged 0-6 for rural families, the way to establish a small family-child paradise is established to continuously improve the parenting environment of these families and help children see a larger world.
So, what exactly does the "Healthy Children's Paradise" program provide for children?
First, create a child-friendly space within the family: provide children with early childhood development kits such as toys and picture books suitable for their age stage, and with other hardware, plan a "parent-child interactive play corner" for children to play in the home.
Subsequently, parents' small classes and community family activities were carried out: nutrition and health courses, toy supporting courses, and parent-child interactive courses were used to promote the interaction between parents and children, so that children and parents could interact and socialize more with their peers, and help parents pay attention to and accompany their children's growth in a more scientific way.
The "Healthy Children's Paradise" project plans to distribute early development kits to 8,000-10,000 rural families across the country aged 0-6 within one year, establish a family parent-child paradise (family play corner), improve the parenting environment, enhance the health awareness and parenting skills of parents, and establish a comprehensive service mechanism for early childhood development.
In fact, in the face of many rural children who are still in the difficulty of education and companionship, there is still much that can be done for each of us.
The trickle of drops will eventually merge into rivers and seas. I hope that each of us can dedicate our own modest efforts and dedicate our own piece of love and care.
Dedicate a piece of love and care