Chinese Adolescents’ Meaning-Focused Coping With Prolonged Parent-Child Separation

Abstract

In China, 61 million children are left behind in rural areas suffering from prolonged parent-child separation when their parents migrate for work. Meaning-focused coping is known to play a positive role in adaptation, particularly during persistent adversity, but little is known about how adolescents make meaning during prolonged parent-child separation. This qualitative study investigated how adolescents utilize meaning-focused coping during such separation. Seventeen adolescents who had been left behind (Mage = 14.1 years, SD = 1.03 years) by migrant parents were recruited via purposive sampling. Eight subthemes emerged and were grouped into four themes: living with prolonged parent-child separation, ambivalent feelings, constructed meaning of parental migration, and meaning-making strategies. Despite detached parent-child relationships and weak family support, the adolescents made positive meaning of their parents’ migration by focusing on the migration-related benefits and maintaining goal commitment. Participants’ perceptions of left-behind life varied at different stages of their parental migration and their ability to make positive sense of migration increased with age. The role of culture was crucial in their meaning-making formulation. The results have application potential for psychosocial interventions targeting adolescents facing a prolonged left-behind period.