Promotion of Well-Being in Children and Adolescents: What Can We Learn from Chinese Scientific Research

Nowadays, children are facing uncertainty and turbulence caused by the fast-changing world, thus fostering children and adolescent well-being is of great importance. In the past decades, unlike the “deficit model” that mainly focuses on the mental illness and maladaptation of children (Damon, 2004), a large body of research focusing on positive development has become a significant strand of applied developmental science (Leman et al., 2017; Qi et al., 2022; Shek et al., 2019). The positive development approach emphasizes how to improve and foster children and adolescents’s competencies, resilience, and potential (Benson et al., 2007; Brink & Wissing, 2012; Shek et al., 2019). As for disadvantaged children, the positive approach is especially important because they are facing more developmental risks and challenges (McLoyd, 2006).

China has the second-largest population of children in the world. According to the 7th National Population Census of China in 2020, China has 298 million children aged from 0-17 years old, accounting for 12.7% of the whole children population in the world (National Bureau of Statistics, 2023). In past decades, China has made remarkable achievements in improving child well-being in terms of physical health, education, and child welfare (China Child Centre, 2022). However, to achieve the thriving goal of well-being, China encounters challenges in the field of mental health, risk behaviors and vulnerable children (Qiao et al., 2021). Specifically, the number of left-behind children from rural areas reached 0.6 million in 2020 (Ni et al., 2022). Left-behind children are found to be more vulnerable to emotional and behavioral problems (Zhou et al., 2020), internet addiction (China Internet Network Information Center, 2021), and family dysfunction (Liu et al., 2022). Moreover, the deteriorating mental health of Chinese adolescents also calls attention. According to a national-wide survey, 20% and 43.6% of Chinese adolescents experienced depression and anxiety symptoms (Fu & Zhang, 2023). The United Nations Children's Fund (2021) pointed out that mental health issue was a very serious one in mainland China, with roughly 25% of them experiencing mild or above depressive symptoms.

To address these problems, researchers endeavor to develop intervention programs to nurture positive development for Chinese adolescents (Duan et al., 2019; Zhu & Shek, 2020). However, the evidence for the effectiveness and impact of these programs among Chinese adolescents is still lacking. Therefore, investigating the related factors determining the well-being of Chinese children and identifying effective programs to promote positive development for Chinese children and adolescents are urgently needed.

In short, there are three main topics in this special issue on “Promotion of Well-Being in Children and Adolescents: What Can We Learn from Chinese Scientific Research”:

- First, with the criticism of “WEIRD” studies that social science studies are mainly based on samples from “Western, educated, industrial, rich and democratic” contexts, empirical studies on Chinese adolescents are necessary to provide better knowledge of child well-being studies globally.

- Second, given that children and adolescents are facing uncertainty and turbulence in the fast-changing world, examining the factors at different determinants at different ecological levels could provide empirical support for well-being studies among Chinese children.

- Last, to foster child well-being in practice, the effectiveness of positive youth development programs should be systematically examined in the Chinese context.