Educational Perspective: Summer Camp Isn't as Good as Advertised

“The room is dusty, there are many insects”; “the swimming pool has many large pebbles, it hurts when you touch it”; “the toilet is full of fleas”; “the water is weak, there is no fan, it is too hot to sleep”; “I hate going to summer camp here”; “I will never come back again”… These are the diary entries kept in small notebooks of many students when they attended a summer camp organized by a company.

The children's complaints are completely different from the company's "winged" advertisements, such as: "Experience a week of summer camp, feel the fun of the whole 3 summer months"; "a week back to the countryside, living with the beauty of nature"; "every day of summer camp is a fun challenge"; "sending your children to summer camp, an opportunity to practice children's bravery"...

Thinking that letting children participate in summer activities in rural areas or places with beautiful natural scenery will help children "get rid of their addiction" to phones, TVs, and computers at home, help them integrate into a collective environment, live with discipline, and know how to share with others, but many fathers and mothers feel disappointed, even angry because the summer camp organizers do not do as well as they say. The cost of a one-week summer camp is 7 million VND, an average of 1 million VND/child/day, but the "results" that the children receive are complaints, criticism, and boycotts because the service of the organizers is both unprofessional and inhumane.

Hitting the psychology of urban parents who want their children to have positive and interesting experiences during the summer, many businesses have "drawn" many extremely attractive summer experience programs on social networks. Through beautiful advertisements, polished images, experience locations edited to "beautiful every centimeter", and activities that are "interestingly" made impeccable, many parents spare no expense in the hope that their children can participate in such beneficial summer camps.

According to psychologists Education , when organized systematically, professionally, scientifically, short-term summer camps will help children practice independence, discipline, have more interesting and useful experiences, improve life skills and the ability to adapt to new environments, thereby contributing to changing attitudes, more positive awareness, and having a better sense of community responsibility.

However, to avoid the situation of “losing money and getting nothing in return”, before letting children participate in summer camps, parents must carefully research the organizing unit (both in terms of legal entity, experience, team of expert instructors) and the location of the summer camp (living conditions, rest, play, entertainment, life skills training, etc.). Parents need to be very alert and cautious, not because of the “winged” advertisements of businesses, hastily let their children participate in summer camps with unsecured conditions, causing children to be “involved” in negative experiences.

Source: https://baolangson.vn/goc-nhin-giao-duc-di-trai-he-khong-hay-nhu-quang-cao-5053131.html