Concerns about managing children during the summer holidays.

The 2024-2025 school year has just ended, and students throughout the province are officially entering their summer vacation. Managing children to ensure they have a meaningful, safe, and enriching summer break that combines learning and fun is a concern for many families.

Activities of children at Sao Vang Kindergarten ( Nam Dinh city).

In reality, accidents, injuries, and drownings among children occur every summer, especially when children lack adult supervision. Furthermore, modern living conditions, rapid urbanization, shrinking outdoor play spaces, and a potentially hazardous environment make managing children during the summer even more challenging. Many parents are overwhelmed with work, making it difficult to supervise their children. Ensuring a fun, healthy, enriching, and safe summer vacation for children is not easy, especially given the limited number of playgrounds, entertainment centers, and talent development centers. Many centers only offer one session, usually lasting only about two hours, making transportation to and from these centers inconvenient. Therefore, many parents are reluctant to enroll their children in summer talent development programs, opting instead to keep them at home or send them to grandparents in the countryside. Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu (Nam Dinh city) shared: “My two children are still young, only 6 and 8 years old. My husband works far from home, only coming home on weekends. Meanwhile, I work as a factory worker and often have to work overtime. To ensure my children's safety, this summer I sent them back to my hometown and asked their grandparents to look after them.”

However, not every family can rely on grandparents, or the grandparents may no longer be healthy enough to look after the children. Because there was no one to look after her children, as soon as her children finished the school year, Ms. Pham Thi Hang (Nam Dinh city) found extra classes for them. Ms. Hang said: “Leaving my children home alone is unsettling, so I asked a teacher to both teach and look after them during the summer.” Mr. Pham Anh Duc, also from Nam Dinh city, has two young children in grades 3 and 1. During summer vacation, his family usually lets the children stay home watching TV and using phones. He shared: “My wife and I work from morning until night. When we leave, I lock the front door and leave the two children at home to look after each other. At lunchtime, I order food from a restaurant and a delivery person brings the food for them to eat. We know that leaving the children at home poses potential safety risks, but my wife and I have no other choice.”

This time of year is also when many families and businesses take advantage of the opportunity to provide childcare at home. However, surveys show that many private childcare facilities currently do not meet basic requirements according to regulations, such as: operating without a license, caregivers lacking professional certifications and qualifications, and failing to ensure safe conditions for childcare. These private childcare facilities operate mainly on the basis of verbal agreements between caregivers and parents, without any legally binding agreements as required by regulations. Most childcare facilities primarily focus on childcare; the nutritional needs of children and environmental hygiene are not given sufficient attention. Many families and individuals provide childcare solely for the purpose of earning extra income, while neglecting to invest in facilities and safe childcare conditions. This results in many children not receiving adequate and proper nutrition and sleep, leading to malnutrition and illness. Specifically for preschool-aged children, most schools offer childcare during the summer. This helps parents alleviate some of their worries and allows them to focus on their work.

During the summer break, parents should allow their children to participate in healthy cultural and recreational activities according to their needs and interests. Besides academic studies, children have many other things they can learn and need to acquire essential life skills during the summer months – things that schools currently don't have enough time to teach. Parents should consider, based on their children's actual needs, courses on life skills, self-reliance; self-care skills; skills to prevent abuse and violence; communication courses, military training; music , dance, drawing, martial arts, swimming… to help children express their talents and strengths. This is also one of the appropriate ways to manage children, helping them have a safe, healthy, truly joyful, and beneficial summer break. Furthermore, to ensure children have the best learning, development, and training environment, especially during the summer, parents should carefully research and choose licensed, reputable, and long-established facilities with adequate infrastructure to ensure their children's safety and better nutrition and care. In addition to close attention from families, local authorities and relevant agencies should also actively invest in building or maintaining safe and child-friendly playgrounds.

A safe, enriching, and joyful summer vacation is not only the wish of each family but also a shared responsibility of the entire society. Therefore, coordinated efforts from families, schools, and relevant authorities are essential to create truly meaningful "green summers" for the younger generation.

Text and photos: Thanh Hoa

Source: https://baonamdinh.vn/xa-hoi/202506/noi-lo-quan-ly-tre-trong-dip-he-a594087/