Concerns about managing children during the summer

The 2024-2025 school year has just ended, and students across the province have officially entered summer vacation. Managing children so that they can have a meaningful, safe, and rewarding summer vacation, both learning and having fun, is a concern for many families.

Children's activities at Sao Vang Kindergarten ( Nam Dinh city).

In fact, accidents, injuries and drownings happen every year during the summer, especially when children lack adult supervision. In addition, modern living conditions, rapid urbanization, shrinking outdoor play spaces, and potentially dangerous living environments make it even more difficult to manage children during the summer. Many parents are busy with work, so it is difficult to manage their children. It is not easy for children to have a fun, healthy, rewarding and safe summer vacation, especially in conditions where there are few playgrounds, entertainment areas, and talent training centers for children. Many centers only organize one class session, which usually lasts only about 2 hours, making it difficult to take and pick up children to the centers to attend courses. Therefore, many parents are not "keen" on letting their children attend talent classes during the summer, so they choose to keep their children at home or send them back to the countryside for grandparents to look after. 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, often having to work overtime. To ensure the safety of my children, this summer I sent them back to the countryside and asked my grandparents to help look after them.”

However, not every family can rely on grandparents or the grandparents are no longer healthy enough to look after their grandchildren. Because there was no one to look after the children, as soon as her child finished the school year, Ms. Pham Thi Hang (Nam Dinh city) found an extra class for her child. Ms. Hang said: "It is not safe to leave my child at home alone, so I asked a teacher to both teach and look after my child during the summer." Mr. Pham Anh Duc, also in Nam Dinh city, has two children in grade 3 and grade 1. Every summer vacation, his family often lets their children stay home to watch TV and use the phone. He shared: "My husband and I work from morning to night. When I go to work, I lock the door outside, leaving the two children at home to look after each other. At noon, I call to order food from a restaurant and have a delivery person bring food to the children to eat. We know that leaving our children at home poses a potential safety risk, but my husband and I have no other choice."

This is also the time when many families and facilities take advantage of taking care of children at home. However, according to the survey, many private childcare centers today do not meet the basic requirements according to regulations such as: no operating license, childcare workers do not have certificates, professional skills, and do not ensure safety in childcare conditions. These types of private childcare centers operate mainly on the basis of agreements, "verbal contracts" between childcare workers and parents in need, in addition to no additional legal bindings according to regulations. Most childcare centers are mainly for childcare; children's nutrition and environmental sanitation have not been focused on. Many families and individuals take care of children only for the purpose of earning extra income, while not paying attention to investing in facilities as well as safe childcare conditions. That causes many children to not eat and sleep properly , leading to malnutrition and illness. Especially for preschool age children, most schools provide childcare during the summer. This also helps parents reduce their worries and feel secure in their work.

During the summer vacation, parents should let their children participate in cultural activities, healthy entertainment... according to their needs and interests. Because in addition to studying culture, children have many other things to learn and need to be equipped with necessary life skills during the summer months - things that schools currently do not have enough time to teach. Parents should consider, based on the actual needs of their children, to find courses on life skills, self-control; self-service skills; anti-abuse and violence skills; communication courses, military semesters; music courses, dance, drawing, martial arts, swimming lessons... for children to 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 rewarding summer vacation. In addition, to ensure that children have the best space to study, develop and practice, especially in the summer, parents who need to send their children should carefully research and choose licensed, reputable, long-standing facilities with guaranteed facilities so that their children are safe as well as have better nutrition and care. In addition to close attention from families, local authorities and relevant agencies also need to actively invest in building or maintaining safe and friendly playgrounds for children.

A safe, useful and joyful summer vacation is not only the wish of each family but also the common responsibility of the whole society. Therefore, it is necessary to have the joint efforts of families, schools and authorities to create truly meaningful “green summers” for the young generation.

Article and photos: Thanh Hoa

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