PV: Entering the summer vacation, many parents in urban areas are interested in summer camps and summer courses. In recent years, this activity has also flourished, with many organizations organizing with different time frames and activities aimed at different audiences. In your opinion, what should parents pay attention to when deciding to send their children to summer courses?
Dr. NGUYEN THUY ANH: The first thing parents need to pay attention to is their child's wishes this summer. This is their summer! So what are their plans, what do they dream of doing, what skills do they want to learn, who do they want to hang out with, where do they want to explore , what books do they want to read - these are the things parents should suggest for their child to think about and discuss together.
Information about courses, summer camps, new places and spaces to explore - parents and children will collect, research and choose together what is suitable and safe.
Recently, there have been advertisements inviting parents to send their children to courses and summer camps that have signs of fraud and property appropriation. As someone with experience in this activity, can you share more information so that parents can avoid risks and find reputable organizations that are suitable for their children?
- After finding activities that suit the child's wishes and interests, parents will evaluate the safety and reasonableness of that summer camp or summer course by accessing information: reputable units, with many years of experience and good feedback from parents; the team of experts designing the program needs to have the participation of pedagogues or educational psychologists, so that the program ensures that it is suitable for the child's psychology and physiology, with a balance between exercise, learning, playing, working and resting; the activities need to have a philosophy and be truly necessary for the child, ensuring physical and mental safety, taking the child's interests as the criteria, not just showing them off to babysit and earn money for the parents.
Parents can ask to meet with the camp manager to get advice and feel how they treat the children with respect and method. A summer vacation can absolutely bring a beautiful experience and a positive impact on the attitude of children, but it can also bring haunting anxiety and insecurity for them. Therefore, parents should always be careful to find out.
As someone who has organized EcoCamp summer camps, what do you most want to create through the summer camps?
- I hope to build a space - a safe and interesting playground, different from the familiar pedagogical environment that children often come into contact with.
It is a place that is beautiful enough, spacious enough, has friendly nature and many rich activities for children to participate in, have the opportunity to interact, meet friends from many places, learn how to connect and solve problems, express and discover their abilities in some new fields, have the right to decide their own actions, thereby experiencing different emotions when being away from family, having to be independent...
The children will gradually grow up with joys and sorrows during 10 days living together in the community. But above all, I hope that they will keep the sparkling memories of their childhood summers so that they can have a positive attitude after returning from the summer camp.
Is training life skills and behavioral skills something you care about when building the program framework for summer camp activities?
- Just living away from home and participating in group activities is an opportunity for problems, conflicts, and conflicts to arise - an opportunity for children to practice social skills and other life skills. I want to emphasize - this is their opportunity. This life skills lesson is more realistic than any simulated, hypothetical lesson in the classroom. They have to face so many problems that need to be solved.
For example: How can I wake up on time without feeling sluggish? What if I don't like the breakfast? How can I wash my clothes clean? I'm used to spending a lot of time in the bathroom while there are 3 people waiting in line for their turn to shower, how should I adjust? There's a friend who likes to use my shampoo, do I agree? How can I remind everyone to keep my room clean?...
Behavioral skills, communication skills, decision making skills, emotional control skills, conflict resolution skills… - all are taken into account and are trained at the summer camp. My job is to observe and not directly intervene, only support from a distance with stories and games that carry messages to share with the young people.
The activities are designed as pedagogical situations that help children get closer to life. When overcoming difficult situations, young people will be proud of themselves, more confident in their ability to adapt and learn small lessons.
Through more than 20 organized summer camps, what do you see as the weaknesses in life skills that Vietnamese children need to overcome?
- One of the big problems of Vietnamese children is the problem that comes from… adults. Perhaps, in a familiar pedagogical environment, children are used to “listening” to adults, or doing tasks in a way that has been learned.
Therefore, most of them do not dare to believe in their ability to do something new, different from their “labeled” abilities. They will always hesitate when deciding to do something, participate in an event or choose a workshop with an expert. Many children only decide when calling their parents. We encourage them to be independent by starting with the thinking method - giving them the tools to make decisions: Think about their desires, self-evaluate, write down the pros and cons of a choice...
Likewise with other independent activities, students learn how to think, how to approach problems, how to ask questions to find answers, instead of waiting for someone else to think for them, waiting for people to ask questions so they can answer...
The second problem for young people is that siblings of different ages often do not connect well. Older siblings do not want to play with younger siblings, do not want to share, and lack patience in communicating with them. At school, this is also one of the causes of bullying and school violence.
This is solved at our summer camp by having teams of all ages: kids, middle kids, and adults. The children learn how to lead a team to accomplish assigned tasks. The older children guide them. The children support their older children. The children learn to listen and be more patient with each other. It is also an opportunity for them to adjust their behavior in the family later on.
In case parents do not have the conditions to let their children participate in summer camp activities, as a social and educational activist, can you advise parents on some ways to have a meaningful summer with their children?
- Your children's summer should be seen as an opportunity to experience, a "big season, a happy season" and not a "troublesome season", worrying about how to take care of your children so that the summer passes quickly. There are many ways to design a vacation with your children that balances physical and mental activities.
But the most important thing is to plan each week, otherwise the two summer months will pass by without you knowing. If you don't have the opportunity to go far, we can schedule local discoveries.
Today, clean the house, watch a movie, cook a new dish, a strange drink... on YouTube. Tomorrow, visit a museum, or watch a play, a cheo play, a tuong play... The next day, go swimming, go to the park. The day after that, visit a relative's family... If you pay attention, there are always interesting events happening near where you live.
Close friends or relatives can also send their children to each other's homes, with each family taking charge of the children for a week and being responsible for planning fun, enriching activities.
If the family has grandparents or relatives in the countryside, sending children back to the countryside is also an opportunity to experience a wonderful life, to interact emotionally with relatives, and to give children more feelings of closeness and familiarity with their homeland.
We can also choose for our children a summer art or sports course or club.
At our Reading with Children Club, there is a summer course with fun activities such as reading, writing, playing, cooking, experimenting, making crafts… In addition, there are tours to visit museums, art galleries, and craft villages around Hanoi.
This can also be an idea for parents to do with their children during the summer. With parents accompanying, summer can be a season of many family memories, an extremely valuable asset for young people to carry with them when entering life.
Thank you!
Source: https://daidoanket.vn/viec-phu-huynh-than-trong-tim-hieu-ve-trai-he-la-rat-can-thiet-10282360.html
Comment (0)