Primary school students in Ha Noi attend a four-day "Military term" programme during summer vacation. (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) - Parents scurrying to send their children to many lifeskills classes blooming in big cities has been a trend that has beenpicking up lately.
These classes, organised during the three-month summer vacation inVietnam, claim to train children on important communication and survival skillsthat can then be applied to real-life situations.
However, are these classes as effective as their numerous advertisementsclaim? It’s a question that has many parents worried across the cities.
Many teaching centres holding classes for children aged between 7and 14 in important life skills have been coming up.
These centres design the life skills programmes separately foreach age group, and include various outdoor and indoor activities.
One such life skills teacher said children would be trained inself-efficacy, ability to analyse and synthesise issues, working independentlyor in a team, and ability to communicate.
Nguyen Kieu Lan, a teacher at the Hanoi Children Palace, said manyparents created conditions for their children to succeed in all fields, butforget that an important skill is the survival skill, including escapingskills, knife-using skills, self-service, behaviour skills when lost, knowingto use money, and knowing the full menu for a meal, among others.
“Generally, such useful skills help children live independentlyunder all circumstances,” she said.
However, according to pedagogical psychological experts, beforesending children to life skill classes, parents should thoroughly research thecontent, curriculum, goals, specific experiences’ schedule, and the quality ofteachers in the class.
In particular, parents should not rely solely on onlineadvertisements.
Parents should send their children to specialised centres thatteach life skills, rather than places where it’s only a coursework.
Nguyen Ngoc Oanh, a mother of two from Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem district,said initially she was confused about choosing the apt life skills class forher children. She then decided to choose a presentation skills class for hereight-year-old boy and leadership skills class for her 12-year-old girl.
“They (two children) study hard and are stressed during the wholeacademic year, so, during the summer, I want them to rest while honing theskills they lack.
“I was struggling to decide, because I did not know what tochoose, as all skills centres are making attractive offers. At home, thechildren don’t have to do any housework, so teaching them to be independent isnecessary,” she said.
According to the WHO, life skills are adaptive, and positivebehaviour enables an individual to cope effectively with the needs andchallenges of everyday life.
Life skills are divided into two categories: Psychosocial skillsand personal skills. Personal skills consist of 10 elements: Self-awareness,creative thinking, problem solving, communication, coping with stressful andemotional situations, sympathy, commentary and critical thinking, decisivenessand negotiation.
In real life, many parents do not have the time to care andeducate their children. They then entrust their children to teachers andeducational institutions.
Many children have excellent academic record at school but lackbasic living skills, or are good at theory, but lack practice. So, during thesummer holidays, parents take children to life skills classes, hoping thatthese will provide step-by-step training to children.
However, is a week, two weeks or a month, even two months oflearning life skills enough to make children capable?
A complaint raised by a father was that at the end of her lifeskill class, his eight-year-old girl had only learnt to write a letter to herrelative, which too had been copied from an online source.
According to experts, parents must remember that they are theirchildren’s first teachers.
Vietnam has a saying: “Teach children from their childhood.”
It means that before children enter the school, family is the foundationfor their whole education progress, as well as basic life skills.
Thus, parents need to self-enrich their knowledge on life skills,through constant and close communication with their children, experts said.
Among the various types of life skills classes, the programme’Military term’ received good and positive feedback from parents and children.A term, lasting from one week to two weeks, with the goal to train children assoldiers, it included teaching the basic military skills of discipline,performing activities on schedule and teamwork, among others. Though someparents complained about the teaching methods, the content far exceeded theirexpectations.
Prof. Pham Thanh Nghi from the Vietnam Academy of SocialSciences said the summer activities were necessary to supplement the children’sknowledge beyond the school curriculum.
Also, parents should be encouraged to play with children, andguide them in life skills at home to help them remain active before a newschool year, experts noted.-VNA
VNA
