Summer without smartphones: Vietnamese parents send kids to countryside for a screen break

At the end of July, Tran Kim Oanh's two daughters, aged 9 and 12, left their home in Hai Phong City, northern Vietnam, for a summer break with their maternal grandparents in Thanh Hoa Province.

The trip is a chance for the children to unwind after the school year, spend time with their grandparents and get closer to nature.

When kids have no time for phones

It is also a way to get them away from their phones.

"In the city, there isn't much space for them to play,” Oanh said. “The streets are packed with traffic, and our home is small.”

“When the girls want to play football or ride bicycles with their friends after school, an adult has to keep an eye on them," she added.

"So most of the time, they're either indoors, on their phones or watching TV."

Since the daughters became old enough to stay with their grandparents on their own, Oanh and her husband have sent them to their grandparents every summer.

In the countryside, houses have spacious yards, quiet concrete roads and far less traffic.

The children also have neighborhood friends to play with.

As soon as they arrive, they call one another to play football, jump rope, look for cicadas and catch dragonflies.

With so much to do outdoors, they have little time to think about their phones.

In the cool afternoons, their grandparents guide them to plant trees, sow seeds in the fields, pull weeds and water flowers.

"My mom also teaches each child to grow a plant of their own and take care of it every day, watching new leaves appear,”Oanh said.

“Then, when they come back the following summer, they can see how much the plant has grown and whether it has blossomed or borne fruit," Oanh said.

The anticipation has made the children even more excited about returning to the countryside each summer.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Van Thang and his wife, who live in an apartment in Hanoi, have also sent their son and daughter to their paternal grandparents' home in Phu Tho Province for the summer.

The children brought along a new badminton set to play in their grandparents' yard.

The lane in front of the house is spacious, while the family also has a large yard of around 100 square meters where the children can play football and badminton.

A wide riverside area nearby gives them even more room to run around.

"The children also go into the garden to help their grandparents dig the soil and grow vegetables,” Thang said.

“Our daughter especially loves collecting duck eggs every morning and scattering rice for the ducks.

"They don't ask for their phones to play games when they're here, which is a relief for us,” he added.

Summer: Running, sweating and eating better

Parents say the children spend much of their days carrying water to the vegetable garden, pulling weeds, working in the fields and playing outdoors.

After hours of running around under the sun, they come home sweaty and hungry, sometimes before it is even time for a meal.

"When I call them, my daughters tell me they've spent the whole morning and afternoon helping their grandmother clean the garden," Oanh said.

Their grandmother, meanwhile, proudly told Oanh that the girls had eaten two full bowls of rice with braised fish, fried eggs and a mixed vegetable soup.

"Back in the city, we have to keep reminding them to finish even one bowl of rice," Oanh said.