Nguyen Xuan Bac, a famous actor and comedian, who was a panel speaker at the forum, raised questions that he hopes would receive honest answers from students.

When asked “Do you sometimes feel that parents cannot understand you?”, a lot of hands were raised.

Many hands also went up after students were asked if they have difficulties when talking to parents.

Meanwhile, only a few hands were raised when Bac asked if students receive proper and appropriate attention from parents after talking to them.

Tran Dang Khoa, a famous poet, who also attended the forum, said the questions and answers showed that very few parents could understand their children. Many of them just think that they give birth to children and forget that they need to be ‘friends’ of their children.

“Sometimes students only seek advices about some matters from their friends, rather than parents. Why?” Khoa raised the question and said he hoped parents open their hearts to listen to and understand their children.

The famous poet said that pressure always exists and exists at different times. However, the important thing is what to do to overcome the pressure.

He said it’s not too easy to learn and learn well. His secret when he went to school was that he spent two weekend days to read the textbooks of the whole academic year. He read textbooks before every lesson and this helped him well remember the lessons right in class. 

According to Khoa, the pressure on students also comes from friends and in order to ease the pressure, students need to understand their friends. They also need to prepare psychologically before every exam in order to avoid shocks if they fail the exams.

“If you fail the entrance exams to university, one doors will be closed, but many other new doors will be opened. And the thing students need to do then is keep calm to grasp the opportunities,” Khoa said.

Tran Minh Tam, a ninth grader, said on the first days of studying online, she felt comfortable as students were not controlled as they were in class. However, this made her more or less relaxed and affected her learning capability. As a result, when she comes back to in-person class, her learning results have dropped markedly.

“This is really worrying, as I am going to attend the entrance exams to high school,” she said.

Another student complained that after a period of studying online, he feels tired and sore eyes. He even got short sighted and now has to wear glasses.

Dang Le Gia Tuyen, a sixth grader, said that the student got 7.6 scores from the test on natural sciences when coming back to school after a period of staying at home.

“I felt as if my head was a dumbbell. I felt worried about getting beaten by mom for bad grades,” Tuyen said.

To Thi Hai Yen, headmaster of Giang Vo Secondary School, said when coming back to school after a long period of staying at home, teachers and students feel very happy. However, many difficulties have arisen, including the students’ concentration in class.

“This is because students have got used to online studying for a too long period and got used to electronic devices,” Yen said.

And this also because students’ ability of controlling their feelings seems to be worse. They often get angry and stressful, and feel pressure. Indeed, most students don’t know how to transform the stress and worries and just a small impact from outside would be enough to affect students’ feelings and in some cases, cause negative thoughts.

In response to the question who have pressure about grades and schoolwork scores, many hands were up.

“I never give my children a scolding if they get unsatisfactory marks. I just asked why. And sometimes the question was enough to make them burst into crying,” Bac said.

Tran Thanh Nam from the Hanoi National University advised students to speak out their problems instead of keeping silent, but not in a negative way.

“You complain that your children are not attentive, but try many ways to talk to parents. For example, you can talk to parents when they are not busy doing something, or write emails,” Nam suggested. “Or you can seek advices from relatives, close friends and teachers who you trust in”.

Thanh Hung