It is difficult to begin this article as I do not know which topic to pick first. Should I pick the important steps regarding a child’s development or should I pick the necessity of vacations in a child’s development??

I prefer picking the vacation part. This has come to me as I observed the tension of many parents regarding the vacations that the schools now-a-days provide to the students. The summer holidays are a matter of concern as the duration has gone to half of what they had. Meaning that children now get merely a month’s holiday as compared to the more than 2 month period of vacation that we, the parents, had as students.

The role of vacations in a child’s development is equally important but the point to ponder is that whether a month is enough for vacations!! No, it is not. Let us think over certain points and actually bring everyone’s attention to this…

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एक तरफ बात की जाती है कि आजकल के बच्चे परिवार की value नहीं समझते | Joint family की importance के बारे में बच्चों को ज़रा भी ज्ञान नहीं है | अब मुद्दा यह है कि पढ़ाई से फुरसत मिले तो बच्चों को कहीं बाहर या रिश्तेदारों के पास ले जाया जाए | आज के ज़माने में एक महीने की छुट्टी बच्चों को रिश्तेदारी, ज़रूरी कामकाज और कुछ अन्य ख़ास बातें सिखाने के लिए काफी नहीं है |

A month’s vacation is really not enough to develop or imbibe the feelings of togetherness between a child and the relatives. Making a child understand the family values needs more time. Once the final exams are over, every child wants to spend the beginning of holidays in getting good sleep which has otherwise been missed out during school term. And why not… and why just the kids?? Even the parents need a break. Now the point is that a week of the one-month holiday period goes in relaxation. And when it is time to finalise a good holiday schedule for the kids, you realise that the school reopening date is not very far.

It has been discussed by people that now the western countries are thinking of providing a good stretch of holidays to the kids so that they get enough time for rest and recuperation. But we in India are loading our children with too much of stress in the name of education. The minds of our kids are not fresh enough when the next school session starts and all this just because we are suppressing them in the name of competition. Many people will not agree with me on the point of a longer vacation period. Probably some of them do not have ample time to handle their own kids, some of them are neck deep with the feelings of having extra brilliant performance of their child and many more similar reasons.

Our kids are suffering, they are getting depressed, irritated. We need to demand a longer break for the children as they need to learn a lot of other things in life to live. Vacation is the time when parents teach their kids to handle a household in whatever big or small ways. Vacation is that opportunity for a child where he can develop a certain particular hobby.

जिस तरह से आजकल स्कूल के सत्र बढ़ रहे हैं उससे लगता है कि बच्चे सिर्फ किताबी ज्ञान ही हासिल कर पायेंगे | दुनियादारी निभाने का ज्ञान देने की ज़िम्मेदारी माँ-बाप कैसे निभाएं जब इन जिम्मेदारियों को समझने के लिए बच्चों को कुछ एक्स्ट्रा टाइम की ज़रुरत है और यही वक़्त उन्हें नहीं मिलता?? स्कूल ज़रुरी है मगर स्कूल की शिक्षा बच्चे को “घर” से दूर कर रही है | न तो खेलने का उचित समय मिलता है ना ही सोने के लिए पर्याप्त समय |

Please do give your comments. The points are my observations and have also been discussed with some parents. I will come back with more on this topic very soon.