entrepreneurs and community members are in charge of who should look after the children during the holidays

Long holidays can increase mortality among children and adolescents, calculated at RANEPA. “Kommersant” learned from accomplished parents how to look after children when they are not at school.

Maria Lvova-Belova, commissioner under the President of the Russian Federation for children’s rights (nine children – five blood, four adopted):

“Children always spend part of the summer with their families, and grandparents are involved here. And if my parents are more about culture – museums and theaters, then my husband’s parents are more about science and sports. When the children are in the camp, counselors look after them there.

It is also important to give older children a little freedom. Freedom, which, on the one hand, does not allow them to get carried away by some bad things, and, on the other hand, makes them feel responsible.

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Dmitry Marinichev, Internet Ombudsman, General Director of Radius Group system integrator:

– I already went to heaven during my lifetime – I have four girls, traditionally everyone looks after them: my wife and I, grandparents. As a rule, we spend the summer in the country. The two eldest daughters are out of school age and have minimal supervision. The third daughter is finishing school, and therefore sometimes we allow her to go to the nearest shopping and entertainment center on her own: for shopping, just to unwind. But this is the bare minimum. Even during the holidays she has additional classes, circles: she learns to play the guitar, sing, draw, plus French and English, a lot of reading. Well, the youngest is a preschooler, completely under our supervision.

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Alexey Tretyakov, General Director of Arikapital Management Company:

– Everyone is involved, but without total control and with an understanding of the interests and issues of transitional age – the sons of 13-14 years old. First of all, I myself strive to spend more weekends and vacations with them, to provide a variety of interesting events. But you can’t cover all the holidays, and I think over combinations of whom to delegate. Leaving one unattended in a city apartment is more dangerous than choosing an active camp based on recommendations and reviews, where river rafting or a trip to the taiga with counselors and coaches are provided. Even grandparents do it wisely, and do not tie them to themselves on a string, so as not to deprive them of rest, but to avoid total freezing in gadgets.

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Yulia Bordovskikh, TV presenter, project manager “Vitamin-L”:

– Yes, they themselves are already looking after themselves at the age of 15 and 24! I have only one eye … I never lock them up, otherwise they will not grow up. I know well the places where they study, relax, visit, I trust the people with whom they communicate. Before any of them go somewhere, I already understand whether it is safe or not. Because before with Maria, who is already quite an adult, and now with Fedor, I managed to instill independence in them, which I am very glad about.

Parents need to start with themselves and by personal example, organization, instill in children responsibility for their lives and health. Then it will not be a surprise, for example, the decisions of the son, who buys tickets himself, travels to friends and even to tournaments, determines which college he should enter. At the same time, no one canceled mom and dad, as well as grandparents!

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Sergey Zhukov, musician, singer and businessman:

“Our children don’t have to be supervised—we spend our holidays together. Always! This is the main rule of our family. We leave with our whole big family – children, grandmothers, my wife and I and the dog Gunya. And on vacation it is still unclear who is looking after whom. And then, the children are already independent and responsible enough to look after them.

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Olga Sorokina, Managing Partner of O2 Consulting:

— Holidays for both me and the children are first of all a change of place and activity. I never control what children do on vacation. My task is to show them interesting opportunities for entertainment and knowledge of the world. During the holidays, we usually travel. There are many children, they are of different ages, and everyone has their own interests. For example, a 15-year-old daughter left in July to work as a volunteer in the jungles of Costa Rica, and a son went on an environmental research expedition to Croatia.

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Artur Muradyan, General Director of the tour operator Space Travel, Vice President of ATOR:

“We look after the children always and everywhere only ourselves. Nyan was not and is not. I am the father of six children. In the summer, we try to give them, in addition to rest, an additional load. They study English with native speakers, play educational games. They run, they play. Sometimes grandmothers help. We always involve the older children to look after the younger ones. For them, it is very useful and not burdensome at all.

So they have no loss of childhood, but there is a sense of responsibility. We always try to make sure that during the holidays they are with us, and we are with them, and as much time as possible. Together we go to the sea. If the children want, for example, to swim, I will go with them. But they rest and play on their own, they must fall, and fill bumps, get abrasions – this is normal.

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Artem Kruglov (Apachek), founder and owner of Men’s Priority, co-owner of the Apaches barbershop chain:

– My wife is a housewife, she has an inner need, as she says, to raise a child herself. Therefore, I am engaged in providing for the family, and she, plus sometimes grandmothers, take care of the child. I don’t take a child to work, it will be completely boring and uninteresting, so I work as a dad only on weekends.

It is better for her to have fun in the playground, playing with other children. I know that the child is enrolled in some summer camp. We constantly live in Moscow, there is no country house or dacha yet, but there is a grandmother who lives far from Moscow in nature, they are there right now. Everyone is very happy and does not want to return to the city at all.

Group “Direct speech”