Child singers in a Doremi show on VTV3.

This problem is clearly shown by the popular music contest for kids on the national VTV channel, Doremi. Contestants are treated like professional stars by organizers, from costumes, songs, performing style, vocalising and dancing. In many items, child singers wear sexy clothes, including jeans, décolleté and high-heeled shoes, and dance very sexily.

It is very popular to see kids singing songs of adults because they listen to adult songs everywhere. Teaching kids to sing adult songs is considered a way to attract show organisers and music producers.

In addition, new songs for kids are lacking and poor because Vietnam doesn’t have many songwriters for kids. Children of today still sing songs of several decades ago, including “I dream to see Uncle Ho”, “Zosterops”, “Our Village’s Rice”, “Flowers for Teachers”, “This Earth Belongs to Us” among others.

Notably, some write songs for children but they target certain ages of children so there is a serious shortage of songs for kindergarten-age children.

When kids don’t have good songs, what other than adult songs are they to sing?

VietNamNet/LD