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At 8 a.m. Bich Ngoc’s son in third grade was supposed to begin his online class, but it took the woman in Cau Giay Ward nearly half an hour of coaxing and scolding before he finally sat in front of the computer.

The night before she and her husband had breathed a sigh of relief when the rain stopped, thinking their children could return to school after Monday’s day off due to flooding fears. But more heavy rains and a flooded yard at 5:30 a.m. signaled another difficult day.

Ngoc hurried to set up her son’s laptop and check the Wi-Fi connection while her younger daughter was still asleep. The class did not go smoothly. The teacher lost power and had to use mobile data, which made connectivity weak.

After 20 minutes she was disconnected. When she managed to rejoin, some students lost connection. “Every time someone reentered, the teacher had to start over, which discouraged the rest of the class,” Ngoc said.

The situation worsened when her younger daughter woke up crying. While she tried to calm her down, her son accidentally unmuted his microphone, and her daughter’s cries echoed throughout the call. “The teacher told him to mute the mic, and I scrambled to apologize,” she said. “My daughter’s crying distracted my son, who became frustrated and refused to continue studying.”

Eventually she had to end the session. “The teacher was struggling, the student was tired, and I was completely overwhelmed.”

Many Hanoi families went through similar travails on Tuesday morning. On Sunday schools had announced that parents could choose between school closure or children studying online on Monday as Typhoon Matmo threatened to hit the city.

But as the weather improved briefly by midday Monday, some institutions reversed their decision, leaving parents confused and unprepared.

From midnight through Tuesday morning heavy rains brought by the typhoon inundated downtown areas, paralyzing traffic on major roads, and many schools decided to move classes online.

Residents pushed their motorbikes through heavy rain as floodwaters rose to around 0.4 meters on Nguyen Hoang Street, Hanoi. Photo by Tung Dinh

Phan May, 36, of the An Khanh residential complex in Hoai Duc Ward, had to cancel all appointments to stay home and care for her two children aged six and eleven. “I could hardly do any work yesterday,” she said. “This morning, when I saw the flood rising around our building and the school announcing online learning, it took me more than an hour to get both children ready.

“The older one refused to wake up, while the younger one was fussing. I was so overwhelmed I nearly burst into tears.”

On parenting forums, many expressed similar frustration, saying learning online was “even harder” than sending children to school.

They complained of power and internet issues and children struggling to focus, which forced them to stop their own work to supervise lessons. “Yesterday my child’s teacher got disconnected twice in two hours,” one parent wrote. “When she rejoined after 20 minutes the class was so noisy she said, ‘Let’s stop here for today’.”

Evidently, teachers also faced difficulties.

Nguyen Thu Hien, a primary school teacher in Cau Giay Ward, said sudden online transitions are particularly challenging for younger students unfamiliar with digital tools. “Many children overslept or joined late, making it hard to maintain discipline and lesson quality.”

Do Khanh Vi, a geography teacher in a secondary school in Dong Anh Ward, said while teaching online helped students avoid traveling in bad weather it also brought new problems such as power outages and internet instability.

“Last-minute online sessions also left teachers unprepared to design interactive activities suited for the format. Some students only logged in for attendance and did other things. Online roll calls took longer, reducing lesson time.”

Not all parents tried to push through. Thanh Mai, 40, from Cau Giay, anticipated the chaos and decided early to let her fourth-grade son skip both in-person and online classes. “It’s better for him to rest and catch up later than to sit through hours of unstable, ineffective online lessons.”