Advice from educational experts and experienced parents on sheltering your kids without stifling their summer fun

Summer makes us think of long, lazy days, with kids frolicking in the great outdoors, often without an adult in sight. It’s axiomatic that kids need time to just be. But is all that unstructured, unsupervised time healthy for kids?

The conundrum isn’t a new one. In 1984, an unsigned editorial in the Jewish Observer had this to say: “Summer is a season for loosening up… The added space offers people an opportunity for exploration of their environment and beyond, as well as of their inner selves — a time for discovery and growth. Untended, untamed, the growth can become wild, tangled, a sorry mess.”

“All my ‘education’ came from the country,” remembers Rivka. Describing a widely shared experience, she recalls being on her own for hours at a time, running around in packs of kids of mixed ages, without any understanding of what topics were off-limits and what type of touch was a no-no. “We sat under a tree with long, overhanging vines, where no parent would ever come.” The memories of what she and her friends spoke of makes her fear for her kids.

Kids’ developmental needs haven’t changed, but the risks of exploration have exploded, says Mrs. Aliza Feder, head mechaneches at Bais Yaakov Machon Ora in Passaic, and a noted speaker and author. “The worst they could ever do, the worst they could ever access, has changed so much from when I was a teen thirty years ago,” she says. “Every time you think it can’t get worse, it gets worse.”

It’s enough to make a responsible parent want to ground her children for life.

And yet, one of the crucial processes of maturation is individuation. Kids and teens need to make their own mistakes as they find their way, and psychologists and mechanchim are unanimous that the helicopter parent who hovers protectively, and the lawnmower parent, who flattens obstacles in her kids’ paths, both breed unhealthy adults.

“Our community has been mindful of threats from without, but an overwhelming majority of problematic situations have been from within,” says Dr. Shloimie Zimmerman, a psychologist who directs a group practice with offices in Brooklyn and Queens. “We’ve been busy patching the exterior walls, but if all you have is outside walls, one breach and you’re done.” And of course, walls don’t protect from internal threats. A better approach, he says, is to also arm the citizens within and teach each one to defend himself.

Through communal education and in his recent book, From Boys to Men, he makes an impassioned case for the use of proactive education to combat the dangers of modern society.

How is it done? How do we protect our children without coddling them?