The “kids-at-risk” phenomenon in which children rebel against their family’s mesorah in an external manner has been in the headlines and headspace of the chareidi community for more than a decade. But astute mechanchim from around the globe warn that a far greater challenge is plaguing our youth today one that hides beneath the surface: they are inundated with cases of seemingly mainstream boys and girls who exhibit no external signs of rejecting Yiddishkeit but are sorely lacking some basic elements of Emunah and Yiras Shamayim that were assumed a given not long ago.

There was once a truism that being immersed in yiddishkeit would ordinarily prevent a person from doing aveiros unless they were ensnared in the temporal glow of one of the “isms” that rocked the world. Mechanchim and mentors say that this no longer holds true. They consistently encounter boys and girls who don’t express any doubts in Hashem and His Torah or show any form of rebellion but will secretly transgress grave aveiros. Some of these teens even grow animated during a hashkafah shmuess. Yet when it gets down to actually keeping the Torah they exude a nonchalant attitude. Some of them will be medakdek with some of the mitzvos but display a stunning level of indifference when a mitzvah doesn’t suit their mind or will.

For instance mentors relate that there are bachurim who would never carry on Shabbos even when no one else would see but will carry cellphones with the inane (and blatantly wrong) excuse that it’s “less than a shiur.” Girls who would never talk on a cellphone on Shabbos write off text messaging because “it’s not a real melachah.” Some won’t wait the necessary period between meat and dairy. Others don’t keep to an acceptable standard of kashrus content that an item isn’t known to be treif. And so on.

“There have always been apikorsim and people who do aveiros or go off the derech” clarifies Reb Chaim Glancz who as co-founder of Our Place in Brooklyn has closely followed trends among troubled teens for decades. “But the vast majority of children and adults in mainstream frum environments absorbed the bedrock basics of yiddishkeit by osmosis. Today’s troubled youth generally are not apikorsim or children who want to rebel. Rather to them yiddishkeit simply means nothing.”  

After months of hearing mechanchimand mentors mention time and again with utter desperation that the deep level of disconnect they sense in their charges is the most devastating problem facing the chinuch world today we met with leading rabbanim and experts in the field to unravel the root causes of the problem contributing factors and most importantly what we can do as parents to ensure that our children do grow up with the inner strength they need to grow into ehrlicheh Yidden.

At-Risk Undercover

Although the conventional off-the-derech phenomenon is far too complex to point to one specific cause that for all children who leave the fold experts have isolated several common causes: learning disabilities social handicaps unstable family environments physical or emotional abuse and overly harsh or overzealous chinuch. In short when children associate Torah or yiddishkeit with pain or negativity they may eventually rebel against the fundamental principles of their upbringing.  

Thankfully the close scrutiny applied to the issue of children-at-risk caused parents and mechanchim to become more cognizant of these factors and many have taken dramatic steps to minimize them. Rabbeim are generally better-trained to deal with their young charges. Professional intervention for learning disability social handicaps and family dysfunction is far more prevalent than it was previously. And parents and mechanchim have generally taken a softer less demanding approach to chinuch with a significant reduction in the use of punishment especially of a corporal nature.

Whether as a direct result of these changes or not the numbers on kids-at-risk have stabilized. Every neshamah lost is priceless but mentors and mechanchim who deal with off-the-derech children take some solace in the fact that the current at-risk rates are roughly where they have been for the past several years. Reb Chaim Glancz says that he and his colleagues may even have noticed a slight decrease in the percentage of children who rebel in an outward manner.

At the same time however mechanchim say that the number of mainstream children disconnected from yiddishkeit is skyrocketing. Many cases go undetected for years and statistics are virtually impossible to obtain but mechanchim unanimously agree that it affects a sizable minority of frum children far exceeding the rebellious at-risk rate.

“There have always been different levels of ehrlichkeit in bachurim” says Rabbi Moshe Hillel Drew a mentor who deals with hundreds of bachurim each year. “But only five or ten years ago it was rare to find someone who considered himself to be a yeshiva bochur not a rebel being mechallel Shabbos or skipping wearing tefillin. Unfortunately today it is far more common.”

And because these children maintain an external façade of being frum parents can often be painfully unaware of what is going on in their childrens’ inner world. This leads to odd – and sometimes chilling – results such as the case of a bachur who had quietly become a mechallel Shabbos but when his mentor suggested that he switch to a more suitable yeshiva (where the mentor thought he could perhaps be brought back to yiddishkeit) the boy’s father told the mentor that the other yeshiva would be inappropriate for his son because there were smokers in that yeshiva…

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