I spent lots of time with my kids camping and at the beach this summer, as I do most years. Something I noticed, that I hadn’t seen in past years, was packs of very young, free-roaming kids hanging out and doing things without adult supervision. I mostly grew up this way, and I think this style of parenting is back in fashion thanks to writers like Jonathan Haidt, whose criticisms of childhood by screen are exactly right and worth reading about.

Where he and other parents fall badly astray, in my opinion, is in this free roaming childhood movement. Plenty of well-intentioned, educated parents are heading in this direction. They can do as they wish, but I will never join their ranks, for reasons I’ll explain in a moment. Haidt even writes in his book about letting his 14-year-old go from Flushing, Queens to the upper west side unattended in the wee hours of the night, which caused me to think he is insane, despite his good intentions. I’ve done trips like that myself as an adult and felt myself lucky to get home without being harmed, though I was verbally threatened and had a man expose himself to me on one such trip in my college days. Granted, this was in the pre-gentrification days of NY, but even so, I’d never let a child of mine wander around the subways after hours until they were at least 17 or so.

Haidt and others insist that the free roaming childhood is a wonderful thing, that it’s perfectly safe and has many benefits. I had a childhood like this myself, and it wasn’t so bad. We didn’t know anything else in the 80s, when I was a boy—my parents just let us ride bikes and go all over creation alone. We returned when we were hungry or thirsty, and that was that. Everyone did it. I do think it was healthier than playing video games all day.

However, –and this is a big caveat: I was personally acquainted with several children who never made it to adulthood because of this environment. That’s right: they died as unsupervised kids because no one was there to protect them from doing dangerous things. Forget the boogeyman. Forget far away stories of missing kids. I saw this up close and personal, so I’ll thank you to shove your one-in-a-million statistics somewhere else.

Last week I saw a group of 6 kids, none of which could have been more than five or so, hanging out by the beach where we camped. No adult in sight, except me. I watched to make sure none of them did anything dangerous. Probably they’ll all make it to adulthood.

Make of this what you will. Free range however you like, it’s no skin off my nose. I’ll be there at the beach, watching my kids to make sure they don’t drown.

In case you’re wondering, no, I’m not a helicopter parent, but I don’t like being told I’m too protective by some yuppie who read Jonathan Haidt and didn’t live through the death of loved ones or friends because no adult was around to protect them. Kids are vulnerable. They need supervision, whether they like it or not, and whether or not you find it inconvenient.

Here’s my suggestion: have them put the phones and video games down, and hand them a big, fat novel. Read it together. Do some swimming and hiking with them. Or let them play alone, but stay where you can see and hear them. That’s what I do and it works just fine. I intend to make sure they live to do dumb things when they’re adults old enough to take responsibility for their own decisions.