Summer Holidays and the Hidden Risks of Freedom

Summer holidays are a time children look forward to for months. They can finally put away their school bags, stop getting up for classes every morning, and temporarily leave behind the pressure of tests, oral examinations, and grades. They enter a world that seems to offer freedom, adventure, and the opportunity to decide how to spend their own time.

This freedom can be extremely valuable for a child's healthy development. However, it also has a less visible side. When regular routines, everyday responsibilities, and predictable structure suddenly disappear, space can quickly open up for boredom, loneliness, uncontrolled use of technology, risky behavior, or the search for excitement in ways a child may not yet be psychologically prepared to handle.

The summer months often involve less parental supervision, more unstructured free time, fewer organized activities, and more intensive contact with smartphones, video games, social media, and peer groups. Within these groups, the desire to be accepted may sometimes become stronger than the ability to recognize danger.

Summer holidays can therefore become not only a period of rest, but also a time when unhealthy habits quietly develop or intensify. These habits may gradually interfere with sleep, relationships, mood, physical activity, interests, and the ability to function without constant external stimulation.

We still tend to associate addiction primarily with alcohol, cigarettes, or illegal substances. The modern world, however, has introduced children to new forms of problematic behavior connected to digital technology, video games, social media, short-form videos, online creators, and the constant checking of notifications.

Frequent smartphone use or gaming does not automatically mean addiction. Technology can support entertainment, learning, creativity, and genuine relationships. The most important warning signs are usually a loss of control, the prioritization of digital activity over other areas of life, and continued use despite visible negative consequences.

The World Health Organization uses similar criteria when describing gaming disorder, in which gaming gradually takes priority over other activities and continues despite harmful effects.

The brains of children and adolescents are still developing. Puberty, in particular, brings important changes in the way the brain processes rewards, emotions, social acceptance, and risk.

Adolescents are often more sensitive to experiences that are new, exciting, and socially rewarded. At the same time, the abilities connected to self-control, planning, and evaluating long-term consequences are still maturing.

This does not mean that teenagers are incapable of thinking rationally or making responsible decisions. It does mean, however, that during emotionally intense situations, under the influence of a powerful reward, or in the presence of peers, an immediate experience may feel more convincing than the distant possibility of future consequences.

Research also suggests that the presence of peers may increase adolescents' sensitivity to anticipated rewards and encourage riskier decision-making.

Digital environments can make highly effective use of this natural developmental process.

Video games provide immediate feedback, new levels, rewards, and a constant sense of progress. Social media platforms offer reactions, comments, new content, and continuous opportunities to check whether someone has noticed us.

Short videos change before a child has time to become bored, while the algorithm gradually learns what will hold their attention for as long as possible.

The problem is therefore not only the number of minutes spent in front of a screen. More important questions include:

What content is the child consuming?

Why do they keep returning to it?

How do they feel after using it?

What parts of their life are being neglected because of it?

It would be inaccurate and unnecessarily simplistic to describe every use of social media as a "dose of a drug." Human motivation and the dopamine system do not function in such a simple way.

However, digital platforms can offer rapid, repeated, and unpredictable rewards that encourage compulsive checking, particularly when a smartphone becomes the main way a child manages boredom, soothes unpleasant emotions, or gains a sense of personal worth.

When a child feels disappointed, lonely, angry, or insecure and automatically reaches for a screen every time such feelings appear, the phone may no longer function only as entertainment. It can gradually become the child's only learned strategy for emotional regulation.

Social media offers not only entertainment, but also a constant opportunity for comparison.

Every day, children may see carefully selected photographs, achievements, holidays, relationships, and significant moments from other people's lives without fully understanding that they are viewing only a chosen and often edited version of reality.

At a time when their own identity is still developing, repeated comparison can create the impression that everyone else is more attractive, successful, popular, and happy, while they themselves are falling behind.

Social media does not affect every young person in the same way. It may also provide connection, support, education, and creative opportunities. Nevertheless, professional sources warn that for some adolescents, its use may be associated with anxiety, mood difficulties, and problems with self-esteem, particularly when it displaces sleep, physical activity, face-to-face relationships, and ordinary life.

When children do not learn to tolerate boredom, identify their emotions, cope with disappointment, ask for help, or manage rejection in a healthy way, they may develop what psychologists call maladaptive coping strategies.

These are reactions that provide temporary relief but do not resolve the underlying problem. When repeatedly used, they may even make it worse.

Examples include escaping into video games, television series, or social media, suppressing emotions, withdrawing from others, avoiding problems, developing an excessive need for control, blaming other people, or using addictive behavior to calm down quickly.

Boredom itself is not an enemy that must be completely removed from a child's life.

In reasonable amounts, it gives children space to think, create, discover their own activities, and gradually develop the ability to function without a constant supply of entertainment.

Risk develops when boredom is combined with loneliness, prolonged lack of attention, the absence of safe boundaries, and unlimited access to content specifically designed to keep children looking at a screen for as long as possible.

Summer holidays are not necessarily problematic because every hour is not planned. Problems arise when children are left completely without support, human contact, or reasonable guidance during their free time.

Many children spend entire summer days alone at home, with a smartphone becoming their most accessible companion.

Some play games. Others watch endless streams of short videos. Some enter anonymous groups, chats, or online communities that their parents may not understand or may not even know exist.

The internet can provide support and a sense of belonging. At the same time, it creates an environment where a stranger can pretend to be a peer, deliberately identify a child's vulnerabilities, and gradually gain their trust.

This manipulative process is known as grooming.

Grooming does not usually begin with an obviously dangerous stranger making an immediate harmful request. It often involves the gradual development of a relationship in which the manipulator appears understanding, attentive, and trustworthy.

They identify the child's needs and vulnerabilities, create a sense of special connection, and later begin testing boundaries, requesting secrecy, or isolating the child from people who might recognize what is happening.

This is precisely why grooming can be so difficult for a child to recognize. At first, manipulation may not feel like a threat. It may feel like friendship, acceptance, or the relief of finally finding someone who truly understands.

UNICEF warns that in online grooming, an offender often first establishes a relationship, learns about the child's needs, and only after gaining trust begins escalating manipulation and demands.

Closely connected to this is cyberbullying, which, unlike traditional bullying, does not necessarily end when a child leaves school or returns home.

Children carry their phones into their bedrooms. Notifications may arrive in the evening or during the night, and humiliating content may spread among large numbers of people without the child having any control over who has seen it.

When children fear that their parents will respond by confiscating the phone, blaming them, or punishing them, they may hide what is happening because they are more afraid of the consequences of disclosure than of the situation itself.

Protecting children therefore begins not only with monitoring devices, but with building trust. Children need to believe that when something harmful happens, they will not automatically be blamed or punished for finding themselves in a difficult situation.

During puberty, identity development also becomes increasingly important.

Adolescents ask themselves:

Who am I?

Where do I belong?

What do other people think of me?

What makes me different?

What values do I want to live by?

Sensitivity to social evaluation naturally increases during this period. Reactions from peers, follower counts, and acceptance within a group may therefore take on enormous emotional importance.

When an algorithm becomes the main source answering these questions by repeatedly showing highly emotional content designed to hold attention, a young person's view of themselves and the world may begin to develop according to standards created not for healthy development, but for maximum time spent on a platform.

Until recently, parents were primarily concerned about whether their children might start smoking, drinking alcohol, or experimenting with other substances.

Today, attention must also be given to problems that are less visible.

A child sitting quietly in their bedroom may appear safe because they are not outside and the parent knows approximately where they are. Yet psychologically, the child may be exposed for hours to social comparison, inappropriate content, pressure from strangers, humiliation, or systems that gradually weaken their ability to put the device down and engage in something else.

The risks of summer holidays are not only digital.

Boredom, reduced supervision, and increased peer influence may also create opportunities for first experiments with alcohol, cigarettes, or other addictive substances.

This is not always a deliberate act of rebellion against parents. It may be driven by curiosity, loneliness, the desire to fit in, fear of rejection, or the need to prove to a group that the child is not weak or immature.

An adolescent may understand that something is unsafe and still give in under pressure because the immediate threat of ridicule or exclusion feels more powerful at that moment than distant health consequences.

During the summer, parents often work just as much as during the school year, or even more. They cannot constantly know where their children are or what they are doing.

Total control, however, is neither realistic nor healthy in the long term.

Children need to develop independence, learn to make decisions, and accept age-appropriate responsibility. Yet freedom without connection, boundaries, and genuine interest can easily turn into abandonment.

The goal is not to know every step a child takes. The goal is to create a relationship in which the child can reach out even after making a mistake, experiencing pressure, or becoming unsure how to leave a situation safely.

It is also important to speak accurately about addiction.

Addictive behavior cannot be reduced to weak willpower or poor character. At the same time, not every addiction can be described simply as an automatic "survival mechanism."

Addiction is a complex problem influenced by biological predispositions, psychological condition, family and social environment, repeated learning, availability of rewarding experiences, and the ways in which a person has learned to respond to stress and uncomfortable emotions.

For some children, addictive behavior may function as escape, emotional relief, or a substitute for a missing sense of acceptance. This does not automatically mean that the parents have failed or that every problem is caused by insufficient attention.

One of the strongest protective factors is emotional regulation: the ability to recognize what is happening inside us, name the emotion, tolerate its intensity, and choose a response that does not cause harm.

Children are not born with this skill fully developed. They learn it gradually, initially with the help of adults who assist them in naming emotions, calming down, and understanding what triggered the reaction.

When adults respond to fear with ridicule, sadness with dismissal, and anger only with punishment, children may learn to hide their feelings rather than process them.

When children experience that an emotion is acceptable, even though not every behavior is permitted, they gradually develop the ability to manage inner tension without immediately escaping from it.

What Can Parents Do?

The first step is observation—not from the perspective of a police officer waiting for a rule to be broken, but as someone who knows the child and notices changes in their normal functioning.

One difficult day or a longer gaming session on a rainy afternoon does not necessarily indicate a serious problem.

Concern becomes more appropriate when a child:

• loses interest over a longer period in activities they once enjoyed,
• significantly changes their sleep schedule,
• neglects personal hygiene or meals,
• avoids face-to-face contact,
• reacts with disproportionate irritability when device use is interrupted,
• hides their online activity,
• or cannot reduce the behavior even though it is causing conflicts and other difficulties.

Not every behavioral change should automatically be attributed to puberty.

Adolescence naturally brings a greater need for privacy, stronger emotions, and gradual independence from parents. However, a significant and lasting change may indicate that the child is facing something they cannot manage alone.

Asking questions is not a sign of weakness or inappropriate curiosity. The way the question is asked, however, matters greatly.

The sentence, "What have you done now?" immediately creates defensiveness.

A calmer statement such as, "I've noticed that you've been spending more time alone recently and you seem tired. Is something going on?" creates space for conversation without immediate accusation.

When a parent discovers something frightening or upsetting, their first reaction may determine whether the child will speak openly again in the future.

This does not mean that boundaries should not be established or consequences addressed. It means that the child first needs reassurance that they will not be left alone with the problem.

Shouting, ridicule, immediately removing every device, or delivering harsh criticism may simply teach the child to hide the situation more effectively next time. It does not necessarily teach them how to prevent it.

Understanding does not mean approval.

It means trying to understand what happened, what need or emotion the child was attempting to manage, what consequences followed, and what must change to prevent the situation from happening again.

The purpose of summer holidays is not to fill every minute with organized activities. Free time, rest, and a reasonable amount of boredom all have an important place in development.

However, it is helpful to create a basic daily structure that includes relatively regular sleep, meals, movement, outdoor time, human contact, age-appropriate responsibilities, and time for digital entertainment.

Boundaries work best when they are understandable, predictable, and applied consistently—not when they appear only after a parent becomes overwhelmed and angry.

It is also important to discuss the digital world without moralizing or pretending that everything online is automatically harmful.

Open questions may teach children far more than prohibition:

What does this game give you?

What do you enjoy most about it?

How do you feel after watching videos for two hours?

Does your phone help you relax, or do you feel even more tired afterward?

Has anything unpleasant happened to you online?

Do you know what you would do if someone asked you to keep a secret or pretended to be your age?

These questions do not provide a ready-made judgment. They teach children to reflect on their own behavior, recognize its effects, and gradually build internal self-control.

Parents should also avoid demanding digital discipline from children that they do not practice themselves.

When adults constantly check their phones during meals, interrupt conversations whenever a notification appears, and fall asleep while looking at a screen, children notice this behavior far more strongly than any lecture about the dangers of the internet.

Family rules may therefore include device-free shared time, putting phones away during meals, protecting sleep, and intentionally planning activities in which family members spend time together away from screens.

Among the less visible risks is children's exposure to gambling-like elements in games, advertisements, paid random rewards, betting competitions, or content created by online influencers.

Children may not understand that random reward systems are designed to encourage repetition. An occasional success can create the impression that the next reward is very close.

This makes it especially important to explain the difference between entertainment, chance, and systems in which people may gradually lose control over time or money.

Similarly, not every instance of watching streams or videos should be labelled a "streaming addiction," as this is not a separate clinical diagnosis.

A problem may nevertheless develop when passively watching someone else's life gradually replaces a child's own activities, interests, movement, friendships, and sleep.

A child may spend hours watching someone else play, travel, create, or talk about their day while their own life becomes increasingly empty.

The key issue is not only what appears on the screen, but what has had to disappear from everyday life in order for the child to remain in front of it for so long.

And this is where the circle closes.

Summer holidays can be both a gift and a trap.

The freedom they offer is beautiful and necessary. Yet without appropriate boundaries, secure relationships, and adult interest, that freedom may turn into chaos, loneliness, or endless escape from difficult emotions.

A parent's role is not to remove every possible risk from a child's path or monitor every step. Children need to mature gradually, make decisions, and gain experience.

A parent's role is to remain close enough to notice change, name boundaries, explain risk, and offer a helping hand when the child realizes that they cannot manage the situation alone.

Being present does not simply mean being in the same house or knowing which room the child is sitting in.

It means being emotionally available.

It means listening even when we dislike the answer.

It means taking an interest in the child's world without ridiculing it.

It means creating the certainty that making a mistake will not result in losing love or safety.

A child who knows they can turn to a parent without fear of immediate condemnation may not be protected from every fall.

But they have a much greater chance of not remaining alone in it—and of finding their way back before the experience leaves a lasting mark on the rest of their life.

1. Maladaptive Coping Mechanisms

Maladaptive coping mechanisms, or maladaptive coping strategies, are ways in which a person attempts to deal with stress, uncertainty, loneliness, or psychological distress but which cause more harm than benefit in the long term.

They may provide immediate relief, which is why people return to them repeatedly. At the same time, however, they prevent the person from learning how to process the underlying problem in a healthier way.

Examples may include escaping into games, television series, or social media, suppressing emotions, isolating oneself from others, constantly postponing problems, developing an excessive need for control, blaming other people, or using addictive behavior as a rapid way to calm down.

These patterns often develop in environments where children did not feel safe enough to express emotions or were not taught how to manage them.

With the help of stable relationships, emotional education, and professional psychological support when needed, these strategies can gradually be replaced with adaptive, healthier ways of coping.

2. Grooming

Grooming is a manipulative process in which an adult or older adolescent deliberately builds a child's trust with the intention of later exploiting, controlling, or obtaining something from the child that they would normally refuse.

It can take place face to face, but increasingly occurs through social media, games, chats, and communication applications.

The manipulator may initially make casual contact, pretend to share the child's interests, or falsely claim to be the same age. They may give the child a great deal of attention and create the impression that they are the only person who truly understands.

Later, they may attempt to keep the communication secret, weaken the child's trust in their parents, gradually test boundaries, request private information, or use emotional pressure and threats.

The most important form of prevention is not technical monitoring alone.

It also requires open communication, reasonable rules, genuine interest in the child's online life, and the assurance that if the child confides in an adult, they will not automatically be punished or ridiculed.

Children need to understand that strangers online may not be who they claim to be, that they do not have to keep secrets that make them feel afraid or uncomfortable, and that they can end the communication at any time and turn to a trusted adult.
- JK -