By Rabbi Dr. Yosef Shagalow
This is the time of year when children are going off to camp and relaxing the rules a little. Our children will be going to day camps and overnight camps and hopefully they will have a great time filled with chassidishkiet and excitement.
As you prepare and make sure that your campers are safe physically, please take the time to make sure your campers and staff are safe too and have proper guidelines in place for computers, smartphones and tablets.
Experience shows that camp is another unfortunate access point for campers and counselors to fall into the internet’s web. Anything gained from the wonderful camp atmosphere can be lost in moments by a lack of planning.
Putting the following basic guidelines in place may be a little difficult but will save you and your camp lots of pain. Some basic guidelines:
Have a clear policy in place regarding use of communication devices in camp for campers and counselors alike and enforce it consistently.
1. The internet is too strong of a temptation. Make it your responsibility to install filters on the camp computers. The web is a challenge for campers and counselors. This is not a moral issue, it’s a safety issue. No-one is immune from the challenge.
2. As per standard recommendations, have all camp computers used by staff in a public area where the computer screen can be viewed by passers-by. Also computer time by counselors needs to be limited.
3. The best filters are those on the router, not the computer. Counselors and campers regularly access the camp Wi-Fi with their own devices and many of them know how to get past the Wi-Fi password. When there is protection on the router then connected devices are also protected.
4. Restrict or at least discourage counselors use of smart phones and lap tops, especially when the counselors are with their campers. The campers are looking up to their counselors and will learn from them.
5. Any protective filter can be sidestepped by someone desperate and it is also true that counselors bring their own devices with access, nevertheless that doesn’t absolve you from doing what you can. The parents and your counselors will ultimately thank you for your diligence.
6. Seek counsel early and often if you have a concern and if you are not sure how to approach any behavior which looks unhealthy.
Have a wonderful, lebedik, chassidish and kosher summer.
oy vey!
you are not the one to put on the code , let someelse, or have a code half and half so none can get on.
half and half , otr the wife , or mother
orr a proffesial like shmerias eineiyim gurads your eyes, they will do it for free.
You can be the most educated person in the world, a big Talmud Chacham, even a Tzadik like Moshe Rabenu. Tell me, unless you are a Tzadik v’Tov lo, do you really think that such a person, alone (especially at certain times) with the internet, will not be subject to temptation? All it can take is that one time he/she gets curous enough to “cheat,” then it’s like falling of the cliff! Oh, btw, if you own the computer, any filter you put on, you can also take off. So, for some people, you may have to “stoneage” your home… Read more »
what are his tecqniues to break the habit.
so many people out there but afraid to expose tmemselves to some one ?
how can this be discreet? i think many more outn there oar ein this than just the little individual, aor young innocent bochur.
I could list a number of ways in which filters can be circumvented, both router based and pc based. If you want to deal with the issues presented by Internet access do it through education. Banning things does not help.
A camp director who goes home and spends time with his wife and kids daily yet tells me I have to talk to my parents in his office when he is there is just pushing people away.
Apple devices have the option to allow certain websites or block certain websites thru restrictions. Have a rebbe set the password for bochurim.
I hate to be the one to break the news, but as a bochur who’s been away from home for 6 years in yeshivah- parents aren’t aware of what their sons get up to. “Don’t give your kids a phone,” they don’t need to be given it, they get it on their own. Even a “harmless” PSP can access everything a phone can. Fact is people will have phones, do have phones, and quite frankly need phones in certain instance. A support for this is mivtzoyim- having a phone you can take a picture and get the persons email or… Read more »
Thank you Dr. Shagalow. And for any bochur or married man, who has already crossed the line and continues to look at internet sites that are inappropriate, reach out for help to people like Dr. Shagalow and many others.
Go ask a parent whose child has died; go ask a widow; go ask a child whose parent died…would they take them back to life if they weren’t frum?
Don’t make insensitive statements like that!
If you’re talking history, that’s one thing…but if you’re talking about kids and parents, there isn’t a living parent in the world who would agreee to have their child die if they weren’t frum!!!!
To 23
I mean they have them at home (not bring to camp obviously) and their minds are filled with it
we have lost a generation to internet
offically only young bochurim, how many yungeh leit and middle aged ones have we lost to this Klolleh.
Wake up Rabbonim and help AM yisroel.
this is like Parshas Balak TODAY!! no one is immune noone
If u want 2 give ur child a smart phone, give them an iPhone as the restrictions on it, is impossible 2 override, (change passcode once a month, and block app store as their are Web browsers that can be downloaded from there, Ie: chrome, Google…) as for androids I have no advice, the kids will always be 5 steps ahead of the parents!
I do not know of a single camp that lets campers bring phones or other devices…..
or lets campers use a camp computer….
i go to PC -staff is allowed to bring but i never see them use it . maybe a minute or two. tops
#18 GOOD MORNING!
#19 SIMPLE SOLUTION: THE CAMP STiPULATES iN BIG LETTERS THAT SMART PHONES/IPADS, LAPTOPS ETC WILL NOT BE PERMITTED TO BE BROUGHT INTO CAMPS. AND GUESS WHAT? MANY NON FRUM FAMILIES GET IT!!
you don’t give children guns – and spiritual death is maybe worse than physical death
precautions are nice, but misses the real job, which is a lot harder than locking smartphones. teach how to make decisions. don’t make decisions for them.
https://www.opendns.com/home-internet-security/parental-controls/opendns-home/
Open DNS filtering does require some know how to setup, but nothing too difficult. This is not by all means an all encompassing solution, but way better than nothing.
yes you are right! but guess what? the camps are filled with kids whose own parents have given them ipads and iphones as gifts!!! and those kids are passing on the filth that’s in their hands to pure and innocent children (and their parents have no clue…)
why in world do Bochurim have smart phones to begin with? unfiltered internet is thausands of times worse than T.V.!!! no one can deny that!
This brings out how CGI Montreal got it right – no cell phone service in camp at all! There are camp phones and a staff computer in the office, but other than that – just a kosher, Chasidishe summer!
At the beginning of the year we get a beautiful sicha from the Rebbe about avoiding television. Yet students in 7th grade and maybe younger are bringing smart phones. The parents think that the children don’t have internet access but they figure out how to connect from different places download filth and show it to their friends. So you could have a very fine family with beautiful chinuch but because our schools are not enforcing their own rules our children Chas v Sholom could suffer. We all want our children to be safe and healthy. This goes way beyond frumkeit.… Read more »
Could never ever understand why smart parents even allows their children smart phones to begin with. Why in heaven’s name do we want our children young and old alike, to have complete internet access at all times. Can’t seem to wrap my brain around that one!!!
He is in the fore front of working with so many bochurim and members of anash who struggle with this nisayon and this epidemic. He is practical and realistic about this issue. He changed my life!
no one – not any one of the counselors, not any one of the campers and not any one of the workers – has access to internet for the whole 3 weeks! If anyone is caught with a device it is confiscated. Each child and his parents too signs a form that he is not bringing anything with media. With all the singing camp songs, all the trips, all the studying, all the football, basket ball and swimming, all the night time barbeques, all the studying, all the competitions, all the arts and crafts, all the tuck shop, all the… Read more »
G-T IN HIMMEL, THIS SIMPLY BEGGARS BELIEF. WE PARENTS TOOK IT FOR GRANTED COMPUTERS AND SMART PHONES WERE BANNED FROM CAMO PREMISES
WHAT THE CAMPS NEED TO DO IS HIRE MASHPIEM TO ACT AS INTERNET POLICE.
the head counslors are human beings not any less a sakana poshut kpshutoa as a young child…. I t is imperative that it be filterd before anyone steps foot into the camp.even before anyone sits down next to a computer.it is as important as eating kosher. would you kasher your kitchen the first day of camp or weeks bsefore??? WAKE up, this is an epidemic , touching and affecting ou rpurest and finest !!!! ad Mosai , stop talking about other chassidim , it is HERE , in our midst . it is asomething that should be ASIFOIS about ,… Read more »
Chassidish buchurim should not trust themselfs with internet the rambam writes it hilchos isurei biah how even big chachomim told their students to watch out for them
THEY HAVE TO BE TOLD TO FILTER THE COMPUTERS?
ARE YOU KIDDING ME!
WHAT ON EARTH IS A CHABAD CAMP GIVING UNFETTERED ACCESS TO UNFILTERED COMPUTERS, WHAT KIND OF CRASS STUPIDITY IS THAT?
AND WHAT ABOUT THE I PHONES THEY UNDOUBTEDLY WILL ALL BE CARRYING AROUND WITH THEM FOR ALL THE CAMPERS TO SEE.
PHONES AND COMPUTERS SHOULD ANYWAY BE BANNED FROM CAMPS OR CONFIMED TO A SINGLE ROOM UNDER LOCK AND KEY WITH ACCESS ONLY VIA THE DIRECTOR AND UNDER SUPERVISION.
If the Supreme Court rules that 2 + 2 = 5, is such an enactment
binding on us as the “Law of the land?”
This simple but to the point article should be sent to every head of camp.
Thank you so much!
What overnight camp lets the CAMPERS use the computers??
Staff members should for sure be monitored.
Any camp that lets kids use their iPods and iPads openly are really messing the kids up.
This simple but to the point article should be sent to every head of camp.
Thank you so much!
Rabbi _Dr Shagalow has an honest and straightforward approach that I highly appreciate.
We are lucky to have a person like him.
He is Chabad frum and knows what he’s talking about!
This warning has been urged upon us for years. Depending on the person, a filter may be enough for one person; total avoidance of the computer for another. Anyway, another area of concern, which, not surprisingly, the Collive.com website did not bring up as a topic. This was the Supreme Court immoral law decision. Oh, btw, when Rosa Parks (the African lady, who, in 1955, refused to give up her seat to a white, on an Alabama bus) broke the immmoral law, she was hailed as a hero, for breaking such a “law.” So, anyone who breaks any law supporting… Read more »
please please this is more important or as important AS IMPORTANT AS A LIFEGUARD!!!!!.
from a counslor himself.
lets not loose one more neshama!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
echo , Have a wonderful, lebedik, chassidish and kosher summer. 🙂