MOUNT VERNON — George Vogt lounged in the shade at Memorial Park Wednesday afternoon, adding a number every few minutes to the Sudoku puzzle in his lap.

But don’t let his demeanor fool you — this dutiful grandfather never let down his guard.

“Even when your kid is in your back yard, you feel like you have to be right there with him,” Vogt said, watching carefully as his grandson, Zachery, swung, slid and scurried across the playground equipment.

“I can never let him too far out of my sight,” Vogt said.

Vogt’s words echo the sentiments of parents and caretakers everywhere. Especially during summer months, when youngsters seem to be more active and prone to injury, those responsible for watching them are forced to remain hyper-alert. Faced with the dangers posed by camping trips, swimming pools and a myriad other summertime activities, many parents must summon courage just to say, “play on.”

“As a parent, there’s a lot more to be concerned about now,” said Linda Connell, who visited Memorial Park with her grandson, Jaxson. “Before, you never saw the stories that are on television. I think parents are more careful nowadays.”

Knowledge may be one form of power, but too much knowledge — about the latest child-abduction tragedy, for example — can also leave parents feeling almost powerless.

“You can never be overprotective,” said Laura Williams, a mother of four who frequently visits Riverside Park with her children. “You have to make sure you watch the kids at all times.”

Keeping children safe is never an easy task, particularly when safety can be so hard to define.

“For me, a safe place is a place where kids can come to learn, play and grow without the danger of people coming from the outside to harm them, without the danger of other kids hurting them, and without the threat of harmful things around them, like chemicals,” said Ron Lodwick, the owner of Old School Child Care in Fredericktown.

Lodwick understands the parental impulse to screen children from all possible sources of danger, but he said that irrational fear can sometimes cause parents to go too far in the name of safety.

“We have some parents who encourage their kids to go explore, and then we have some parents who want to see the water inspection report on the lake where we go swimming,” Lodwick said.

Lodwick said he is also frustrated with what he calls ridiculous state safety regulations.

“Some laws and regulations are good. It’s good that car seats are required for small children. But we’ve suffered as the state has tried to create a completely accident-free environment. It frustrates me that I can’t put on a fun program because of so many regulations,” he said.

Old School cancelled a camping trip earlier this year because of regulations that would have made such an activity impractical. The cancelled camping trip, said Lodwick, is just an example of how regulations can inadvertantly preclude fun.

“The fun things in life aren’t always the safest things,” he said.

Dr. Lee Hornstein, a pediatrician in Centerburg, said parents are definitely more educated about child safety than they were 30years ago, when he began his medical career. But he also said that despite parents’ best efforts, summer will always come with sunburns, insect bites and bike-related accidents.

“We see more fractures and bruises,” Hornstein said. “Parents have to watch their kids, but these things are going to happen during the summer months.”

For Hornstein, safety is often a matter of common sense.

“With the little ones, don’t let them cross the street or swim without supervision,” he said.

Knowing that bumps, bruises and the occassional break are inevitable leaves many parents simply hoping for the best.

“Zachery is a boy. He’s going to get scrapes and bruises, maybe even a trip to the emergency room,” Voght said of his grandson. “We’re not going to put him in a bubble.”

Voght admits, though, that parents today must be more vigilant than ever.

“When I was a kid, we were told to go outside and play,” he said. “You can’t do that with kids anymore.”