Stop Protecting Your Children—It’s Backfiring

May 30, 2026 - 10:14

During the pandemic, parents became laser-focused on keeping their children away from all germs. Remember going out to dinner and feeling that even outdoors, even masked, it was still too risky if the kids touched each other? That hyper-vigilance made sense at the time. But what has surprised me is how this behavior has stuck around long after the pandemic ended.

A child gets too close to another kid with a runny nose or a cough, and a parent pulls him back. "Don't touch." "Don't share." "Don't get sick." One of my children's friends even canceled a playdate because he had been sick the week before. This instinct to protect is understandable, but it may be backfiring in ways we don't fully realize.

Childhood is supposed to involve contact with the world itself. The immune system appears to benefit from ordinary exposure to a world that has not been sanitized flat: soil, animals, other children, and early introduction to foods. The clearest example is peanuts. Early introduction lowers the risk of peanut allergy. The same pattern holds for pet exposure. Early-life contact with dogs and cats seems to reduce the risk of allergies, asthma, and food sensitivities.

By keeping kids in a bubble, we may be robbing them of the very experiences that build a strong immune system. Not every cough is a threat. Not every shared toy is a danger. Letting kids be kids, with all the mess and contact that comes with it, might be the healthiest thing we can do for them.