PETER Pan, Captain Hook and the Lost Boys have all set their compass for York Theatre Royal this summer. And what a spectacle it is; with flying children, giant crocodiles and Martin Barrass as an enormous floppy dog.

JM Barrie’s play about the boy who never grew up was first staged in 1904, but the much-loved tale remains poignant. As Mother waits in the nursery, insisting that the window must stay open for when the children return, she displays the eternal hope of women the world over whose children have disappeared.

Think of the face of Kate McCann in the hours, weeks and now years since her little daughter Madeleine disappeared from a hotel room in Portugal.

Like the parents in Peter Pan, the McCanns too had gone out for dinner, leaving the children asleep alone in their bedrooms.

And like Mother, Kate has never given up hope that her child will return. But perhaps the real test for Kate and other mothers (and fathers, of course) coping with a missing child, is how that impacts on other children in the family.

Will the remaining siblings be watched like hawks; fretted over and cosseted by parents who know that the worst can happen? Or will the parents be brave enough to allow their children off the reins, to play in the street, go to the park, walk to school – their anxiety overridden by a desire for their children to taste independence, learn about risk, make their own mistakes?

As hard as it must be, this is what young people need.

York mother Marjorie Marks-Stuttle knows this instinctively. That’s why she set up Caroline’s Rainbow Foundation shortly after going through the unthinkable.

In 2002, her 19-year-old daughter, Caroline, died while on a gap year in Australia after being robbed and thrown from a 30-ft bridge.

Marjorie knew how much Caroline’s adventure had meant to her and the last thing she wanted was for other young people and their parents to be fearful of travelling abroad.

She decided to honour Caroline’s spirit of adventure through the charity, which aims to promote safety awareness to young people venturing overseas.

The enduring appeal of Peter Pan isn’t just the spin-off fun it offers children through the dressing-up box; it’s the underlying theme that childhood is brief and magical; that children must be allowed time in an adult-free world where they can have adventures, lose themselves in their imagination and – finally – come home again.

It’s a fact much commented on, but worth repeating here, that many children today are denied the freedom for unsupervised play that their parents took for granted.

Only four in ten children regularly play outdoors compared to more than seven in ten a generation ago. The statistics come from the National Children’s Bureau, which this week organised the annual Playday event to encourage kids to switch off their TV sets and computer games and get outside.

It found that one third of kids had never climbed a tree or built a ten. One in ten had never ridden a bike.

Independent play is an essential part of childhood and parents need to find the courage to let their offspring roam further than the back garden.

Take small steps first, by letting them play in the street or at a neighbour’s house. If you are worried about traffic, find a safe crossing route and rehearse it with them until they feel confident.

For it to work, however, there needs to be a collective of parents who all agree to let their children out to play.

Speak to your neighbours, and the parents of your children’s friends. Fix the rules and agree to let your children play together outside.

We all adore Peter Pan, but we don’t want our children to be like him; trapped in a forever childhood and scared to become an adult.