More hotels and resorts are opening children's programs every day, but few parents really know what separates the good ones from the bad. Bob Payne reports on the best ways to size up kids' clubs and how to keep youngsters from harm

During a stay at the Mohonk Mountain House, a resort an hour and a half north of New York City, my wife and I walked our five-year-old daughter to the children's program and then went off on our own to a sketching class. Scale not being my strong point, my sketch was of a wooden rocking chair that appeared to require an extension ladder to climb into. But my artistic abilities were not really the point. What mattered was that the resort's kids' program allowed my wife and me to have some badly needed time for just the two of us.

Such supervised children's clubs are now standard at most resorts popular with families, allowing even the most stressed-out parents to take the entire brood on vacation and still enjoy such grown-up activities as a candle-lit dinner, a couple's massage, or even sketching the hotel's rocking chairs.

Based on personal experience, my wife and I know that if the programs are well run, children love them too. More than two years after a trip to Alaska aboard a Norwegian Cruise Line vessel, our daughter still talks about friends she made in its Kid's Crew program. And ever since a visit to Camp Boca, at Florida's Boca Raton Resort, she has been lobbying for the construction of a water park in our yard. Yet amid all the pirate costume parties, campfire sing-alongs, and cooking lessons with the hotel chef, parents may be neglecting to ask an important question: "Am I putting my children in safe hands?"

"I confess that I never give it a second thought," says a mother of two whom my wife and I met while dropping off our daughter at the Mohonk Kids' Club. "I just assume that if somebody works for the hotel, they've been checked out and must be okay."

Until recently, we felt much the same way. Our outlook changed radically, however, when we learned the story of a nine-year-old girl who was molested by a 22-year-old male counselor while staying with her parents at St. Thomas's Wyndham Sugar Bay Resort & Spa. (Although the abuse occurred in April 2000, the case gained widespread publicity only last year, after the man was denied an early prison release from his five-year sentence.)

Just this past April, the issue of safety at these facilities made headlines again when the Australian press reported allegations that in recent years, two Australian children had been abused at two hotel kids' clubs in Bali. In one case, a three-year-old girl was diagnosed with gonorrhea after spending time at a hotel kids' club; in the other, a five-year-old boy was molested by a man who entered the child-care facility at the resort where the boy and his family were staying. Politicians and the children's parents were calling for the Australian government to issue a formal warning to parents traveling to Bali, but the Australian foreign minister declined, saying that no arrests have been made in either case and that no evidence exists of a "systemic failing" at any resort.

To be sure, there is no indication that child abuse or neglect at hotel kids' clubs is on the rise. In fact, reports of problems of any sort at these facilities are reassuringly rare. Far more common dangers involving youngsters are swimming pool accidents, playground injuries, and even allergic reactions to food. "Children have a greater risk of being abused by a family member or a close family friend than by a stranger," says Susan Kelley, dean of the College of Health and Human Sciences at Georgia State University, who has researched child abuse for 25 years. "Even so, people on vacation do tend to leave their judgment at home. They also might assume that if they're at a reputable hotel, the staff have been thoroughly checked out. But you can't assume that just because you're in a place that looks like paradise, everything's perfect."