^^^
Absolutely. Often that is lost in the process these days.

Having said that, let me raise a few comments.

We are grandparents living in Houston with the kids in Syracuse. Always a connection and often stressful for adults with weather, MX, cancellations and all kinds of other mishaps we were only about 50% on our original flights during 2012-2013. Although this seems to be getting better, anything less than 100% for kids travelling alone is unacceptable, stressful, and fraught with issues.

The kids are not 5 yet but we were beginning to think about the issue and a few things are worth discussing.

1. Grandma/Grandpa go and get them and bring them down here. Extra cost but much safer. Or more directly, the parents travel with the kids. I know there are all sorts of reasons for not being able to do this, but in today's environment you just cant send your kids on their way by themselves.

2. We found friends that are heading that way and ask them to take the little ones. We did this with my son, but that was IAH-EWR, so easier to find friends travelling that route. This worked well for a couple of trips, but one trip when the weather was bad and my son (maybe 7-8) jumped up in his seat and said "WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!", put an end to that.

3. The comment above about entrepreneurs. What a great job for a responsible college kid during the summer. Accompany kids to various places, EARN MILES, learn about travel and more importantly - responsibilility.

4. Summer camp is surely an issue. I did it by bus, my son did it by plane. The camp was in NH, but the camp picked up the kids in Boston because of the connection issue. Either that or they will need to have someone at various connecting points which would be quite a logistics exercise. It might only work for 12+.