Ho ho ho, my child was escorted off the Long Island Railroad today for riding without an adult. The police were called. He’s 10. He €“ Izzy — has ridden this route solo a dozen times before. It’s a straight shot on a commuter train and, as always, he was being met at the other [...]
Filed under: Bad Laws, Rules and Verdicts, Zingers and retorts | 104 Comments »
This post comes to us from Kenny Felder, a high school teacher and father of four in North Carolina who has been thinking about why our kids are always inside, instead of outside playing. To see the full essay, please go to http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/kenny/essays/safety2.html. By Kenny Felder Here is a little science fiction story I made [...]
Filed under: Guest Post, Other Places Other Eras, Parks, Playing and Playgrounds, Zingers and retorts | 35 Comments »
Ho ho hokum. Those are my seasons greetings to Baby Einstein and the rest of the infant educational complex. If you’re wondering what to buy baby that’ll guarantee ‘em a good time, a bright future and possible admission to a college that Obama went to, so-called “educational” videos are not the way to go. Here’s [...]
Filed under: Marketing Madness and Gadgets | 55 Comments »
A school district in Massachusetts is weighing whether to go ahead and teach students as young as 10 how to fight back against terrorists and Columbine-type shooters. I guess officials there have not read the statistics. A child’s chances of being killed at school are .00003% (not counting the ones who die of boredom). So [...]
Filed under: School and Zero Tolerance and Bullies | 29 Comments »
Why do we treat our tweens like toddlers? Because the rules say we have to. The other day my son had to leave middle school early for the big day: Getting his braces. I planned to meet him at the orthodontist near our home and wrote a note asking for him to be excused at [...]
Filed under: Infantilizing young folk, School and Zero Tolerance and Bullies | 48 Comments »
You know you need Dr. Phil if you’re watching him on Thanksgiving. But if indeed you do tune in, you’ll see a rerun of “Extreme Moms.” One of them is me. Extreme? I’m on the show as the mom who let her 9-year-old take the subway alone, a fact that will be chiseled on my [...]
Filed under: Crazy Parents, GOOD News | 51 Comments »
In one of the parenting magazines I was just flipping through (all right – looking for crazy stuff to poke fun at) here’s a “tip” I found: “I fill a bag with shoelaces and outlet covers, then throw it in my purse.” Why? Because if this mom ever, God forbid, finds herself someplace that has [...]
Filed under: Crazy Parents, Uber Safety | 53 Comments »
As we contemplate Obama’s win, let’s think about his childhood for a sec. Far from being watched over every second by hovering parents, his dad split when he was still toddling and, for a while, his mom was absent, too. That’s when he was 10 and she sent him to live with his grandparents in Hawaii. [...]
Filed under: Breaking news, GOOD News | 20 Comments »
Not for president. For book cover! Yes, I’m now writing ”Free Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Enjoyed Without Going Nuts With Worry,”due out this spring from Wiley. Yay Wiley! The folks there have come up with two potential covers. They wanted to do some test marketing so – here goes. Please let us know which one you [...]
Filed under: Miscellaneous | 249 Comments »
I’m so old I remember back when Halloween was supposed to scare the kids. Now it’s got a lot of parents shaking in their schlocky costumes, terrified that if they let their kids go trick or treating those kids may meet a fate far worse than too many Mary Janes. (“The candy everyone wishes [...]
Filed under: Crazy Parents, Creating Community, Studies and reports | 53 Comments »
