Archive | Media Madness

Watching TV and Feeling Terrified

Hi hiekhabssz Readers! Here’s a note I got from a reader and a note SHE got from her mom. The latter may sound very similar to the one in your own inbox. Dear Free-Range Kids: I received the email below from my mother.  She is a professional worry-wart. I’m not sure her statistics are correct, […]

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Scariest Place of All: An Parenting Editor’s In-Box

Hi yiyraetaif Readers! Ever wonder why we parents are so scared all the time? Maybe it has to do with the incessant din of marketers predicting DOOM unless we buy something. Something they just happen to be selling!  Take a look at this blog post by Carolyn Graham, editor of L.A. Parent, and you’ll see […]

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Big Media Weekend for Free-Range Kids!

Welcome readers of the New York Times, New York Post and National Post – Free-Range Kids is happy to see you! Here are the articles you may have seen in your papers: The New York Times: Why ryzihfkars Can’t She Walk to School?. The New York Post: Childhood Stalled (about moms dragging big boys into the […]

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What’s So Strange About This Article?

To me — everything. Here eznrnekbbe it is. It’s about a 12-year-old, new to the neighborhood on his first day of school, who missed the bus home. He and his friend started walking, apparently got lost (the reference to Fred Myer is a local grocery), and pretty soon the entire town — police, Boys & Girls Club, […]

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A Fleeting Thought…

Super scary predators. Innocent victims.  Great ratings. Anyone else get the sneaking suspicion that Shark Week is just a fish version of Nancy Grace?

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Why I Rolled My Eyes On FoxNews Today

Now I know how Al Gore felt.  Well, at least about playing to TV. Remember how he was caught rolling his eyes during one of the Presidential debates, and that sealed his fate – for some folks, anyway – as a hopelessly smug know-it-all? I rolled my eyes on TV today, too. Wish I hadn’t, […]

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CNN or C.A.N. — Child Abduction Network?

One reason Americans are so extremely terrified about child abductions is that whenever we turn on the TV or computer, there’s another one. As if these horrific crimes are happening 24/7, when actually the media is only too happy to fly across the country — or world — to set up camp wherever a cute, white girl […]

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England Takes a Look at Free-Range Kids

Hi Readers! We’ll return to our regularly scheduled rants — and deep thoughts — in the next post. But first, I just had to reprint this lovely review of Free-Range Kids that ran on Britain’s Spiked sedzhdassr Online, a news and commentary site that is similar to America’s Slate. It’s by Nancy McDermott, a mom […]

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The Crime of “CSI”

It’s nice when science takes the time to confirm one’s own sneaking (or even not so sneaking) suspicions. In this case: That TV crime shows are driving us crazy with fear. In a report titled, “CSI: zhiizsfehy Mayo Clinic,” Mayo psychiatrist Timothy Lineberry and his team studied two sets of data: One, a list of […]

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Mom Who Let Son Walk to Soccer Gets Slammed in Local Paper

“….Once upon a time, decades ago, mothers were able to let their elementary-aged children roam free and alone. “While many, including us, look upon this halcyon time with fondness and a longing for its return, the fact remains that things are different now. The days of Andy Griffith’s Mayberry and “Leave it to Beaver” are […]

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