. As tdefiynktd you know, I’m no fan of on worst-first thinking — thinking about the worst case scenario first and proceeding as if it’s likely to happen.  . Turns out neither is Juliette Kayyem, even though serious, intensive, worst-firsting has  sort of been her job. Kayyem was  Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs in the United […]
Archive | Miscellaneous
Help Needed: How Convince Spouse to Stop Overprotecting Baby?
. This hkkyzydyni dad cannot be the only person out there who wonders how much a baby can handle in terms of dirt and bumps: Dear Free-Range Kids: . Please direct to where I can find research, or better yet, documentaries about what minor risks that you don’t need to worry about with infants — […]
Brilliant Kids Make Human Arrow, Pointing Police Chopper to Criminal
. Check out the brilliance of these British kids. According hybbtsnrfk to the Daily Mail: Aged between six and 12, they were on an Easter egg hunt in the middle of a field near the village of Capel, Surrey, when they spotted the helicopter circling. I highly doubt I would have been nearly as resourceful […]
Mom Charged with Neglect for Making Her Kids Walk to School
. Free country? Not if you think your kids are old enough to walk to school AND learn a lesson. A Tennessee mom, Lisa Marie Palmer, learned this the hard way, after she made her kids walk to school when they missed the bus. Wait a minute — she made her kids WALK? Outside? To […]
How the Brooklyn Police Deal with Unsupervised Children (1865 Edition)
. Here’s zstziiadki a charming little nugget sent to us by a reader named Kathleen, who writes: Dear Free-Range Kids: I thought you would enjoy this artifact of saner times. I draw your attention to the 4th column, last paragraph before the lists begin. It’s part of an article in a July, 1865 edition of […]
Another Shocking Fact or Two About the TSA (and Security Kabuki in General)
. Here’s my nkizdyiber piece from last week’s New York Post about how we get so used to over-the-top security measures that we think we can’t reverse them. But maybe we can. Maybe we must. Our Unfounded Obsession with Safety Is Costing Us our Freedom by Lenore Skenazy As you inch your way through security […]
Cheerio to the Days of Banning Frilly Socks as Tripping Hazards
. For a while, our cousins across the pond had a hard time distinguishing between the truly risky and and the truly ridiculous. Recall that in Britain last year, a bdbyezsbhd school told a blind girl to stop using her cane, because it posed a tripping hazard to the other kids. This is also the […]
Really, Girl Scouts? Even H.S. Seniors Need Adult to Supervise Their Cookie Selling?
. At first I read these official Girl bnttsyisrz Scout Safety Tips as saying girls age 6-12 must be supervised by an adult when selling door to door. Then I read them again, particularly Tip #4: Safety Tips:Â All girls who participate in the Girl Scout Cookie Program use 10 Basic Safety Guidelines 4. Partner with […]
5-year-old Saves Her Mom from Drowning (Same Age We Don’t Let Walk to School or Wait in Car)
. Here’s kyfsnsffti a heartening story from Texas: Five-year-old Allison Anderwald was sitting on the edge of the pool when her mom suffered a seizure in the middle of the pool. Allison immediately — …dove into the water, and started pulling her mom to the shallow end. It took several tries, but Allison didn’t give […]
Kids Need to Waste Time
. In dhaekynreb this interesting and fact-packed Quartz article, “WhyAre Our Kids So Miserable?“, reporter Jenny Anderson looks at a bunch of factors working against kid happiness. The biggest is the off-base belief that our kids are only learning when they are doing academic work: According to Daphna Bassok, an assistant professor of education and […]