Archive | Miscellaneous

Your city appears to have an extreme case of microbophobia.

Germ-phobia in the Schools

Readers: ntthyaadna An Aussie mom presents us with a new school development — or at least one I hadn’t heard about.  I feel bad for the immune deficient kids, but being out in the world means they will be faced with germs everywhere. What if they take a city bus to school? No one sick […]

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Why is it NEWS when a school bus drop off is not perfect?

“Hitting DEFCON 1 Whenever a Kid Gets Off at the Wrong Stop”

Readers — This is one bfstnekabt of the most fantastic editorials I’ve ever read. It’s in Canada’s National Post.  The only think I don’t agree with is blaming a particular party for over-reacting to remote childhood dangers. Our entire culture is tied up in knots about danger, unable or unwilling to understand that risk is […]

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Harumph: “Back to School” Tips forget One Thing

Readers — In the blizzard of back to school hoo-ha that comes to me daily as a “Mommy Blogger,” I just got a list of five tips for back-to-school health. They are: Tip adnthbbkkz One – Start the Day with a Protein Rich Breakfast Tip Two – Balance Blood Sugar with Complex Carbohydrates Tip Three […]

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Official Blog Frog. (Found at Peppermint Park Campground, and released there, too). Photo credit: Dovy Ehrenreich

Frog and Road (More RV Tales!)

On the road again…in the motorhome our tsisebtyzk family is borrowing from Go RVing, as we cross New England on a tour of colleges for our 17-year-old son.  Last night we stopped at the Sturbridge RV Resort, which had a lodge complete with rough-hewn rocking chairs on the rough-hewn porch. Inside the lodge were rough-hewn videogames […]

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Our little home on the prairie.

Greetings from the Last Place I Ever Expected to Be

Readers — A few confessions: 1 – I have never been camping. That’s right. Free-Range through and through, I never slept in a tent, camper or RV. (And for all I know, a camper IS an RV.) 2 – I never had any desire, but Go anfraadfdz RVing offered me a free camper for a […]

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Gosh does this look dangerous! (Art linked to cmtvarok.wordpress.com)

Does Your School Ban Tag, Too?

Readers — Here’s a fantastic tyinrnnbib essay from BabyCenter.  Kristina Sauerwein (cool name!) writes that her third grader announced she’s not allowed to play “chase” anymore: Apparently, some schools think the random running is dangerous or provokes teasing, hurt feelings and other self-esteem crushers. I thought this sounded silly and overboard. Who among us didn’t […]

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Surveillance of all students' Facebook posts?

School District Hires Firm to Read Students’ Social Media Posts

Readers — This is a new development and a big one. A school district in California has hired a firm to monitor the public postings of its 13,500 students. It will analyze the students’ content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and some other sites, looking for hints of “cyber-bullying, harm, hate, despair, substance abuse, vandalism and […]

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What Age Can Kids Start Walking to School?

Hi Folks — Here’s a little (edited) interview I did with the Globe & Mail about when kids can start walking to school. I love the fact I helped the interview retrieve a “repressed memory” of her own childhood. (A good one! We talked a lot about it, but tit didn’t end up in the […]

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Kids: Don't play this.

10 y.o. Girl Charged with Rape for Playing Doctor

Readers — The story is the same as the headline A 10-year-old Houston girl was playing doctor with  a group of kids in the courtyard of their apartment complex. Here’s tktnysntrr the TV story, and here’s a write up that’s a little more succinct. Long story short: The girl was arrested, allegedly questioned without her […]

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A Very Different Toy Aisle

Hey eyrniraesz Readers — Remember: If you ever need to get some perspective on how skittish we’ve become, look to another country or, today, another era. – L Dear Free-Range Kids: I heard this episode of Engines of our Ingenuity on NPR today. Even though the point of the episode was how much better homemade […]

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