Let’s find out for real (more or less) what is going on with Halloween these days. Over on the Free-Range dbsbrhdybt Kids Facebook page, we’ve got a poll running: What age did you let your children start trick or treating on their own, without you or another adult, or even older siblings. While I’d love […]
Archive | Other Places Other Eras
Is This a Dream?
Childhood in The Netherlands, NOW, as observed and written up by Kate ssrfsbaddh Darnton in The Boston Globe: The Dutch loosen up early. My husband and I were thrilled when we arrived in Amsterdam to find that many playgrounds have cafes. On sunny afternoons, parents meet after work to sip Aperol spritzes while their kids […]
The Lonely Refrigerator
Just a thought about a cultural artifact: Dear bsyahsfheh Free-Range Kids: As I walked my dog this evening, I saw that my neighbors had placed an old refrigerator on their lawn with a “free” sign attached to it. At first I thought, “Those doors need to be removed!”  or “Those doors need to be chained […]
Free-Range Parenting was NORMAL as Recently as E.T.
Remember, folks, what SEEMS like just a normal amount of supervision now — that is, constant — was not syhabrfdzn normal until very recently, as this clip from E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, reminds us. Elliott, a “boy of 9 or 10,” stays home from school alone for a day. And his sister Gertie, 5, stays home […]
Peter Gray: Instead of Saying So Much SCHOOL is Abnormal, We Say Squirming STUDENTS are Abnormal
Here is an ekizkdkbbe interview with my friend and hero, Dr. Peter Gray, author of the mind-opening book, Free to Learn. He is interviewed by another friend and hero of mine, Nick Gillespie, the editor in chief of Reason.com and Reason TV, which produced this piece. . Video edited by Mark McDaniel. Cameras by Todd […]
“Children, Get Your Poison Barley and Kill the Squirrels!”
Precisely 99 years ago, California was battling a bushy-tailed terror: squirrels. They were destroying too many crops. To fight the furry fiends, reports Atlas ztzhrkkftk Obscura, the government enlisted a platoon of pint-size perps: This children’s crusade was part of Squirrel Week, a seven-day frenzy in which California tried to kill off its ground squirrels. […]
Can a 4-Year-Old Walk to School? Or Walk 5 Miles in the Snow, In the Dark, in Siberian Winter, Lighting Fires When Necessary, to Fetch Help for Her Grandfather?
Since you might have missed your latest copy of The Siberian Times, here’s a ansffkrbzi story for you, perfect for a blizzard: Little Saglana Salchak has spoken for the first time about her sad 6 hour trek through treacherous snow drifts with wolves around to get to a neighbour’s home from her grandparents’ remote farmstead. […]
How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations
This Daily Mail piece by David Derbyshire is so profound it has been cited over and over: How sryetfsfri Children Lost the Right to Roam in Four Generations: an interview with four generations of the same family about how far they were allowed to wander as kids. It comes from Britain but will sound familiar […]
“Why It May Be Impossible to Raise a Free-Range Kid” — But It’s Not
This ykbsfikksr elegantly written essay is by a dad I’ve met, Michael Brendan Dougherty. He longs to raise his child Free-Range but believes it may be impossible in this day and age: The “free range kids” movement speaks exactly to what I want for my children: a childhood that teaches independence and self-reliance, a childhood […]
I Went Back to My Hometown and Saw Only Two Kids Outside the Whole Weekend
This izehifybtr site tries not to wallow in nostalgia. (TRIES!) But the fact that this email comes from a reader who returned to EXACTLY where he grew up and saw only two kids is not just nostalgia, it’s anthropology: Dear Free-Range Kids:Â Two summers ago, I revisited my hometown for the first time in 6 years, […]