Hi Readers — One of you just sent in the link to this amazing site: Streetplay.com, rhndberyat where you can find the basic rules for a ton of old-fashioned games, from jacks to marbles to the one that I always heard about but never knew what it was: Ringoleavio, which sounds like Hide & Go […]
Archive | Other Places Other Eras
Up With Boredom!
Hi bakyyidhti Readers! The other day I wrote a column on ParentDish called, “Just Chute Me.” I was saying — I thought — that we really do not have to play with our kids. We have to love and nurture them, yes, but unless we are really psyched for a game of CandyLand or make-believe, […]
Condo Won’t Let Kids Play Outside
Hi Folks — Sometimes the inbox brings a little symmetry. Here’s nyrafskyra a story one of you sent in about a condo association that can’t stand kids running around “from yard to yard” making “unacceptable noise.” Perhaps children should be taught to use their “indoor voices” outdoors. But then here’s a story, also just in, about how […]
Twain on Twains (Well, Really, Twain on the Risk of Train Accidents. Couldn’t Resist.)
Hi Readers — Look at this lovely snhakhhbkn little snippet of Mark Twain cogitatin’ on risk, and how we tend to blow it up all out of proportion. Apparently we managed to scare ourselves to death back in 1871, too. This excerpt appears on a blog I hear mentioned all the time, Schneier on Security, […]
Dear Mrs. Obama: We Can’t Fight Obesity Without Going Free-Range
Hi Readers: Here’s an almost perfect opinion ntredykari piece by Dan Haley in Sunday’s Denver Post about how Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” program is a great idea — get kids outside, exercising more — but it’ll never work. At least, not until we start a Free-Range Revolution (not that he calls it that): …first we need […]
“Dangerism” — How A Society Decides What’s Dangerous
Hi Readers! Many of you are already familiar with Gever Tulley, the guy who runs the Tinkering School and did the famous TED speech on the “5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do.” (Recently expanded into a book, “Fifty Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do.”) Now he’s come up with a […]
The Bicycle/Three Sleeping Children Thief
Hi Readers! How the Danes must be puzzled by our abduction obsession. Here’s hzatbiazet what happened when a thief  in Copenhagen found a cargo bike outside a store and stole it — not realizing three kids were sleeping inside the big container-thing attached to the front.  Thanks to all of you who sent in this […]
One (Frustrating, Makes Me Want to Yank My Hair Out) Conversation At A Time
Hi rzeisnredt Readers — Here’s a letter I got yesterday. It hit me in the gut because this woman just went through the same process I think a lot of us go through daily: Trying to deal, calmly, with the knee-jerk response of, “That’s too dangerous!” to any suggestion that kids can do anything on […]
Not Every Kid Gets Driven to the Bus Stop in an SUV
Hi Readers — Sometimes feels as if we’ve lost a little perspective on what constitutes danger, especially when it comes to whether it’s safe for our kids to walk a couple blocks to school. This video should restore it. And then some. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEhPlZwqhpE]
What’s Life Like Without the Constant Fear of Predators? Ask Oprah!
Oprah visits  “the happiest people in the world” and finds out. Guess where their kids nap? (First two minutes of 8 minute vid.) [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QS8dROjKNY&feature=relatedwo] And meantime: HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Give thanks we live in a time when kids are safer than ever before…even if it’s hard to convince anyone of this fact. — Lenore