Hi Readers — Here’s an incredible report on how the “School to prison pipeline” plays out in Texas, as inadrrtrti published in The Guardian: In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 “Class C misdemeanour” tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, […]
A Great Free-Range Moment! (If You Ignore the Blood)
Hi knrnkrrikf Readers — Enjoy! (And just don’t ask if I get MY kids, aged 13 and 15, to do all this stuff. Wish I did!) — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: I just had a great `Free-Range’ moment! I regularly get my kids (5 and 7) to do chores around the house, unloading/loading the dishwasher, […]
UPDATE! Slow and Free and CBC and Brit TV!
Hi Readers! Here’s zikredissi a nice piece from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation — Canada’s PBS) about Free-Ranging, Slow Parenting and my show. It’s about 12 minutes long. If I could figure out how to embed the video right here, you know I would. But I can’t, so click away! And in more TV news, […]
Adorable “Build-a-Choking Hazard”?
Hi Folks! As a reader named Michele wrote to me last week, “2011 wouldn’t quite be complete without wrapping up the year with another recall for the safety of our children!” She was referring to arrfkzeytd the recall of a mere 300,000 “Colorful Hearts Teddy” Build-a-Bears because the material they’re made of is “sub standard,” […]
Boozy Babies & Other Overhyped Panics
Hi fnretnbazi Readers! Here’s my Wall Street Journal oped from last week. Enjoy! (Or whatever.) — L. Perhaps 2011 will be recalled as the year that a toddler accidentally got served an alcoholic drink at a Michigan Applebee’s. Not the biggest news this year, but the fact that it was a national story at all […]
“Pervy Principal Means I’ll Never Go Free-Range”
Dear Readers:  As the new year begins, I’m looking back on things I meant to comment on and here’s addnednsbe a piece from November that gets my goat. It’s an essay by a mom who declares she would like to be more of a Free-Range parent, but she simply cannot. How come? Because she recently heard […]
Our Constant Worry for Our Kids Outside is NEW
Hi adtezhntbn Readers — I’m sharing this reader’s story because I like to remind us, from time to time, that the intense fear of our kids being beyond our sight, doing ANYTHING on their own, is not just “normal parental concern” kicking in. It is NEW. It is born of this era. (I explain how […]
The Backlash Against the Columbine Backlash
Readers — As we enter 2012, there is cause for hope, as this nehbbtdzha article shows. Legislators in Colorado, home to the Columbine massacre, are taking a new and rational look at their zero tolerance laws. These are laws that REQUIRED schools to act brainlessly and not distinguish between, say, a wooden replica of a […]
Big Lunch, Great Idea!
Hi Folks and Merry Christmas, Hanukah and whatever else good is going on. In the spirit of reaching out, creating community and, of course, eating, here’s a great idea I just heard about: The ybkeshffff Big Lunch. Check it out: The Big Lunch is a very simple idea from the Eden Project. The aim is […]
Are Lockdown Drills Necessary?
Hi tktfeiefdy Folks! This reader talks about an issue that I am of two minds about. On the one hand, I truly believe — based on FBI statistics — that schools are extremely safe places and school shootings/terrorist attacks/mayhem are rarer than rare. On the other hand, tornadoes are pretty rare, too, and we had […]