Hi! I’m Lenore, the gal who let her 9-year-old ride the subway alone, wrote a column about it, got slammed in the media and labeled “America’s Worst Mom.” I started this blog to explain that I LOVE safety — helmets, seatbelts, mouthguards — but don’t believe kids need a security detail every time they leave […]
Daniel Kish is known as “Batman” because he uses clicking sounds to echo-locate the way bats do. He goes around the world teaching blind kids this cool technique, but so much more, all to help them become more self-directed. He doesn’t say “self-sufficient” because, in a way, that’s not really fair. If you’re deaf, having […]
Those are the chipper words of a press release I got for some diaper-changing thingamabob. Those are also the words today’s parents are expected to live by: Words that paint the most mundane of activities as a disaster of epic proportions (possibly — unless you do or buy something RIGHT THIS SECOND!). As you probably […]
To start off the New Year right, here’s a happy, simple tale of a mom, a spunky 6-year-old, and a life — two lives! — enhanced by the power of trust. In this case, that involved trusting a girl to do something on her own for the first time — a challenge I’d urge us […]
FIRST, A PLEA: IF YOU LOVED YOUR OWN “FREE-RANGE” CHILDHOOD AND WANT THAT FREEDOM GIVEN TO THE NEXT GENERATION, PLEASE DONATE TO LET GROW BY CLICKING HERE! And now: Head over to Let Grow to read the whole list of parenting moments — good and awful. But let me just state my favorite one here, […]
As you will read over at Let Grow today, kids who are “just playing” are learning a ton. They even learn a lot from the part that drives you crazy — the bickering and the “That’s not fair!”s. Learning to be jerks? No — they’re learning to get along, believe it or not. This involves […]
Growing up I always made my parents presents for the holidays — great things like egg carton candy dishes, and egg carton jewelry boxes, and sometimes even things NOT made out of egg cartons. Like mugs made from half-and-half cartons. No, really — I was better than that. Wish I’d saved some of these masterpieces. […]
“Daddy, help.” Those were the words Rebecca Gomez’s toddler kept repeating when he couldn’t get the battery into his Buzz Lightyear. But daddy was distracted helping his other two kids — and this turned out to be a small blessing. Read the tiny, happy story over at Let Grow by clicking here!
I realize that headline wouldn’t have made sense in any generation till now. Of COURSE 9-year-olds roamed, and of COURSE they didn’t have phones. The fact that this is, indeed, Free-Range headline material shows just how normalized constant adult supervision — in person and via electronics — has become. So read this Alaska mom’s essay […]
Fourth grade teacher Kevin Stinehart, the 2020 teacher of the year in his South Carolina District, stumbled onto a surprising new way to fight bullying. As he explains in eSchoolNews: “A few years ago I had a student who walked around with a chip on his shoulder. He never smiled, never laughed, and always seemed angry. He […]
Let your tots do what the Japanese kids do on the TV show “My First Errand,” and I’ll be visiting you at Sing Sing. Take a look at the video I posted at Let Grow. The kids look like they’re about 5 and 3, and off they go — to several different stores — to […]
