UPDATE: *********Readers, one of you asked us to start a list of parks that still have merry-go-rounds. Does yours? If so, please tell us where it is!********* Readers, did you grow up with a merry-go-round at the park? And now? Interestingly, I couldn’t find any laws that state merry-go-rounds must go, only reams of regulations […]
Archive | 2013
Wanda Holland Greene’s Thoughts on Free-Range Kids
Readers: A few weeks ago I spoke at The Hamlin School in San Francisco. It’s an all-girl school, housed in re-purposed mansion and headed by the dynamic Wanda Holland Greene. She and I were so on the same page after my talk (and I overheard her say she’d laughed so hard her “stomach hurt”) that […]
“Recess Is Not Developmentally Appropriate for Our Youngest Students”
Readers — Here is an actual letter from a school superintendent, sent in by a reader after she and her husband had asked why their kindergartener was getting  only getting one 20-minute recess per day. Writes the mom: I was told it was because of curriculum at first.  That seemed odd because we went from […]
Warning: Man Seen in Van! Parents, Please Tell Your Kids
From the heartland — Michigan’s Newaygo Public Schools  — comes a warning that’s scary. But probably not the way it was intended to be: Dear Parent: This morning, near 95th & Clay Street, some students and an adult reported a suspicious vehicle near one of the bus stops. The vehicle is described as a white “rusty†[…]
Is There a Free-Range Way to Deal with REAL Recess Bullying?
Hi Folks! I appreciate this writer’s dilemma and asked Jill Vialet, the founder of Playworks , and author of the new book Recess Rules to respond! I love her organization and learned a bunch of almost uncannily fun games at a workshop they gave in NYC a few years back. (And I’m not much of […]
Do Helicoptered Kids Do Better? A Free-Ranged Young Woman Weighs In on
Hey Folks — I liked this comment on the post from the “Wonderin’ ” mom who looked around and felt perhaps the helicopter parents had done it “right,” and she’d been wrong to Free-Range. Dear Free-Range Kids:Â Long time reader of this blog, first time commenter. I just felt I had to respond to “Wonderin”‘s questions. […]
Parents: Please Show This to Your Principals and PTAs
What is so important to show our schools? This USA hdhtbabraf Today article that states, unequivocally, our schools are NOT GETTING LESS SAFE and so they don’t need new security measures (boldface mine): It’d be easy to conclude that school has never been a more dangerous place, but for the USA’s 55 million K-12 students […]
“The Helicoptered Kids are Pretty Darn Perfect, and My Free-Rangers Are Falling Behind”
Readers — Here’s a letter I just got from a fellow journalist I’ve met a few times, and like: Dear Lenore: I hate to say this but I think the helicopter mommies are right. Now that I am seeing kids in college who grew up this way, I have to admit they are pretty darn […]
The Ultimate “Child Protection†— State Forcibly Sedates Mom, Performs Cesarean, Takes Baby
Readers — This story from The Telegraph makes Kafka look like Louisa May Alcott. I don’t share it as a tale of, “Look what’s happening all the time!” because, thank God, it is unique. What it does illustrate is what happens when the government is allowed to make parenting decisions. Drastic ones. Always, of course, […]
Superman and a Boy Alone in New York City
From today’s New York Times’ obit about Al Plastino, who drew scores of Superman comic books from the 1940s through the 1960s, as well as the Superman and Batman newspaper comic strips: Alfred John Plastino was born on Dec. 15, 1921, in Manhattan and grew up in the Bronx. His mother died when he was […]