As more states start to pass what we used to call “Free-Range Parenting” laws (and now call “Reasonable Childhood Independence” laws), some lawmakers are willing to go along, or even sponsor such legislation — with a caveat. They want the laws to include an age limit, like, “A child of 9 or above can ride […]
“When kids are trusted with free time to figure things out on their own, they start working on their very first job: making something happen,” North Dakota State Business Prof. Clay Routledge and I write in a USA Today column: But what happens when they don’t? What happens when, from birth through post-college ‘adulting’ classes, […]
Izzy Kalman is a long-time school psychologist with iconoclastic ideas about how to help kids deal with bullying. Often, he says, kids can actually deflect the meanness by using what I would call psychological jujitsu. For instance, Kalman suggests that when someone says, “Hey Fatso!”, the insulted child can respond, “I wish I was skinny […]
It’s been 12 years since Free-Range Kids was published. In honor of the new edition, which just came out, I look at how childhood has changed, for the worse but also the better, in the years since it came out. What did I find? Check out my piece at Let Grow, by clicking here. But […]
The updated and expanded second edition of Free-Range Kids: How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow will be released on Wednesday with all-new insights for parents and educators, including new chapters on anxiety, technology, free play, and how what kids do just for fun can often point them (sometimes unconsciously!) toward their careers. Author […]
A small, totally unscientific poll I ran on Twitter found that, of about 350 parents, 55% said that at some point they had WANTED their kids to do something independently, but decided against it, for fear of legal repercussions. You know, the authorities are supposed to protect us, so we need not live in fear. […]
Metaphors are the topic at Let Grow today. I just learned that the trees planted in Biosphere 2, the kinda kooky human snowglobe in Arizona, grew at an extremely fast rate. And then they died. Why? Life was just a little too sheltered — literally. Click here for the strange details of what trees (and kids) […]
A dad wrote to Let Grow to vent: He’d been eating at the Costco food court with his 4-year-old daughter when he got up to go get ketchup and napkins. A concerned bystander tapped him on the back to chide him for this — he said it was an irresponsible “no-no.” In addition to the […]
Over at Let Grow we have a precious video: Kids actually PLAYING together, at school, outside, during COVID. It’s the work of Kevin Stinehart, Pickens County, SC, Teacher of the Year last year, who believes in safety AND the power of play. The health protocols inside the school were strict: Distancing, masks, cleaning, etc. But […]
On Saturday, Texas became the third state in America to enshrine the right of kids to a Free-Range Childhood. It follows Oklahoma and Utah in enacting a “Reasonable Childhood Independence” bill. When the Texas law goes into effect, fully one tenth of American citizens will enjoy new freedom under laws that Free-Range Kids and Let […]
