Google, “Hero, Age 5…” or 6, or 7, etc., etc., you will find a trove of stories so amazing you want to cheer and cry — and also scream: “SINCE WHEN DID WE DECIDE NO ONE UNDER AGE 9 CAN DO ANYTHING SAFELY ON THEIR OWN?” Kids’ brains, souls, smarts, bravery — all of that […]
This video is so inspirational! It doesn’t blame parents who moved to the ‘burbs. It suggests that getting kids back to bike-riding could be key to making them happier — and the whole suburb as well. Take a look! And more of my thoughts can be found at Let Grow by clicking here.
Wha…? Well, let me hasten to add that I’m talking about the folks running insurance companies in GERMANY. There, they have found that kids growing up with little chance to learn how to assess risk (because, in part, the playgrounds are so safe and boring) end up accidentally hurting themselves more often as adults. That […]
A reader sent in this list of her town’s trick-or-treat suggestions. None are egregious — but the length of this list is. COME ON. Somehow kids trick or treated for decades, if not millennia, without advice to plan the route in advance, make sure to always take along an adult, don’t trample the flowerbeds, carry […]
At a lecture on religion I attended long ago, the scholar explained that age-old religious symbols stay the same, it’s just their meaning that changes. The torches in a pagan Solstice celebration turn into the candles on the branches of the Hanukah menorah, turn into the bright lights blinking on a Christmas tree. Similarly, the […]
If you’re a single mom, you most likely have faced some time when you needed to have your kids handle something without you — get home from school, run an errand, stay home alone for a bit. If YOU know they’re ready, then…they are! That’s what the Reasonable Childhood Independence bills say, too. At this […]
…it made such a huge and exciting difference, the pilot project was expanded to the entire 2500-kid program. Now all practices at Steel Sports begin with 10-20 minutes of the kids just playing, making up new moves, and even goofy new games with new rules. “What we’re seeing is very often the kids run to […]
A high school student wrote a note to his 7th grade teacher who had made him do something he is now extremely grateful for. She made him get out of his comfort zone, again and again — 20 times — by doing The Let Grow Project. That is, 20 times in a single year she […]
It is really hard to figure out when to trust our kids to be on their own, thanks to several issues swirling around: 1 – The fear industry that turns everything into a worst case scenario: “What if your son stays home alone and there’s a fire?” 2 – The shame industry: “I walked your […]
If you want to get straight to the story over at Let Grow, click here. It comes to us from Phyllis Fagell, author of “Middle School Matters,” and it’s about her son who, a few years ago, found himself in a very confusing place (literally, figuratively) in China. The fact that he had to figure […]
