When you feel ready to let your kid use a sharp knife, or bike around the neighborhood, or go on a stone-cold, old-fashioned, Nerf and Sprite-fueled playdate, you might want to have the wind at your back — that is, some other parents cheering you on, or helping you let go, or simply eager to […]
Harriet the Spy. Encyclopedia Brown. Meg and brother Charles Wallace, Ramona, Beezus, Pippi, and that My Side of the Mountain Kid (what WAS his name?). They all shared something other than spunk. Freedom. Freedom of movement was a given in mid-century children’s literature. Of course the kids starring in books did more than most of […]
Gym teachers don’t have to have kids doing specific sports or skills all the time. When P.E. teacher David Benay decided to devote some class time to free play, outside, he was amazed by how active his students were, and how many lessons — physical and social — they were getting. When a tiny game […]
“I think this school is making a mistake,” tweeted Jonathan Haidt, co-author of “The Coddling of the American Mind.” What school? The Hackney New School in London that I write about over at Let Grow. (Click here to read.) “A school without bullying sounds like a utopia, but it is achievable,” Hackney’s head of school […]
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 […]
It’s not just that Oklahoma State Rep. Chad Caldwell (R) and Rep. Jacob Rosecrants (D) both believe parents shouldn’t be arrested or investigated for letting their kids have some “reasonable independence.” It’s that they both remember their OWN reasonable independence — and are grateful for what that freedom made them into. Read about the way […]
A 10-year-old boy picked up from his Chicago public school seven minutes late triggered a call from the school to the Department of Child and Family Services. Fortunately, the school community has rallied around the mom and son, writing a letter to the CEO of the Chicago Public School system saying that, “We do not […]
A dad takes his daughter for a walk in the rain and a passing van thinks he is tormenting her. Called to the scene of the “crime,” the cops back the dad — but the folks in the van don’t take, “Everything’s fine” for an answer. The dad’s story and our take on it are […]
How does it feel? Read my thoughts (as it were!) over at Let Grow. Click here! And think about the fact that when China makes its students wear uniforms that track what time they arrive at school, whether they are snoozing in class, and where they go when they go home, we understandably feel this […]
…their dad, Nevada physician Daniel Hansen, supports the Reasonable Childhood Independence bill being introduced in his state today. As he wrote to his legislators: To be clear, I personally deal with horrible cases of neglect and abuse and do not want support of this bill to be construed as any form of leniency for such […]
