Oh how I love this essay on child surveillance by Elizabeth Leigh Hunter. As she notes: The Alpha Generation is the most surveilled group of people on the planet. That merits more than a “Well, I barely ever look at it” shrug, which is how most people think about tracking apps and monitors. Elizabeth is a Seattle-based writer at Seattle’s Child Magazine and mom of two. For the last few years she has worked tirelessly to help people understand not only the NEED for childhood independence, but the JOY of it. She founded a Let Grow Play Club at her children’s school and is writing…
Author: lskenazy
We keep gently reminding (okay, sometimes hectoring) parents to step back to allow kids to step up. But what if a kid doesn’t WANT to step up…or even get off the couch? Here’s a note from a reader: Advice Needed! Dear Let Grow: My son loves his independence. His older sister, not so much. In Grade 4, she still holds my hand while walking to the school bus and is very upset that I have determined that they will walk the last two blocks on their own. Daily, she begs me to walk all the way. I know that she…
You may have heard me talk (endlessly) about how much kids need some time on their own. And how parents – depending on their neighborhood, the age of their kids, yada yada yada – should try to steel themselves and let their kids walk to school, play outside, run an errand, also yada yada yada. But it is not only anxiety that’s making this hard for parents. There are other forces working against them: The car-centric design of many modern suburbs, for one (explained well here). And now, an increasing unwillingness to tolerate unaccompanied tweens and teens in malls and other…
If you’re over 35, you probably remember playing outside till the streetlights came on. But today, a lot of parents worry that if they let their kids play the old-fashioned way – spontaneously, unsupervised, with whoever’s available in the neighborhood — their children will be bullied by kids older than them. Here are some ways for you to help them (and you!) put those fears in perspective: 1. Mixed-age play reduces bullying Bullying is actually less common when kids play in mixed-age groups. Older kids often (imperfectly, of course) step into the caregiver role. It’s actually how they start to…
What happens when you get a bunch of kids together and set them free to have fun? Death! Examining death, that is – a dead rodent. That’s what I heard from Beshalie Donaldson. She came to my attention when she commented on a Facebook post by another mom, Sara P, who’d started a Let Grow Play Club at her park. Here’s Sara’s Club: Beshalie commented: Wonderful! I started one in our local park after school on Fridays. This week the highlight was when the kids found a dead mole! So nice to see them playing freely in the woods, the…
A mom and dad who let their kids, 7 and 10, walk to the grocery in a city outside of Charlotte, NC, are grieving today because the 7-year-old ran into the street and was killed by a car. If you had to decide on a punishment for the parents, would you: A – Arrest them for manslaughter, set bail at $1.5 million, and forbid them from attending their son’s funeral? B – Decide they’ve been punished enough? The authorities in Gastonia, NC, chose option A. Jessica Ivey and Samuele Jenkins are facing felony charges of involuntary manslaughter and child neglect,…
The worry that our kids will die the second they step outside feels innate, but it has been cultivated by a society peddling fear. One prime example? The new ad for the Life360 tracking app. (Video at bottom of post. Screengrab above.) It features a mom singing a Disney-sweet song to her daughter who looks to be high school age: You are my whole wide world My heart, my joy, my baby girl You’ll never know how much I love you! When you’re gone I just think of you… Dying. The girl reacts the way you probably just did: “WHAT???”…
Here’s a little note from Helen, a “helicopter mom” who’s changing. As can you! And if you do, please drop us a line: Hi there! Just read your book Free Range Kids. I was led to it by reading Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation. And I was led to Haidt by watching Adolescence and also from getting involved in a local Smartphone Free Childhood group. So, I’ve been educating myself. And I realized I was a helicopter parent and it’s time to let go. Since reading your book I have: – sent my 6 and 8 year old kids to the post box (3 mins walk away) to…
Are daily photos from overnight camp a big issue? Probably not the biggest. But they are part of a culture where parents have increasingly come to expect the ability to watch their kids at all times, even from afar — or at least have been trained to expect this by organizations eager to provide surveillance-as-a-service. Standing tall against this tide is Georgia Del Favero, Executive Director of Camp Birchwood in Laporte, Minnesota. At this overnight camp for girls 6 to 17, Georgia’s bucking the trend of uploading daily photos for parents. Instead, she sends out photos once a week. This…
Would you leave your sleeping child in a hotel room with a baby monitor and go eat at a nearby restaurant? That’s the question posed by Stephanie Murray in this wide-ranging Slate piece. Murray was inspired by two things: 1 — The viral mob attacking parenting influencers Matt and Abby Howard for leaving their babies in their cruise ship cabin with FaceTime on, while they ate in the dining room. 2 – The fact that Murray and her husband do the same thing on vacations: Take the baby monitor with them and head out to a nearby dinner. Why is…