A recent front page article in the Wall Street Journal chronicles a problem that seems to be a sign of the times: Parents accompanying their kids on job interviews. And calling their kids’ bosses to demand better treatment. And showing up at their kids’ jobs to fight their battles. These stories can seem apocryphal, but The Journal’s Te-Ping Chen dug up some jaw-dropping examples. One Seattle restauranteur recalled a co-worker whose mom asked the manager to let her son have Sundays off to watch football. That idea got sacked. A Dollar Tree shopper told The Journal she was going into the store one day…
Author: lskenazy
Her parents had prepared her for ALMOST everything. When Tom D’s daughter, age 6, asked if she could walk to get a Gatorade all by herself, her parents said yes. Then they gave her some money, her mom’s phone so she could be tracked, her dad’s number for emergencies, and a hand-drawn map – even though the store was just a few blocks away. This was in a Detroit suburb. Dad Tom has asked his last name not be used, for fear of retribution from the cops. Because, yes, the cops were called. No sooner had the girl turned onto…
This certainly not the biggest problem facing America. But on a summer-jobs-for-young-people site (giving parents ideas to give to their kids) one suggestion was to have kids run a “Neighborhood Park Hour.” One hour, mind you. The site explained that kids can make a flyer “and get parents interested in paying for ‘Park Hour’.” So far, so good. Then it adds, regarding those paying parents: “This means they still bring their children to the park and stay there with them, but they get to sit on the sidelines and read, work, or do whatever else they’d like while your child…
In 1983, childhood was so different, it’s almost hard to fathom. As you’ll see in this giddy vintage video, kids were zooming around playing BIKE TAG without adult supervision (or helmets). Endless nostalgia, however, doesn’t help our cause. I share this with you to simply remind us of what our young are capable of: Bravery, camaraderie, some folly and some risk. All of which add up to…well, it looks a lot like happiness. The psychologists would probably say these kids are self-actualized and self-organized. I say they are the jolt we need to help us to loosen our own grip…
How I appreciate this story from Olivia Eaddy, a Pennsylvania mom I met when we did a parenting panel together. A few days later, she dropped me a note: Dear Lenore: True life moment. So yesterday, while gardening, my 6-year-old Aaron came out to help me. After a few minutes of helping he says, “Mom, I can climb that tree?” (It’s a smaller flowering tree out front. ) I said, “Show me!” Shocked by my response he said, “Mom — it’s this tree right here!” I said, “I know — now show me!” After a few more attempts to clarify…
My sister was watching Michael Smerconish on CNN a few weeks ago. He was interviewing an expert on how social media is wallopping kids’ mental health, and my sister, Hannah, was incensed on my behalf: “They didn’t even talk about overprotection, or kids being in adult-run activities all the time, or how it feels to be treated like a baby when you’re 8 or 10 or 12.” She told me to write to Smerconish and say, “Hey! You’re missing a big piece of the picture. Maybe the biggest! Consider the lack-of-independence angle!” So I did what she said. (She is…
On Monday, New York’s favorite radio host, WNYC’s Brian Lehrer, interviewed Let Grow Co-founder Peter Gray. Listen here and you will probably cheer every single word. Lehrer invited Gray on to discuss his piece in The Journal of Pediatrics: Decline in Independent Activity as a Cause of Decline in Children’s Mental Wellbeing. It describes how kids’ free time and free play have been declining since the 1970s, replaced by adult-supervised activities…and childhood anxiety. The understandable goal was to keep kids ever safer, by watching, assisting, and instructing them ever more. To which Lehrer asked a very basic question: Wouldn’t conventional wisdom suggest that…
“How many of you have closed your email and then immediately reopened it because you might have just gotten an email?” Laughter rippled through the audience members — including me — as we listened to Emily Cherkin give a talk at The Brearley School in Manhattan about tech and kids and us: parents, students, educators, email addicts. Cherkin, aka The Screentime Consultant, was a seventh-grade teacher in Seattle from 2003 to 2013. In 2003 almost none of her students had phones. By 2013, 95% did. She’s spent the 10 years since leaving the classroom studying what happens to kids and families…
The Let Grow Project is so simple it’s almost laughable. Almost. But its impact is so profound, it changes the lives of most people who try it. Which people? Students. Parents, Teachers. Counselors. Even the producer of the 7-minute film below, Justin Toops. It features kids doing remarkable — and not remarkable — things, once set a bit free. And if you feel like seeing me after all these years, I’m in it too, busy promoting ye olde Project! The Let Grow Project is actually a homework assignment: Go home and do something new, on your own, without your parents. That straightforward directive ignites…
Try not to start shaking. May 1-7 is SCREEN-FREE WEEK! I caught up with Jen Kane, Screen-Free week’s coordinator. Jen spent the first half of her career in tech, and still sees its promise, not just its peril: Our interview has been edited for length and clarity. I Screen, You Screen, We All Screen. LS: When did Screen-Free Week begin? JK: It’s been around since it was “Turn off your TV.” LS: “No Ed Sullivan this week, kids!” JK: But now, coming out of the pandemic, some people say, “Oh, I can’t go screen free!” LS: I may be one of…