This charming, cheering video — and plea for outdoor adventures for kids — comes from Alastair Humphreys, who describes himself this way: I’m a British Adventurer and author. I spent years tackling big adventures such as cycling 46,000 miles round the world, rowing across the Atlantic Ocean, or walking across India. But a few years ago I took to a very different path. I realised that many people loved the idea of adventure, but very few felt able to live as adventurously as they would like. There are many individual reasons for this, but the general issue was a lack…
Author: lskenazy
Dan Shuchman, chairman of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), the group that fights for free speech on campus, has written this Wall Street Journal review of a book by one of my favorite thinkers, Frank Furedi. Furedi wrote “Paranoid Parenting” back in 2002, which was the first book I read about this new phenomenon of “helicoptering.” Now he is at the vanguard again, and I think there’s a direct link from that book to this one. “What’s Happened to the University?” is about hypersensitivity on campus and the idea that if you do or say anything that anyone…
Who says we’re treating our kids like snowflakes? Oh wait. Dear Free-Range Kids: You’re the only one I can complain to (I’ve tried bringing this up at the school, but have been told it’s for student safety)! It has been raining on and off today, no thunder or lightning. We just got an email outlining the procedures to dismiss the nearly 900 kids from my son’s elementary school. Lenore here. The boldface is mine: Good Afternoon Parents, . Our weather has been unpredictable today. We are anticipating that we might have to alter our afternoon dismissal due to the…
Kids age 6 are old enough to walk themselves to school, Spanish officials are telling parents. A seven-community experiment begun there in 2010 has been hailed as a success by researchers who say that allowing first graders to walk without adult supervision “builds their self-confidence.” According to this piece in The Washington Post by Rick Noack, the experiment was created to counter the pan-European decline in kids getting themselves to school: Surveys show that the share of German 6-year-olds who walk to school alone declined to 17 percent in 2000 from 91 percent in 1970. Figures from the United Kingdom…
If you’re a kid in Beaverton, Oregon — the actual Niketown — you may wonder why your mom never says, “Go to the library.” Maybe it’s because mom has something else to do today other than stare at you. Here is the Beaverton Library’s Rule #2: …[T]he adult/caregiver must supervise the child during the entire library visit by keeping them within their line of sight. If a child under 10 years of age is unattended and an adult/responsible caregiver cannot be located within 5 minutes, library staff will call the Beaverton Police Department. I guess if kids want to read,…
The song “Calling All Angels,” a hit from the group Train, has been watched on YouTube 16.7 million times, so far. It’s a moody, rain-falling, leaf-blowing song, but the bleakest part goes like this: And I’m calling all angels I’m calling all you angels When children have to play inside so they don’t disappear If you watch the video, those lines are at 2:16. Note how the child outside…disappears! Does Train really believe that children who step outside DO disappear? I realize the song is not meant to be instructional, or even factual, but it’s sort of like singing, “When…
In this sweeping article about the importance of free, non-adult-lead play — the kind of playing most of us remember doing, like, all the time as kids — psychologist Peter Gray does not mince words. The Boston College psychology professor and author of Free to Learn (as well as the author of one of the most popular psychology textbooks used at Harvard and elsewhere) writes: The famous developmental psychologist Jean Piaget (1932) noted long ago that children develop a more sophisticated and useful understanding of rules when they play with other children than when they play with adults.With adults, they…
“To avoid tragedy” the Gloucester Township, NJ, police department is warning parents: Do not let your kids eat unwrapped candy! Do not let your kids eat unwrapped candy! Do not let your kids eat unwrapped candy! Really — look at the “safety tips” below. It’s diagnosable OCPCD: Obsessive-Compulsive Poison Candy Disorder. And by the way, Gloucester Townshipians, you might want to remind the cops that, um, no child has ever been poisoned by a stranger’s candy on Halloween. So kids can “avoid tragedy” AND eat unwrapped candy till they vomit (from too much candy. Not poison). This is from the…
Sometimes you gotta think outside the trick or treat bag. So kudos to the National Reform Sex Offenders Laws organization for tackling the persistent, unfounded myth that sex offenders lure trick or treaters to their doom on Halloween. To help America move beyond this zombie-like fear that refuses to die, the organization is challenging the media to find even ONE case of a registered sex offender preying on a trick or treating minor. Just one. Ever. This challenge is in the vein of Prof. Joel Best’s decades’ long hunt to find any child who had been poisoned by a stranger’s…
Reprinted by popular demand (popular in my apartment, anyway) comes this piece of mine about Halloween. Just as I believe that all sorts of new educational products, courses and mandates migrate from the world of special needs (what is Gymboree but early intervention?), new fears migrate from Halloween to the rest of the year: Fears of predators, poisoners, kids as pedestrians — and all the awfulness that can occur if a child eats a sugary snack. HALLOWEEN IS TOO SCARY If you want to see something really scary on Halloween, come to my home about 9 p.m. I’m letting my…