What happens when polio and smallpox aren’t taking their toll anymore? Well you just have to look a little harder to find an unspeakable menace stalking our kids. As so, reports this article from Science Daily: Heat safety issues in bounce houses can put children in danger, according to a new University of Georgia study. Expanding on the concept of microclimates like those in parked vehicles that cause serious injuries to children, the study investigated potential heat-related risks associated with bounce houses, which create a microclimate environment similar to automobiles but one that had not been previously examined. The new…
Author: lskenazy
Here’s a piece of mine ran on the newish site Heat Street. I wanted to share it with you too — with an update: Whenever I suggest that it should be up to the parents to decide if it makes sense to take a child out of the car while they run a brief errand, someone smugly reminds me of this or that tragic story of a child who died in a car. Almost always (I’d say always, but there may be an outlier), it is the story of a child forgotten there for hours, not simply waiting while mom…
“Parents, please go out of your minds with fear about an extremely remote danger we are exploiting to get your love and votes.” Ah, if only politicians were that plainspoken. Instead, we have a pileup of New York state senators and now the Governor himself, Andrew Cuomo, stumbling over themselves to create new legislation that will keep kids safe from…sex offenders playing Pokemon Go. Talk about bold leadership. The legislation proposed by the governor today would prevent sex offenders on parole from playing the game in which animated creatures appear on your phone screen you walk around. The legislation proposed…
. Rosalind Wiseman describes herself as “some combination of educator, parenting expert, social activist, bourbon drinker, mother of two teen boys.” But chances are you have heard of her as the author of “Queen Bees and Wannabes,” the book that was the basis for the (wonderful!) movie Mean Girls. Wiseman also wrote a boy-book companion: “Masterminds & Wingmen.” . Now a new editon of her Queen Bees book just came out last week, including chapters on social media and the broader world of tech. Here’s an excerpt: Should I Spy? by Rosalind Wiseman “Does a parent ever have the right…
ThisFox 59 WXIN ad is so classic it belongs in the Fearmongering Hall of Fame…or maybe on The Simpsons. I so wish I could find the embed code, but I can’t. (Can anyone? Please send!) In any event, here’s the transcript. Imagine dirge like music and out-of-focus pictures of kids playing (which happens to be my other bugaboo. As if showing the faces of frolicking kids automatically puts them in grave danger!): SCARY ANNOUNCER: There’s a safety concern lurking in your neighborhood playground. CONCERNED MOM: Alarms definitely went off. SCARY ANNOUNCER: And your child could fall victim when you least…
Dutifully documenting the end of human trust and common sense, I give you this: Dear Free-Range Kids: I love my Church, but I was really turned off by this new policy: “To date, we have allowed students to check themselves out of the Tweenz class rather than requiring a parent to pick them up.  However, going forward, for the safety and security of our children, we will be requiring you to pick up your child with your parent sticker that matches the unique alpha-numeric code on your child’s sticker.  Children will not be permitted to leave the Tweenz class without…
A reader in the U.K, Hazel, sends us this strange story of a 14-year-old girl who went to retrieve her backpack, which a friend had hung on the school fence as some sort of minor joke. But then, reports The Mirror: She used a tree stump to reach the strap of her bag but her friendship ring got snagged on the fence and tore her finger apart… Ugh. The ambulance came but it was too late to save the finger. (Yes, her middle one.) But what prompted Hazel to send the story was that the girl’s mom, Zoe, is now…
Readers, here’s my piece on sex offender laws that’s in today’s New York Post. If you have sons, it might give you pause. Bogus ‘sex offender’ labels are ruining lives by Lenore Skenazy What’s the most common age of sex-offenders? It’s not a trick question, but unless you follow this stuff closely you’ll almost certainly answer wrong. In fact, most people are shocked to learn that the most common age of people charged with a sex offense isn’t a creepy 39, or 51. It’s 14. That’s right. As the US Bureau of Justice reports: “The single age with the greatest…
When I spoke at the Velo-City Conference in Austria a few years back, the speaker before me declared that helmet laws are so cumbersome and they make biking seem so scary that instead of keeping kids safe, they’re simply keeping kids from biking. Well that shocked me. I’ve always loved helmets and insisted upon them for my kids…who, come to think of it, are not avid bikers. Now along comes this brilliant piece by Sue Knaup, Executive Director of One Street, an international bicycle advocacy organization. Like the Velo-City speaker, she, too has found that “overzealous bike helmet promotions are…
This just in, from news.com.au: An explanation for the clapping ban we were discussing today on the post before this one. Turns out — A SYDNEY primary school imposed a clapping ban on its students in favour of “silent cheers” because one of its teachers wears hearing aids and found the noise of applause too loud, the NSW Government has said. The admission by Education Minister Adrian Piccoli came after news.com.au’s storyabout Elanora Heights Public School’s ban on clapping announced in a school newsletter. The latest edition of the northern beaches school’s newsletter advised parents that “silent cheering”, “pulling excited…