Oh ye of icy hearts, beware! This little girl in China is going viral not just because she is so sad and sweet, but also because she could put Socrates to shame! (Or at least get him to assign less homework.) Hers is a cry heard ’round the world. Let’s hope some schools and parents take heed! And note: I DO think the video is authentic, but the ending inspired just a soupcon of suspicion.
Author: lskenazy
This graph, from a suburban elementary school, represents what after-school club kids chose as their first choice. There were a bunch of options like chess, music, art — all of which I had my own kids enrolled in at some point in their childhoods. But as you can see from that big, green wedge on the left, the most popular option of all DOES NOT INVOLVE ADULTS TEACHING KIDS ANYTHING. The big green wedge represents the kids hoping to join The Let Grow Play Club. Instinctively, the kids know they want — NEED — time WITHOUT someone older and…
Chopping, hopping, shopping, sewing, mowing, going, GROWING! Check out the winners of this year’s Third Annual Let Grow Independence Challenge! It continues to surprise me just how much kids CAN do and how little we LET them do. This video shows how competent (and helpful, happy, proud ‘n’ persistent) kids can be. “When adults step back, kids step up!”
Folks, here are the descriptions of Let Grow’s two, FREE independence-fueling initiatives for schools. IF YOU ARE A TEACHER, ADMINISTRATOR, SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST, HOMESCHOOLER, or PARENT of a school-aged child, please consider downloading our implementation guides and getting started. The kid you save may be your own. At the bottom of this post you’ll find videos of these initiatives in the real world. — L The Let Grow Project: Students get the homework assignment: “Go home and do something you’ve never done on your own before. Walk the dog. Make a meal. Run an errand…” When the child succeeds, everyone is…
Great grandma Joanne Ward of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, read my piece about the fastest, cheapest child therapy — FREE PLAY. Then she emailed us this worksheet filled out by her pride and joy, Emma, a second grader. Emma is wiser than many an adult, when it comes to what kids NEED THE MOST. In case you have a hard time reading it, Emma is making the case for a longer recess. Why? Emma’s reasons include: “Less insie energy” = less antsy energy. “Lesss craze” = less crazy. “Betr focus” = I think you can figure it out! Concentrate!
Gever Tulley saw it before a lot of us: That anything “shaper than a golf ball” was getting labeled too dangerous for kids. And that kids were losing out because of this. Tulley’s 2008 TED Talk, “5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do” remains a personal touchstone. I just re-watched it and couldn’t help jotting down so many of the points he made. In under 10 minutes he nailed the problem now called “safetyism,” and the huge advantages we deny kids when we don’t let them interact with the not-perfectly-safe world. Tulley begins by confessing he doesn’t have…
In Part 2 of Let Grow’s “Practical Tips for Getting Your Kids Outside” series, one mom divulges the simplest, cheapest trick of all: Hands down, the best thing I have ever done to encourage outdoor play (other than modeling loving the outdoors) is to purchase a stack of 8-foot 2″x3″ pine boards. Lots and lots of them. I cut some into shorter lengths of 3 feet or 2 feet. My children use them like life-size Lincoln logs to build cabins and lean-to’s and obstacle courses. Every few days there is a new cabin in our yard, and visiting children always make a…
A mom in Ireland, Trish Frazer, was, it seems, a little fed up with the day-to-day pushing/prodding/cooking/plodding that is modern-day parenthood. So she proposed to her kids, ages 12, 9 and 4, that they switch places, a la Freaky Friday. (But without Lindsay Lohan.) Not only did the kids take her up on it for five whole days — during which no one starved — the family dynamics really changed. You can read Trish’s brief description of the experiment over at Let Grow by clicking here. Suffice to say, she learned how much kids really CAN do…when somebody else (guess…
A mom was put on an Arizona blacklist for letting her son, 7, play at park with his friend, age 5, for half an hour, while the mom bought a Thanksgiving turkey during COVID. She was hesitant to bring the kids into the store and they wanted to play outside. (I’m not naming the mom, to protect her privacy.) That was in 2020. I testified as an expert witness at the mom’s hearing this spring and just got the 60-page transcript of the 3-hour ordeal. Reading it, I realized her real crime was…being rational. By not fantasizing about the kids…
The word “Sittervising,” invented by by Busy Toddler blogger Susie Allison, is a new way to describe a once venerated practice: Sitting around while your kid plays. The fact that we needed a word to sort of sanitize this normal practice just shows what judgmental times we’re living in. If the phrase “Free-Range Parenting” allowed moms and dads to explain that they WANTED their kids to do more on their own — thought some independence was healthy and good — “Sittervising” allows parents to explain the same thing about their toddler-tending. They (the parents!) at they aren’t lazy or careless. They’re…