Parents who let their boys, aged 7 and 9, play on their own for an hour at a family beach will be arraigned later this month on charges of reckless endangerment of a child. Charles Smith and Lindsay Pembleton of Niagara Falls were vacationing with their kids on Cape Cod. The boys had wanted to stay at the beach for a little longer on the afternoon of Aug. 23, rather than walking back to the nearby campground (which is, according to one commenter, accessible via a car-free path). The parents said okay, but told them they couldn’t go in the…
Author: lskenazy
A Halloween message signed by 13 college administrators asked Yale students to be sensitive about the costumes they chose, so as not to demean, alienate or “impact” any groups or individuals. But when the associate Master (faculty head) of one of the dorms on campus, early childhood educator Erika Christakis, wrote her own note to students suggesting that maybe we don’t want the authorities deciding what costume is or is not sensitive enough, you’d think she’d endorsed genocide. Students, hundreds of them, insisted they longer felt “safe.” They protested. They screamed. They demanded her ouster, even though in her letter,…
I spoke to an Early Educators Conference two weeks ago. Wish I’d had this video! What a great way to give kids the responsibility they crave: have them do actual tasks that actually contribute to the world they live in! – L \ .Here is the URL, if you need it! – L, .
The author of this post, Sandy Rozek, is communications director for Reform Sex Offender Laws, an organization that advocates for legislation based on facts and research, and for policies that support the successful rehabilitation and reintegration of law abiding, former sex offenders into society. An open letter to Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and DOCCS Commissioner Brian Fischer: A true Halloween horror happened in your state this year. A horrific auto pedestrian accident claimed the lives of three people, one of them a ten-year-old trick-or-treater. The others were family members who were with her. Additionally, three more pedestrians were injured, one,…
Writing in a note that, “I have no tolerance for any real, pretend, or imitated violence. The punishment is an out of school suspension,” the principal of Our Lady of Lourdes elementary school in Cincinnati, Joe Crachiolo, suspended a first grader for pretending to shoot another student with a pretend arrow in a pretend battle. What’s interesting is that the principal seems to have a mental problem: He cannot distinguish reality from fantasy. How odd that a man with that particular deficit would be expected to care for small children, who seem more mentally fit than he is. If they…
UPDATE! As phenomenal as the advice “Prudence” gives to the neighbor who might report two teens having sex is the final story on the Dear Prudence page, which I originally missed. Here it is. Prudence — Emily Yoffe — wrote it after advising a grown reader that playing doctor as a kid is not something to look back on in adulthood and re-cast as shameful or even a “sexual assault.” Q. Re: Playing Doctor: I would add this word of caution. Today these sorts of things are taken EXTREMELY seriously. Last year my family went through hell when my daughter…
I believe in the message that this “Day” is trying to send: Recognize, resist and report abuse. But… yikes: Dear Free-Range Kids: I sent my daughter to school yesterday wearing red. I wasn’t sure why, but my daughter told me it was an out-of-uniform day, so I helped her pick an outfit. I was sickened to learn that, in Australia, we have an annual “Day for Daniel”, and that the students had been asked to dress in red in order to celebrate/remember it. Daniel Morcombe, a 13yo boy, was abducted and murdered in 2003. I am not downplaying the nature…
One of the scariest things about our over-the-top sex offender laws is how easy it is for a teenager with a girlfriend, boyfriend or sophomoric sense of humor to get labeled a “sex offender,” with all the legal and social ramifications this engenders. That’s why I nominate the probation and parole officer profiled in Sunday’s Cedar Rapids (IA) Gazette, Michelle Reese, as educator of the year. She goes around to middle schools, teaching students about the Puritanical pitfalls ahead. As shadowed by reporter Erin Jordan, Reese starts out her lecture by showing students a 6-person lineup and asking them to…
This thoughtful note came in response to my post about the child-tracking devices being marketed for Halloween. These devices promise they will provide “peace of mind” to parents otherwise terrified because their kids (even teens) are out in the world, unsupervised. Dear Free-Range Kids: As the mother of two teenagers I can appreciate how it feels to lose your peace of mind. I never worried about them walking a half mile to the ice cream place when they were younger or any of the traditional stranger-danger that gets discussed here, but now there are times that I worry when they…
From poison candy to prowling predators, we keep confusing Halloween’s “spookiness” with actual dangers to our kids. Having scared ourselves to death, we then insist on making the the day ever more supervised. How far overboard can we go? Here’s a wonderful piece by Anat Rubin at The Marshall Project, titled, “This is What Happens to Registered Sex Offenders on Halloween”: Before the sun sets on Halloween, Allen O’Shea will make his way to the local courthouse in Gaston County, North Carolina, where he will remain for several hours under the watchful eye of law enforcement until trick-or-treating has ended.…