There are two ways to approach a risk: Try to spend your whole life avoiding it, or learn how to deal with it. In Germany, when it comes to kids, the authorities seem to be voting for Option B. Here’s a letter from a mom over there: Dear Free-Range Kids: Finally took a photo of a poster I wanted to send you: The picture shows parents wheeling their kids to school in a wheelbarrow on a bed of feathers. The local traffic authorities realized there was an increase in traffic accidents involving kids caused by their inexperience in being near…
Author: lskenazy
“They threw their child against the wall!” That’s what the anonymous caller told Kentucky’s Child Protective Services about Corey Chaney, 25, and April Rogers, 23, the sixth time she called. How horrifying! But not the way you think. While the parents had been reported five times in about as many months for crimes that included dangling their baby over a balcony, they were cleared each time. What was going on? A reign of terror using the state as torturers. It’s surprisingly easy to do. A rogue social worker who lived downstairs from Chaney and Rogers in Elizabethtown, KY, knew exactly…
. This is the article everyone’s talking about: The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, on the cover of this month’s Atlantic. It discusses the idea taking root on college campuses that students cannot be exposed to any ideas, words or phrases that discomfort them in any way, even if that wasn’t anyone’s intent. That’s why schools are embracing “trigger warnings” — warnings placed at the top of readings that might mention a topic that “triggers” a student’s flashback on some unpleasant episode in their lives. One Harvard Law Student went so far as to…
. In response to the other day’s post about a mom who let her child wait in the car while she ran an errand — and the guy who video-shamed her, and his Facebook friends who piled on — I got the note below. This is obviously not about a child. But what worries me is the way society seems intent on finding danger to kids OR pets everywhere it looks, and piling on, viciously. This is a mob mentality. The combustible mix of rage and sanctimony gives people license to be cruel. Hence the new term I’m trying out:…
The Family Defense Center in Chicago defends families being torn apart by pointless yet devastating Child Protective Services investigations. Families like Natasha’s. Remember her story? Natasha let her kids, 11, 9 and 5, play in the park literally across the street from her home, where she could peer out at them every 10 minutes. But a pre-school teacher saw the kids unsupervised, worried, and called the cops. Natasha was found guilty of neglect by virtue of the fact her oldest boy has Attention Deficit Disorder and was therefore not considered responsible enough to watch his younger brothers. As if: 1…
Here’s the latest “Parents, Please Commence Freaking Out” video. It reminds me of the Joey Salads video, obviously, but also of the parents who had their 6 year old snatched, blindfolded and led down into a basement where the “kidnapper” threatened to nail him to the wall — all to teach him not to talk to strangers. That boy’s mom and grandma wanted to keep their child safe, but I would not be surprised if any natural “gut instincts” of his have been shattered for life. (Not to mention his trust in his loved ones.) The same goes for the…
A question probably many of us have asked: Dear Free-Range Kids: I’m a fairly Free-Range parent, becoming more so due to my daily exposure to your blog, including the helpful and insightful comments from your readers. The issue I’m currently struggling with is freedom at the beach. I’m always afraid at the beach when I see how deep my children and husband go out. Now two of my sons (almost 16 and almost 13) want to go to the beach together. I am afraid to let them. I don’t know how rational my fear is, and would love to get…
. Following up on the Zach Anderson case — the 19 year old on the Sex Offender Registry for 25 years for having consensual sex with a girl who said she was 17 (but was really 14) — comes this grandma’s letter. The Sex Offender Registry is a Free-Range issue because it grows out of the belief our kids are in constant danger and it perpetuates that belief, by making many non-threatening people like Zach into scary dots on the “maps of local sex offenders.” These are the maps many parents consult when deciding if they can let their kids…
Remember the case of Zach Anderson, the young man whose case made national headlines (but you read here first) after a Michigan judge sentenced him to 25 years on the Sex Offender Registry? Here’s the latest, from Fox 28 yesterday: A Niles Judge has agreed to reconsider the sentencing of Elkhart teen Zach Anderson, whose case made national headlines when he was convicted as a sex offender. The judge did not make an immediate decision, but deferred a decision to a later date. Anderson met a girl on Facebook dating app. He says she told him she was 17. The…
This video was shot by a young man named Carl Paz who went into a Sprint store in Torrance, CA, to confront whoever let a baby wait in the car parked right in front of the store’s plate glass window. As Paz wrote on his Facebook page: Walk by a Sprint Retail store and spot a baby, alone in a car, while its 82 degrees outside. No shade, no A/C…nothing. And the mother has the nerve to have this attitude. No concern for her child’s well being until attention is called towards it. I wanna make this somewhat viral, to…