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…
Author: lskenazy
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…
This perspective brought to us by psychologist Sarah Heavin in Tacoma, WA. Better Safe Than Sorry? Not if you care about fostering healthy child development, by Sarah Heavin As a forensic child psychologist, I am often hired to evaluate a child for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after an injury. Think: Car accidents, plane crashes, dog bites, ceilings caving in, and medical malpractice. I’m the mom of two young children, so these injuries haunt me. See that elevator? It could crash. That hillside could collapse. Open bodies of water? Don’t get me started. But despite this, my kids are encouraged…
Clayton and Kristopher Cadieux, 8 and 10, dig up worms to sell to local fishermen (or whoever desires worms), $2.50 a dozen. Unfortunately, the CBC reports, the boys are now criminals in the eyes of Cornwall, a town in Ontario, Canada, because they set up their business on their lawn, and even had the audacity to erect a sign: …after a complaint from a neighbour, the brothers received a note from the city saying they were breaking a bylaw and had to shut down their business. The mayor of Cornwall, Leslie O’Shaughnessy, explained that the bylaw requires all personal business…
What’s particularly wonderful about this outdoor field trip is how it gives kids who aren’t “good” or successful in the classroom another place to show who they are. It was sent to us by filmmaker Alastrair Humphreys, who writes: Two years ago, teacher Mrs Monaghan took her class on an overnight microadventure (video here). Now, for their “Leavers’ Treat”, the children asked if they could go on another microadventure. I went along again to film how they got on. \ School Microadventure from Alastair Humphreys on Vimeo. This school year, maybe some more teachers might consider doing something like this…
. This week sort of turns out to have a theme: Dealing with life’s vast unpredictability, and all the fear, guilt and blame that tag along with this daunting fact. So here’s a note from a mom who requests our help: Dear Free-Range Kids: I consider myself a fairly laid back mama, and I’m always of the opinion that bumps and bruises (and maybe broken bones) are part of growing up. But a few days ago I was holding my third child, a 9 month-old baby, as I was climbing some stairs, and I tripped and fell and she hit…
This is a lovely piece about Free-Range Kids from the CBC (Canada’s public broadcasting station). Couldn’t have said it better myself: Note: Your child does not HAVE to look like my son Izzy to go Free-Range…even though the kid the CBC found sure does!
Here are some thoughts from readers on how to keep a rare but horrific danger in perspective, especially when tragedies like the murder of Maddy Middleton become part of the weave of everyday life (and Facebook posts), no matter how removed we may be from the town or time when they occurred: I thought it was strangely poetic somehow that this article was imbedded as a link midway through the murder story: http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Multiple-People-Injured-by-Fallen-Tree-Kidspace-Childrens-Museum-Pasadena-319087591.html Sometimes, things just… happen. And no one saw it coming. And no one had any warning. And so there’s no lesson to be learned, in terms of…
The saddest news. You know what it is. Hearing that 8-year-old Maddy Middleton of Santa Cruz, CA, was found dead today, and the suspect is a 15 year old neighbor. I will remind us all that this is the least common of crimes. That there are no more murders today than there were in our own youth. That when danger is random and exceedingly rare there is no way to organize one’s life to prevent it. (Remember, after the attacks of 9/11, many Americans cancelled their flights to avoid terrorism — and there was an uptick in auto deaths. The…
Here’s how we look to other, less fear-wracked countries. Boldface, mine. (And for contrast, see my piece in yesterday’s New York Post about not expecting kids to walk to school): Dear Free-Range Kids: I am from Germany and what I read on your webpage is really shocking for me. How did American parents get so paranoid and CPS professionals support that! I am a social worker and a mother of a 4 year old girl and a 6 year old boy. I work for the city of Regensburg at the youth department. Our CPS would NEVER even think about investigating…