From Wyoming’s trib.com news comes possibly the dumbest school shooting drill I’ve heard of: Aubrey Truman was swinging on the playground at Worland’s East Side Elementary School about 10 a.m. Thursday when she received the scare of her life. A man in a hooded sweatshirt with a suspicious backpack appeared in the back of the playground. The hood was pulled over his head. The school’s gym teacher, Kevin Heyer, approached the man, tapped him on the shoulder and asked his name. Heyer said the man took off running. At that point, Heyer, who will be retiring from the district this…
Author: lskenazy
Hallelujah! Danielle and Alexander Meitiv have been cleared of any wrongdoing in the Dec. 20 incident when they let their kids walk home from the park in Silver Spring, MD. As Donna St. George in the Washington Post reports: A Maryland couple investigated for neglect after they let their two young children walk home alone from local parks have been cleared in one of two such cases, according to the family’s attorneys and documents. The new Child Protective Services finding, which follows an appeal, comes as the experiences of “free range” parents Danielle and Alexander Meitiv have drawn national attention,…
. What is the rationale behind this so-called public service announcement that insists children cannot even wait in the car A MOMENT? If erkiadfirh children died in cars this quickly, they’d be dead the second mom came to a red light. The fact is, each year, more children die in parking lots than die while waiting in the car. So this ad is not only going to subject more children to danger, it is scaring parents about an extremely unlikely tragedy, making it seem like it happens in a MOMENT. This is a wild-eyed view of our species, this idea…
Lord help any of us if we are ever overwhelmed by the demands of caring for young kids. In this particular instance, an 18-month-old (other accounts say 11-month-old) was playing with his sister near the front door, while in the care of their grandma, Tammy Cooper. (Their mom died earlier this year.) Somehow the boy got out and crawled 40 feet, into the road, in the rain. Strangers found him and honked to try to alert whoever he belonged to. Then they drove to where they could get a cell signal and called 911. Meantime, the grandma also called 911…
Boy Scouts can’t shoot squirt guns at each other. Here’s the rulebook (see page 99). And here’s the article for Boy Scout leaders that points out: “Water guns and rubber band guns must only be used to shoot at targets, and eye protection must be worn.” Water balloons, meanwhile, have a size limit: “For water balloons, use small, biodegradable balloons, and fill them no larger than a ping pong ball.” First off, I was not even aware there ARE biodegradable balloons. And filling any balloon to only the size of a ping pong ball is like saying, “Please do not…
Alexandria, VA: From a country gone crazy with mandemonium (pandemonium sparked by seeing a man near a child) comes this all points bulletin, below. Notice that while “At no time did the unknown man attempt to leave the area with the child,” the police nonetheless give a detailed description of the suspect…er…Samaritan…er…suspect. And they are looking for leads. What are they going to charge him with? Attempted kindness? Doesn’t he know better than to act like a decent human being? Police Investigate Incident at Lyles-Crouch Elementary School For Immediate release: May 20, 2015 The Alexandria Police Department is investigating an…
This piece about why we need to be able to make rational, caring decisions for our kids without worrying about being second-guessed by passersby or the authorities sums up the issue just perfectly. It’s from the blog Catholic All Year. It begins with the author, Kendra, discussing an article by Kim Brooks in Salon that detailed the cases of some moms arrested for letting their kids wait briefly in the car. Then she writes: …I’m still not going to make what I believe are bad parenting decisions because of bad laws and bad samaritans. I won’t be bullied. But it…
. Here’s a rather startling note I just got in my email-box: Dear Free-Range Kids: Last night/this morning our 8yr old son woke us up at 3:30AM telling us that the people from Walmart wanted to speak with us. . He walked 3 miles in the middle of the night to Walmart in order to buy some roses for his mother. My wife and I were shocked to say the least. All manner of “what if’s” ran through our minds (car accident, child molesters, police taking our children away, etc.) as every emotion covered us as well. . This…
The idea that if we are not continuously monitoring our children, we are sub-prime parents willfully endangering our kids — that is the next frontier Free-Rangers must assail. The problem is that technology is so cheap and so pervasive, it keeps creeping into daily life as a “must have.” This particular app below, still in development, is the apotheosis of things we don’t need for problems we don’t have. Its ad uses false cheer to redefine an ordinary parenting task as completely overwhelming. Then it presents a solution far better suited to hospitals than plain old homes: A way to…
The Free-Range Kids Project is catching on. The idea is simple: A school, a grade, or even just one teacher tells the students to go home and ask their parents if they can do ONE THING that they feel they’re ready to do that, for one reason or another, they haven’t done yet. Most recently, the fifth grade teachers at Edison Park Elementary in Chicago took the plunge. About 70 kids participated. Here’s how one boy filled out the survey his teacher handed out: What do you want to be able to do by yourself or with friends that you…