As a longtime fan of Sara Bennett and her Stop Homework movement, I was thrilled she sent this link today about a Manhattan public school that has decided to ditch homework. Then I was doubly thrilled to see: This is the school my own kids attended! It’s just a few blocks from the Empire State Building — a beacon for the whole country. Oh, how I remember the joy-crushing homework! Oh how I remember my own school afternoons spent drawing, writing, making coasters out of glue. (A bad idea, as it turned out.) And as I just wrote to the…
Author: lskenazy
Lives there a parent who hasn’t, at some point, lost track of his or her kid? That’s just the way life is — imperfect! Until the authorities deem it a crime. In this case, CPS gets it TOTALLY RIGHT…but not the prosecutor. So don’t read this letter if you were hoping to have a good day. Do read it if you think you have any idea how to help or crusade for change. Speaking of which, the National Association of Parents is trying to create a fund to help parents dealing with crazy CPS issues. Here’s the link. -…
Here’s a great comment on the post below this one, about the Meitiv case. They Meitivs were, of course, investigated for letting their 10 and 6 year old kids walk home together from the park in suburban Maryland: I think we need to start lobbying state legislatures for reasonable laws that provide some clarity and security for families in these situations. As I understand it, this is the law the Meitivs were accused of violating: “A person who is charged with the care of a child under the age of 8 years may not allow the child to be locked…
The long-awaited decision from Montgomery County Child Protective Services has arrived at the home of Danielle and Alex Meitiv, and it finds them “responsible” for “unsubstantiated child neglect” for letting their kids walk outside, unsupervised. If that decision makes no sense to you, either — how can parents be responsible for something that is unsubstantiated? — welcome to the place where common sense crashes into bureaucratic craziness. It’s a mess. Although the investigation is “closed,” Donna St. George at the Washington Post reports that: CPS will keep a file on the family for at least five years and leaves open…
Check out the front page of the Sunday Times of London yesterday. And to think the idea of “Free-Range Kids” was considered controversial, dangerous and even crazy before. Can’t get much more respectable than this! — L
Do we really have to re-surface every playground in America because they aren’t safe enough? Tim Gill, author of the blog “Rethinking Childhood,” and Bernard Spiegel, granddaddy of the idea of “beneficial risk,” and Jay Beckwith, the venerated playground guru, are just some of the big names in the “play” world alerting us to potentially over-the-top new playground surface standards. The American Society for Testing and Materials will vote on these standards as soon as March 4 — Wednesday! — and so we have to register our thoughts, very soon. The rationale is that new surfacing will cut down on…
Come Monday, a new issue of The New Yorker will be landing in the mailboxes of the diehards who still get hard copies of magazines. So while this wonderful 90th Anniversary issue of the New Yorker is still current, allow me to excerpt a bit from the Talk of the Town piece I am saving forever. (Then again, I am saving all my New Yorkers forever. Doesn’t everyone? Aren’t you actually not ALLOWED to throw them out, like batteries?) Raised Eyebrows Dept. FEBRUARY 23, 2015 ISSUE Mother May I? BY LIZZIE WIDDICOMBE Recently, in Silver Spring, Maryland, drivers at a…
We went RVing a few years ago courtesy of this very group — Go — RVing — and found kids at campsites seemed really Free-Range. There was such a sense of community in the woods, and this is such a lovely commercial. (And why didn’t I come up with the word “wildhood”???)
Thanks to our mistaken belief that no one under 18 can have any legitimate sexual feeling — and hence any sex they’ve engaged in was coerced and bound to render unspeakable emotional harm—we have laws on the books like this one in Wisconsin, according to USA Today (boldface mine, all mine!): In 2012, state lawmakers passed into law a mandatory, minimum three-year prison sentence for possessing child pornography. Previously, judges had the discretion to order lesser penalties depending on the circumstances. That means a 17-year-old who receives explicit images from a younger friend can be sent to prison for possession…
Here’s a poem that sums up the Free-Range world view, sent to us by a reader Jennifer Daly, who describes herself thusly: “I live in Shrewsbury, MA. I work in Engineering and IT. I have a 6 yr old and a 2 yr old. I have 17 yrs of Aerospace and Defense consulting with 6 yrs of being the dept IT manager in Engineering for BAE land and Armaments (combat vehicles). My husband is a fire engineer and volunteer fireman. My husband has two degrees. I have none. I am dyslexic and very innovative. I found a way to learn…