An unhappy commenter gives us this link to the picture of a missing 17 year old — http://www.missingkids.com/poster/NCMC/1244645 — and writes, in response to our urging the police not to arrest parents who let their kids play outside unsupervised: tell the parents of this child. And the thousands more missing ” ITS OK TO GO ALONE TO STORE,PARK,FRIENDS, , because of your opinion, my daughter and I are arguing over not letting her kids walk alone to school, etc. Free range is for chickens,, not kids. Look at the missing ,all teen age girls gone, missing, trafficking is…
Author: lskenazy
I suppose this is happening all over, this excessive testing, checking and hounding of anyone who, God forbid, wants to work with — or even nearby — kids. This letter comes to us from a 30ish YMCA volunteer in Ontario: . Dear Free-Range Kids: I’ve been attending our local YMCA for longer than I can remember (beginning with parent-and-child swimming lessons, I’m told), and volunteering there off and on since I was twelve. So I’ve been involved there longer than the people who are currently in charge, and most of the people who work there have known me for…
Everyone else has posted about this Oklahoma City bathroom sign, so I guess it’s time for me to weigh in, too: Are 6-year-old boys too old to be dragged into the ladies room? I don’t come down hard and fast because of course there can always be extenuating circumstances — a boy with special needs, for instance — and also, I just don’t think there are hard and fast rules for most things. That being said, I also think it is just fine for any boy out of diapers to use the men’s room. And while rummaging through a bunch…
You guys are so wonderful. Here’s a note from Nicole, the Florida mom: I started crying when I got that email [from Go Fund Me]. It feels like a dream, I needed this help so very bad, it is a little easier to relax today and just have fun with my son knowing I can pay the water & electric this week, my water is due for shut off on the 19th, this is such a blessing and thanks to all of you. I can not thank you enough for helping us! UPDATE: Nicole’s “Go Fund Me” account that was…
Sydney Gurewitz Clemens is an author and educator. Her business card says “Helping Adults Help Children.” Her latest book and other writings are here. I love what she says about kids and strangers. Dear Free-Range Kids: I want to tell you about how I taught my son and my daughter to talk to strangers: When they were in 1st grade and kindergarten, I found a wonderful program across town, with creative teachers and a strong, smart philosophy. Their school began at the same time as the one where I taught, and was the opposite direction from our home. …
From the Consumer Product Safety Commission daily update (boldface mine): Recall Date: March 11, 2015 Kid’s Korner Children’s Zipper Hooded Sweatshirts Recalled by Kroger Due to Choking Hazard Hazard: The sweatshirt zipper pull can detach, posing a choking hazard to young children. Remedy: Refund Consumers should immediately take the sweatshirt away from young children and return it to the place of purchase for a full refund. Consumers without a sales receipt will be refunded current retail price. Recall Details Units: About 140,000 Description: This recall involves Kids Korner brand boy’s, girl’s and toddler’s cotton/poly blend fleece zipper hooded sweatshirts…
The great Dave Barry has a huge and wonderful piece at the Wall Street Journal. LOVE that man! The Greatest (Party) Generation Raising children wasn’t always an all-consuming job. Humorist Dave Barry on his parents’ wild parties and the grown-up escapades of the ‘Mad Men’ era We pick it up here, as he discusses his parents and their friends: ….And it wasn’t just cigarettes and alcohol they didn’t worry about. They also didn’t worry that there might be harmful chemicals in the water that they drank right from the tap. They didn’t worry that if they threw their trash into…
If you think of all kids under the age of 18 as the same, you get crazy laws like no child under 18 can be left unsupervised. Wacky. You also get sex offender labels that make no sense. In Ohio, a 21 year old who had a 15-year-old girlfriend is on the sex offender list for 25 years. The authorities there are bending over backwards to act as if the community must be notified that this terrifying individual is in their midst. As Randy Ludlow in The Columbus Dispatch reports: Travis Blankenship is marked with what one judge describes as…
This excellent essay by Tracy Cutchlow in The Washington Post talks about how can we create community, trust and kindness — not to mention some kiddie self-reliance — instead of calling 911 when we witness a parenting practice we disapprove of. Cutchlow is a Seattle mom and author of Zero to Five: 70 Essential Parenting Tips Based on Science (and What I’ve Learned So Far). She begins: Would you call 911 if you saw a child sitting in a car parked outside a store, alone, engrossed in a video game? Or a 9-year-old playing alone at a playground? Or a…
Look! Up on the tab bar! There’s a new resource for all of us parents, and here’s what it says: Wondering if you can let your kids walk to the park or wait in the car for a few minutes — legally? This list should help. At Free-Range Kids, we believe parents are the best judges of what their kids are ready for, when. But the sad fact is, some loving and responsible parents have found themselves in legal trouble when a busybody or law enforcement official perceived their actions as unacceptable. Until the day we see the Free-Range Kids…