Readers — Here are two letters I just got, with but a single lesson: You are not allowed to trust your child in even the safest of circumstances simply because someone ELSE (or that someone’s insurance policy) can IMAGINE something TERRIBLE happening, no matter how fantastical. All children are too vulnerable to be out in the world, even for a minute. Bold face is mine. — L Dear Free-Range Kids: I haven’t responded yet to this note from our elementary school principal. Finding a respectful and non-snarky way to respond to the paranoia is proving difficult. My…
Author: lskenazy
Readers — This video of what Matt Lauer dubs “an alarming social experiment” is so outlandishly UNalarming, even the hosts at the end seem to be distancing themselves. Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy So here is the premise: Would you notice a lost kid wandering around on his or her own? Would you get involved and help? Staging a social experiment as many children return to school, the Rossen Reports team wired a boy named Bjorn Golden with hidden cameras to see if anyone would notice that he was apparently on his own…
Here you go, folks! A 13-year-old boy at Weaverville Elementary School in California shared his school lunch — a chicken burrito — with his friend who was hungry. For this, he got detention. The food-sharing miscreant, Kyle Bradford, told KRCRTV: “It seemed like he couldn’t get a normal lunch so I just wanted to give mine to him because I wasn’t really that hungry and it was just going to go in the garbage if I didn’t eat it,” said Bradford. But the Trinity Alps Unified School District has regulations that prohibit students from sharing their meals. The policies set…
Readers — Here’s what’s happening in two Champion, Ohio schools right about now today. According to WFMJ: The sounds of gunfire will ring through the halls of two Champion school buildings this afternoon. According to a letter sent home to parents of students, police will be firing blanks from a gun at the high school and middle school so students can hear what gunshots sound like. The exercise is part of A.L.I.C.E. training. A.L.I.C.E. stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate. The blanks will be fired in hallways or the office. The letter says that they will not be…
Readers — Just a note from a mom of three named April who lives in Oakley, Cal: Dear Free-Range Kids: I feel like I am surrounded by hysterical suburb moms and they are always on the “right” side of the argument bc it is all about “protecting children and keeping them safe.” It’s hard to argue the side of “maybe it’s ok to leave your kid in the car for a minute.” Very hard! It’s very unpopular! Before I found this site I was beginning to think, “This is it. We just have to be with our kids all the…
Hi Folks! This is an excerpt from Their Name Is Today: Reclaiming Childhood in a Hostile World, by Johann Christoph Arnold, a counselor, speaker and writer on family, parenting, and education issues. He is also co-founder of the Breaking the Cycle program, teaching students in public schools about nonviolent conflict resolution. His new book takes on, among other things, standardized testing. More at TheirNameIsToday.com. Their Name is Today – Johann Christoph Arnold Will 2014 be remembered as the year Common Core scuttled the last vestiges of individuality and creative teaching? True education can never be forced — a child…
Readers — Here’s a piece about businesses that cater to kids and make a policy of not allowing adults who are child-free to enter. The examples are Legoland outside of Boston, which we have discussed previously, as well as a local kiddie farm (not that they raise kiddies, they raise pettable animals) and the ubiquitous Chuck E. Cheese. What dismays me about the ban on child-free adults is how grateful some parents seem to be, even though, a generation ago, I really don’t think there even WERE such bans. So the bans are actually serving to DE-NORMALIZE the idea of…
Readers, great news from Port St. Lucie, Fla, where, this summer, Nicole Gainey was arrested and taken to jail in handcuffs for letting her son, 7, walk to the park! Thanks to the Rutherford Institute for this story AND for arranging defense for the single mom! Florida officials have agreed not to pursue the prosecution of a Florida mother who was arrested and charged with child neglect for allowing her 7-year-old son to visit a neighborhood playground located a half mile from their house. In doing so, the state has effectively put an end to the criminal case against Nicole…
Readers — I am no daredevil. In fact, I’m actually sorry the words “extreme” and “sports” even met. BUT I am dazzled by the fact that this footage exists: The childhood adventures of several kids who went on to found or pioneer “sports” like bungee jumping and God knows what else. As The (Australian) Daily Mail explains: Growing up, [Clive] Neeson and his ‘oddball friends’ created an early version of snowboarding — grabbing some wood and sliding along the hilly slopes – windsurfing and hang gliding, long before their popularisation into main stream sports and filming it all along the…
Readers — I published this on Reason.com, hoping to get attention for this case. BUT once again, I do not want it scaring parents into quarantining their kids. I just want to spread the outrage, the way outrage spread in the wake of cops arresting Debra Harrell, the McDonald’s worker who let her 9-year-old play in the park. Once we get a groundswell of Americans on our side — the side that is against prosecuting parents who give their kids some independence — it will become normal (or at least a parent’s prerogative) to let kids walk to school and…