Readers — Sometimes when I am trying to explain why the laws against letting kids wait in the car a few minutes make no sense, I point out that if we are going to prosecute parents for putting their kids at some infinitesimal risk, we’d also have to include all parents who raise their kids in homes with stairs, or feed their kids solid food. After all: those pose some danger, too. Where do we draw the line? Is ANYTHING in daily life safe enough? And then I opened today’s email: Dear Free-Range Kids: In two recent episodes of House…
Author: lskenazy
Readers — Here are two comments on the post below this one, about a mom leaving her son, 7, at home for half an hour: It is absolutely irresponsible to leave a child age 5,6,7 even 8 at home alone. That is just lazy parenting. You leave them because it is not convenient for you to take them. Don’t disguise it by saying I am training my child to be independent or self sufficient. There is plenty of time and many other ways to teach your children responsibility. Wendy W. from someone who has lived the military life for 18…
Readers — Let’s hear it for Lizzie Heiselt, the MotherRunner blogger who wrote about letting her son, 7, stay home while she ran an errand. She took heat for the usual “What if…?”s but stayed calm and fantastically poised on The Doctors, a show that sometimes sneers at helicopter parenting and sometimes sneers at Free-Rangers (when I was on, it was the latter). Clearly, all the good doctors want is good ratings, so at the end of the Lizzie interview they resort to the national pastime of dreaming up fantabulous circumstances to scare her and the audience with. (E.g., “But…
Readers — A new app lets college students alert the authorities when they leave one building and head to another, so the cops can instantly come looking for them if they don’t get to their destination. Which makes sense if you are going to college in ISIS-held neighborhoods of Syria. Otherwise it is yet another way to convince us that everyone under 21 is in constant, life-threatening danger. Especially on campus! As South Coast Today reports (boldface mine): DARTMOUTH — Audry Kivlin is a freshman dorm resident assistant at UMass Dartmouth. Her biggest job, she said, is “to keep students…
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…
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…