Readers: This is just a little snippet from modern day society — a local listserve note sent to us by a reader. The writer is a mom who didn’t want to give her daughter the chicken pox vaccine. The school is saying the girl needs to leave school for 20 days because another kid got chicken pox and so she’s not safe. “My daughter just started kindergarten at public school last month. They accepted our religious exemption without an issue, and everything was going so perfectly. Then this morning I received a call from her school to…
Author: lskenazy
Readers — This is a piece I wrote for the New America Foundation that got picked up by the Atlantic. Thrilling! I am very hopeful that if schools start endorsing this project, it sends the message to parents and the community that Free-Ranging is more than legit. It’s transformative for everyone involved. PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD! — L. Silicon Valley Parents Send Their Kids Back to 1972, by Lenore Skenazy Most school field trips are to places the students might never go on their own: A museum, a play, a nature preserve. The idea is to open kids wide to…
Readers — This note from the commenter CoasterFreak reminds me of a fantastic Bloom County comic by Berkeley Breathed reprinted in the Joel Best book I am devouring: “Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern About Child-Victims.” (It’s all about how predator panic began and spread.) Anyway, the comic, from Nov. 21, 1987 (if anyone can figure out how to find it online), shows the reporter Milo rushing into his editor’s office shouting, “Boss!” “Yes, Junior Intern Milo?” “Remember all our sensational, panic-causing stories about The Great Child-Stealing Epidemic?!” “Yeah?” “There NEVER REALLY WAS ONE!” Milo shouts. “Great Scott!” replies the…
Readers — Parenting norms seem to reflect so much about society and so little about what kids really need — as evidenced by the fact that the norms are so different across eras and the globe. Glad this mom-to-be get that! I am 9 months pregnant with my first child and Free Range Kids has been such a tremendous antidote to the avalanche of unsolicited parenting advice I’m getting as a soon-to-be-mom! I often find myself clamming up in social situations when child-rearing conversations get underway. This cropped up in my Facebook feed today, and I think it’s largely because…
Readers, this comes to us from Tiffany, who calls herself “a nomadic mom of 11 & 12 year old Free-Range boys traveling the USA via RV.” How cool is that? Dear Free-Range Kids: My late father’s occupation, and love, was teaching mobility to blind students. He was employed by the school district and taught blind, k-12 students how to move about in the community. The “classroom” consisted of busy intersections, the mall, the post office, and many other places. He had been doing the work for 35 years and had seen society change so much. During the last 10…
Readers — Here’s a case I’m very curious about, because I truly don’t know how I’d react. First — the news report: And here’s a note I got about the story: Dear Free-Range Kids: It is so refreshing to have a rational place to reaffirm my instincts, that we are not living in a world where “times are different now”. If I hear that phrase uttered one more time… Anyway, today our town’s police department received some sort of threat in the mail against our schools. Neither the police nor superintendent of schools has given specifics as to what was…
Readers, Here’s an infuriating, reassuring piece (first one, then the other) by Laura Flores Shaw in the Huffington Post: “Stop Using Neuroscience to Scare Parents.” It reminds me of my book’s chapter, “Relax! Not Every Little Thing You Do Has That Much Impact on Your Child’s Development!” In this essay, Shaw is reacting to a Time piece that blithely stated, “In a brain scan, relational pain — that caused by isolation during punishment — can look the same as physical abuse. Is alone in the corner the best place for your child?” Whether you use time-outs or not, the idea…
Readers — When I was growing up, I knew what predators were: Lions, hawks, sharks…. Now animals come to mind only distantly when we hear that word, and that has changed our outlook on crime, childhood, safety — and parenting. This musing comes to us from the commenter signed worthdoinganyway: Dear Free-Range Kids: I think just the explosion of the use of the word “predator” is part of the problem. I don’t remember, when I was growing up, people talking about “predators.” Sure, we knew there were kidnappers and child molesters and murderers, but it seems like in the…
Readers — Here’s a piece from Tasha Batsford, “a working mama of three small children,” who writes about her parenting journey at www.maybediaries.com. She lives in New Zealand. The Downfall of The Baby Sling by Natasha Batsford For millennia, women the world over have been taking the fabric at their disposal and using it to tie their babies to their backs. While the practice largely died out in the 20th century, it has recently seen a revival and there are now a large number of businesses, from international organisations to work-at-home moms, creating their own interpretations of the traditional…
Readers — Here’s a poem to keep in your pocket…forever. It came to me by way of Bob Weiman, director of the lower school/assistant head of school at St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes in Alexandria, VA: COME nzansdhndn TO THE EDGE, by Christopher Logue Come to the edge. We might fall. Come to the edge. It’s too high! COME TO THE EDGE! And they came, and we pushed, And they flew.