Readers — Here’s a nice note about a great show. Read it, watch it and then I have a proposal for you: Dear Free-Range Kids: Thank you for your efforts in helping kids regain the freedom they once had. This is a very worthy cause. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this, but I wanted to bring your attention to a Japanese TV show called “My First Errand/ Hajimete no otsukai.” You should be able to find a few episodes online with subtitles. It’s been running for 20 years and it features young children, typically aged 2-6, who are…
Author: lskenazy
Here’s the ABC 20/20 segment on kids in cars that aired Saturday night. Kudos to host Elizabeth Vargas and producers James Wang and Sarah_Hoberman for doing what I consider a truly fair job, and not resorting to the usual fearmongering. – L Watch more news videos | Latest from the US
When you live in a world filled with excess laws and cruel, capricious or hamstrung enforcers, you can’t judge people by their felonies anymore: Dear Lenore: I thought of you tonight. We are interviewing a nanny and she disclosed to us that she has a record — a felony endangerment to a child. The reason? Her child was 10 and sick but their schedules did not work for them to get him, so he stayed home from school and she told the neighbor that he was there at the house by himself. She couldn’t get back to him for another…
Readers: This seems like a cause worth supporting! It comes to us from a reader in Kentucky. – L. Save Jacobson Playground There’s a wonderful playground at Jacobson Park in Lexington, Kentucky. It’s a “creative playground,” so named because (obviously) it encourages children to be creative in their play. Sure, there are swing sets and monkey bars. But there are also wooden towers with twisty stairs and little wooden crawlways under them, ramps, sliding poles, bridges, and a wooden pirate ship. The kids are not always viewable. Our children can play for hours…
Readers — This is a great Slate article summing up what the 24/7 news cycle is doing to us as people, parents and policy-demanders. It concentrates on the work of Mary McNaughton-Cassill, a professor at the University of Texas—San Antonio and “leading researcher on the connection between media consumption and stress.” When bad news rushes into the home with graphic images and breathless reports of horror day and night — and we tune in — we come to believe that things are completely terrible. So, writes reporter Jesse Singal: [H]istory — even recent history — is rife with examples of…
Readers — It’s not often Free-Range Kids meets Free-Range Chickens but they do in today’s post, which comes to us from the CBC — Canada’s NPR, if you will: The owners of a farm in east-central Saskatchewan say they’re shocked they are being investigated by the province after it received a complaint about minors working in the family’s processing business. “I was flabbergasted,” Janeen Covlin told CBC News about the investigation by the Occupational Health and Safety Division (OHS). “Our whole farm vision was to include our kids.” An OHS officer arrived at her farm near Endeavour on Tuesday. Cool…
Readers — Here’s a long blog post by a mom whose husband left Walmart with their daughter while she finished checking out. The greeter assumed the father was an abductor even after she — the greeter — followed the duo out to the car and asked the girl, “Who is this man with you, sweetie?” and the girl replied, “He’s my dad!” That wasn’t enough for Sherlock, who took down the car’s license plate and called it in to the cops. The cops later arrived at the family’s home. We pick up at the point where the writer/wife, author Jen…
Readers — Lest you think America is alone in going plumb crazy with worry for its kids in almost every situation, take heart! Australia is at least as terrified! As the newspaper The Age reports: Parents who leave their children unattended in a car or at home face harsher fines and double the jail time under proposed laws. New legislation will be introduced on Wednesday that will mean any parent leaving a child under the age of 12 unattended could face a jail term of up to six months or fines of $3690. It is not limited to cars and…
Suzanne Lucas spent 10 years in corporate human resources, where she hired, fired, managed the numbers, and double-checked with the lawyers. She blogs as the Evil H.R. Lady, and in this post notes how an overblown sense of risk drifts into the workplace. This is the same thing we are seeing in the worlds of school, play and parenting. She was commenting on this Wall Street Journal article by Rachel Feintzeig and Alexandra Berzon: Safety Cops Patrol the Office For High Heels Kyle Bennett and his colleagues recently filled out cards issued by their employer describing the safety risks…
Readers — This is not just a bit of nostalgia. It’s a piece by a transportation writer/city planning thinker trying to figure out how to get kids — and life — back outside. It ran in the magazine Governing, and begins: The Death or Life of a Sidewalk Ballet Are Jane Jacobs’ lively streets disappearing for good? BY ALEX MARSHALL When I first lived in New York City in the late 1980s, I was struck by how the proprietors of the tiny grocery store below my apartment on upper Broadway would hold keys for the children/guests/friends of nearby residents,…