In the dystopian (and un-put-downable) novel, “The School for Good Mothers,” parents who don’t helicopter get sent to a state re-education school. There, each interaction they have with their child is graded to see if it is kind enough, warm enough, educational enough, safe enough (obviously!) and selfless enough. Yes, this is a parody of the standards some social service agencies demand from parents — especially moms. But how much truth is embedded in “Good Mothers”? Can you really get your kids taken away from you for trusting them to walk home from school, or not getting them to quiet…
Author: lskenazy
A researcher who spent 10 years following 3000 kids who applied to get free pre-school in Tennessee discovered the opposite of what she’d expected: The ones who got in — demographically identical to the ones who didn’t — were doing worse all around by 6th grade. Worse on tests. Worse on discipline. Worse when it came to being diagnosed with learning difficulties — that is, the pre-k kids had developed more of them. Over at Let Grow (here) I talk about what the researcher herself believes may be the problem with a pre-k program deliberately designed to boost underprivileged kids,…
Maybe you have heard the story about the Georgia mom arrested for trusting her 14-year-old to look after her four younger siblings. I originally wrote about it at Reason.com — here’s the link. My story has since gone ’round the world. The basics: Mom Melissa Henderson had to go to work the day COVID-19 shut down the daycare center she’d normally take her little ones too. So she asked her daughter Linley, 14, to babysit, and went off to her job. Henderson’s 4-year-old somehow got out of the house and went across the way to play with his friend.…
“F**king amazing!” in fact, is how bestselling author and TED Talk favorite Johann Hari describes The Let Grow Project. We met when he came to New York to research his new book, “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention — And How to Think Deeply Again.” Together we visited two schools — one well-off, the other a Title 1 / high poverty school — where kids were doing The Project. That is, they’d been given the homework assignment, “Go home and do something new, on your own, without your parents!” You can watch the middle schoolers here (a 2-minute video),…
My poll of over 1500 folks — albeit on Twitter — discovered something heartening: The majority of both those born BEFORE and AFTER 1982 say they were allowed outside on their own by age 7. BUT, the percent of kids given freedom by age 7 is sinking. And I didn’t specifically ask anyone born after 1992, or 2002 to answer, and I wonder what the response would be. Heck — I think I’ll go ask on Twitter now! Meantime — check out my analysis of these before/after 1982 results over at Let Grow by clicking here. One thing is sure:…
There’s a good first-person story over at Let Grow. Robin Phillips (pictured) was on her way to visit her dad in Hawaii when she got bumped from a plane at Los Angeles Airport about 50 years ago, when she was 13. The next plane was the following day. Robin spent the night eating, reading — even met a celebrity. What did she not do? Panic. She remembers the night as a turning point that showed her who she was. Here it is, half a century later and she is still grateful for it. I’m betting you have a story…
Let’s predict it right here, right now: By 2030, every state in America will guarantee parents that they can give their kids some “reasonable independence” without triggering an investigation for neglect. Of course it takes time to crest to that point. But this year, the Colorado, Nebraska and South Carolina legislatures are all considering bills modeled on the “Reasonable Childhood Independence” laws passed in Texas and Oklahoma last spring (and in Utah in 2018—the so-called “Free-Range Parenting” law). At this point, fully 10% of American parents enjoy legal protection for letting their children play unsupervised. The bills passed to date…
Join me, Lenore, as I host a webinar chat featuring Jonathan “Coddling of the American Mind” Haidt interviewing psychiatrist Samantha Boardman. She’s author of the new book (that literally tweaked my life), “Everyday Vitality.” They’ll be chatting about how parenting became so fraught, and how we can all fight a culture insisting parents watch and micromanage everything their kids do, lest they fall behind or get hurt. One title we considered for the talk was “Gaze not at your navel!” But the one we (wisely) decided on was, “Parenting Doesn’t have to Drive Your — or Your Kids — Crazy:…
Daniel Kish is known as “Batman” because he uses clicking sounds to echo-locate the way bats do. He goes around the world teaching blind kids this cool technique, but so much more, all to help them become more self-directed. He doesn’t say “self-sufficient” because, in a way, that’s not really fair. If you’re deaf, having a sign language interpreter doesn’t mean you are lazy or over-assisted. It just means you have a way to be part of things. Similarly, blind kids need someone to “show” them what they cannot see. For instance, a blind child can’t see you making scrambled…
Those are the chipper words of a press release I got for some diaper-changing thingamabob. Those are also the words today’s parents are expected to live by: Words that paint the most mundane of activities as a disaster of epic proportions (possibly — unless you do or buy something RIGHT THIS SECOND!). As you probably know, I call this “Worst-First Thinking” — thinking up the WORST case scenario FIRST and living life as if it’s about to happen. Over at Let Grow I roll this around a bit, and dig up some other warnings that are actually out there, telling…