Readers — A New York kindergarten has cancelled its end of the year show, to devote more time to “preparing children for college and career with valuable lifelong skills.” These include becoming “strong readers, writers, co-workers and problem solvers.” Here is the letter, which I found transcribed on the blog Ethics Alarms: We hope this letter serves to help you better understand how the demands of the 21st century are changing schools, and, more specifically, to clarify, misperceptions about the Kindergarten show. It is most important to keep in mind is [sic] that this issue is not unique to…
Author: lskenazy
Readers — Any kind of prejudice is distressing. The only thing possibly more distressing is prejudice that persists even in the face of knowing better. (Boldface is mine.): Dear Free-Range Kids: I recently had a strange conversation with a friend. He and I have known each other for nearly 25 years, we are both married (to other people ;-). I have a son who is almost 13, he has a daughter who is 7. I said, “Hey, you know, we four (meaning he and his wife, and me and my husband) could actually all go out together some evening because…
Readers — Add this to the ever-longer list of items that start from the assumption that kids are in constant danger so parents must be in constant control: Needless to say (perhaps) I am dismayed by this device, not only because it gives kids the wrong impression — “I don’t have to learn to be safe, my parents will do it for me!” — but also because this thing actually stops the bike from going ANYWHERE once the child is more than 50 meters away. The idea of keeping kids ever closer is seductive because it gives parents a sense…
Readers — Sometimes I tweet these smaller stories, which allows me to get them out to the public without writing a whole post. But since I worry not everyone who reads the blog sees my tweets, from time to time I am going to start putting little items here without much comment. I just want them to be seen. I think you can guess how I feel about this crime blotter item from upstate New York. (I have removed the mom’s name): J. B., 28…was charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor, in connection with an alleged…
Readers — A Michigan mom is upset not just that her 8-year-old daughter hopped a public bus without telling her, but that the bus driver didn’t immediately take some kind of unspecified but heroic action to stop this non-catastrophe: Two things in particular gall me about this story: 1 – The air time afforded to Worst-First thinking. “The mom [is] just grateful that what COULD have happened didn’t,” the dutifully grave reporter intones. Playing her own part, the mom pipes up: “Oh my goodness, just all kinds of thoughts run through your mind, somebody could’ve taken her, she could’ve just…
Readers — I am honored to present this brilliant piece by Jan Macvarish, a research fellow at the University of Kent and co-author of the book Parenting Culture Studies, which asks how come the way we feed, talk to, and play with our kids has become the stuff of public debate and government policy? (Boldface is mine.) – L Babies’ Brains and Intensive Parenting by Jan Macvarish Last week, a Free Range Kids’ post, We Cannot Mold Kids Into Exactly Who We Want Them to Be, kindly drew attention to our latest report. Now I’d like to say a little…
Readers — This is what truly perplexes me: Why do seemingly so many school administrators adamantly refuse to think like normal, rational human beings? The other day I visited the Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, Mass., and saw such a completely opposite world — a heart-soaring place where kids are trusted not only with tools but with their own educations — so now it’s doubly hard to read about cases like the one below. (More about Sudbury Valley to come. It really was so thrilling, I have yet to process the whole thing.) – L A veteran teacher at a…
Readers — A few weeks back a mom in Arizona, yes, hot Arizona, left her kids in the car when she went in to a job interview. This was clearly not the greatest thing to do, but for her, at the moment, it seemed like the only option. Without a home to live in or people to help her, she needed a place for her kids to stay while she tried to get a job to lift them all out of that awful situation. Of course she was arrested for negligence, but instead of public outcry against her, the tide…
Readers — A friend who’d like to be identified only as Catherine L. posted the rules from her town’s Easter Egg hunt (above) on Facebook. These include: Wristbands indicate the age group of each child and the number on the band matches the number issued to the parent. After each hunt, children will be released only to the adult with the corresponding number from the wristband. In her post, Catherine wrote: “How do you suck the fun out of an Easter Egg hunt? Treat every adult like a potential kidnapper and every child like they are in mortal danger.…
Readers — Sometimes I hear about stories in an untimely manner — like this one, which happened a year ago but is making my blood reach 212 degrees Fahrenheit, so I have to write about it even at this late date: Apparently Homeland Security felt it needed to train officers to shoot with “No More Hesitation.” I.e., it wanted officers trained not to think twice when faced with danger. So to INSTILL that hair-trigger response, our government purchased target practice posters featuring kids, old ladies in their kitchens, and pregnant women. What’s so disturbing about this? Don’t we WANT our…