Folks, here’s a piece by me that’s slightly off topic in that it’s not about kids — per se. But it is about hyper-sensitivity, in this case, to the statue of a male sleepwalker on the Wellesley College campus. The connection here is this: Free-Range fights the spread of excessive fear. And fear grows on the assumption of fragility, the assumption that mere EXPOSURE to anything upsetting or imperfect — an idea, a germ, a disappointment, a scrape, a statue — is potentially devastating. Free-Range Kids says we are stronger than that. We demean kids and adults when we assume…
Author: lskenazy
Readers, as you might recall, I gave a Free-Range talk last week in Alexandria, VA, at St. Stephens & St. Agnes School. It was a (funny) look at how we became so scared for our kids, and how to fight the fear that seeps into almost every aspect of childrearing. Two days later a man knocked on the door of a local Alexandria pre-k music teacher. She opened the door, he shot her dead. He also injured another woman in the home. The suspect is still at large, and there’s conjecture that he may have been involved in a similar,…
Readers — I was giving a talk at St. Stephens & St. Agnes School in Alexandria, VA, recently, and afterward one of the folks who urged the school to invite me, Cara Weiman, sent me this wonderful post from the blog Mothers of Brothers. It begins with the writer, Emily, saying that she helped her high school son make Valentine’s Day reservations at a restaurant: I was pleased for him — and proud of myself for the assist. But then I started to wonder if he would know how to use the debit card with the server when the…
Readers — This is a troubling, fascinating look at the big childhood issue politicians are parsing now: The importance of early childhood education and what it should consist of. The Washington Post’s deep-thinking Valerie Strauss presents the work of Alfie Kohn who worries (as do I, and probably you) that “education” will be interpreted as something you can test and measure, rather than making sure kids get deeply engaged in something (e.g., “How can I make a skyscraper from rocks?”). It’s engaged kids who are actually learning, even though it is the drilled kids who LOOK like they’re getting a…
Readers: Perhaps this ad is an elaborate parody of stay-in-school scare tactics. If so, bravo! If not? Yowza. Anyone who thinks the only way to influence kids is to make them think that the second they are not supervised they are in GRAVE DANGER has been watching too much media aimed at their parents.- L
Readers, I am really enjoying the new book Kevin C. Pyle and Scott Cunningham, “Bad For You: Exposing the War on Fun!” It’s a comic book…er…graphic depiction of everything from products for panicked parents (like the Thudguard helmet for toddlers), to the rise of plastic playgrounds, to the “danger” of Dungeons and Dragons. (And before that — the danger of chess! For real!) Here’s the Bad for You website, and, below, just a little taste of the book. Voila its explanation of: THE MORAL PANIC MEDIA CYCLE In 1972, professor of sociology Stanley Cohen coined the phrase “moral panic” to…
Readers — I love this article from The Daily Telegraph by radio broadcaster Jason Morrison and hope that it’ll clear something up: While it is good to be aware of the possibility of horrors like abuse and kidnapping, it is sickening (and statistically ridiculous) to jump to these assumptions IMMEDIATELY upon simply seeing a man with a child. In this particular case, Jason took his son to the playground: …Charlie had a great time, laughing and playing with the other kids. I was inside the fence that surrounded the play equipment keeping watch. But that was apparently my crime. I…
Hey Readers — I’m sorry this visitor experienced America as a nation of buttinskis convinced that kids are in constant peril of snatching or (God forbid) fatigue. Maybe by the time she comes back, the country will have changed! – L Dear Free-Range Kids: I am Australian and last year I went on a big US trip with my husband and my two girls. My husband was working while I took the girls around on my own to sightsee and OMG I was told on 3 separate occasions that I was a terrible mother. The first time was at the…
Hi Readers! This photo comes to us from blogger Tarja Kelly in Australia. Those are the pages and pages of warnings that came with a Monsters U toy. The kids thought it was a book! Heck, maybe we SHOULD read all this fine print aloud to our kids as a cautionary tale of what happens when you mix childhood and legal departments. It’s Grimm. – L
Readers — This is a post from Australia’s iVillage about a true concern: Death by backyard pool. There as here, drowning is one of the leading causes of child death. Heartbreaking. Nonetheless, banning pools seems like a bad idea. How come? Well I read through some of the comments to find one that articulated my reservations. This is by a guy named Jon S.: I understand one always wants to take measures to prevent deaths, but 16 deaths a year is 0.00000064% of the population. Without sounding horrible that is a very low figure to punish 100% of the population…