Readers –This is a wonderful and well-researched piece on Slate by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, who seems to have written articles on everything that interests and outrages me, including Satanic panic (a FANTASTIC and oh-so-disturbing story), and how junk science can put innocent people behind bars for a very long time. But this time she’s writing about high-tech baby monitors like the Mimo and Owlet, sold to parents as essential for peace of mind: Linda writes: [The American Academy of Pediatricians advises] “Avoid commercial devices marketed to reduce the risk of SIDS. … There is no evidence that these devices…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers! This comes to us from play-writer/thinker Bernie DeKoven. Bernie was a computer game design pioneer and worked with major toy and game companies. Many of his games are taught in elementary schools around the world. His books include The Well-Played Game, Junkyard Sports, and most recently, A Playful Path. He blogs at DeepFun.com, which I was just browsing and found SO MANY fun games, like “Mitt Rowdy.” An inspriation! – L OF SPOONS AND WAR, by BERNIE DEKOVEN It started out as the straightforward game of Spoons. You know the straightforward game of spoons? You place a bunch…
Readers — This comes to us from one of my favorite thinker/writer/lawyers: David Pimentel. In 2012 he wrote the wonderful piece, “Child Neglect and the Free-Range Parent: Is Overprotective Parenting the New Standard of Care?” Alas, in some legal ways, it is. Now he’visiting the issue of what happens when Child Protective Services believes Free-Range Parenting is negligence. It’s not and we have to let the people in power KNOW! (Boldface is mine.) – L. M’am, did you deliberately allow your child to frolic unsupervised? Pimentel writes to us: As many of your posts acknowledge, Free-Range parents are resisting a…
Readers — This is an amazing article from The New Republic by Jenny Jarvie about a phenom called “trigger warnings” — warnings written on blog posts and, increasingly, everywhere else, that tell folks that the material they’re about to read may “trigger” awful thoughts: Initially, trigger warnings were used in self-help and feminist forums to help readers who might have post traumatic stress disorder to avoid graphic content that might cause painful memories, flashbacks, or panic attacks. But they kept spreading, and now: Last week, student leaders at the University of California, Santa Barbara, passed a resolution urging officials to…
Let’s remember we can all BE LIKE THIS LADY! And like the school kids, too. Let’s replace suspicion and fear with WARMTH! God knows this is a winter we really need it! – L.
Readers — Unplug your gall-o-meters before you read this story or they might explode: When a fire alarm went off in a St. Paul Minnesota High School, everyone was evacuated, including a 14-year-old who’d been swimming and was not given time to grab her clothes. I can totally understand hustling her out of the building, given the fear of a real fire. What blows my mind is this: But due to school policy, she wasn’t allowed to sit in a faculty-member’s car. “We kind of huddled up and made a circle around me, and the other kids who were cold,”…
Readers — As the mom of two Scouts (of the boy variety), I am so sorry to see some troops turning into a morass of red tape, Worst-First thinking and CYA. Time to whittle down the fears! — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: I thought I wouldn’t ever do this, but I think I’m going to have to. I am easing my daughter out of Girl Scouts.A friend of mine, a former GS leader, assures me that this is the local group being buffleheaded, not national rules. But practically speaking, it doesn’t matter. It’s the local group or…
Readers — This mom’s Facebook post about preparing her child for an unlikely but not unthinkable problem — being locked outside in the freezing cold — made sense to me: …Most of us are aware of the tragedy that occurred yesterday in Bemidji, MN where a 6 year old girl died from exposure to the extremes cold. This led my husband and I to wonder, what would our 6 year old little girl do if she, for any reason, ever found herself stuck outside. So we decided to ask, well, we were shocked at what we heard….she had answers, but…
UPDATE: The school that suspended 17-year-old Chaz Seale for accidentally packing a beer instead of a soda in his lunch has relented and is now allowing him BACK. Lucky him! Going back to where the folks in charge can’t tell the difference between a crime and a mistake! Anyway, his “minor in possession” charge will be dropped, too. I was happy to read that the superintendent admitted that the school officials botched this. Maybe they can be suspended for 60 days? — L. Readers — I don’t like to simply chronicle the stunningly asinine decisions made by school administrators…
Readers — This is just a rather perfect illustration of the way our society works now, when it comes to parents, schools, media, fear, mistakes and, heck, let’s throw in umbrage. A great-grandpa picked up the wrong kindergartener from school. The two boys had similar hats, and the one gramps took home had his hat pulled all the way over his head. Frankly, I can see how that could happen. Gramps got home, realized his mistake, alerted the school. The principal called the mom to say her son had been accidentally picked up by the wrong man — someone known…