Hi Folks! This piece comes to us from a gal who uses the pseudonym Shelly Stow when she writes about sex offenders at her blog Justice for All, where this post comes from. Shelly is a member of Reform Sex Offender Laws, a group that tries to keep our fears for our kids from corroding into injustice. This piece dovetails with a terrific piece by Emily Horowitz on the Huffiington Post today titled, Manufacturing Fear: Halloween Laws for Sex Offenders. – L IT’S ALMOST HALLOWEEN: WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT THE SEX OFFENDERS? Two months ago I posted Is August…
Author: lskenazy
Readers — The name Maddie McCann may well still resonate for you. She’s the girl who was stolen from her hotel room in Portugal in 2007. Her parents were eating in a restaurant nearby. When I give my talks, I often ask my audiences if they can think of ANY other story they’ve heard out of Portugal… For the last 500 years. Usually, they can’t. My point is that this story came to us from an ocean away because it is so incredibly important…to the news media. Why? Because it’s a crime that no parent could have predicted. As such,…
Readers — This just in, from jolly old England: Three years ago, a 9-year-old boy horsing around the school playground went to punch his brother, 7, who ducked under the drinking fountain. The older boy, Lewis Pierce, ended up slicing open his thumb on the fountain, and his mom sued the local council (which seems to be the British equivalent of school district) for about 3000 pounds. The mom won (yeah, I know), so the school appealed. At the new trial, according to yesterday’s Daily Mail: Iain O’Donnell [the school district’s lawyer], said schools might have to ban the fountains…
Readers — I don’t want Free-Range Kids to simply become a forum for the latest Zero Tolerance insanity (tempting though that is), so I am posting this story with a different aim. It’s to talk about how we create regulations and laws. Briefly, a boy with autism — not sure that’s relevant — drew a bomb that looks like the ones in his favorite video game, Bomber Man. (Similar bombs have been deployed by Wile E. Coyote.): Obviously, the drawing of a bomb is NOT a bomb, which is why the suspension is so ridiculous. But according to the boy’s…
Readers — You’re not going to believe this one. Sounds like just one overzealous employee was involved. But the Free-Range point? Kids are NOT in constant danger, so can we please stop dreaming up ever more dramatic ways to “protect” them as if they were?
Ok, folks, it’s time for the answer to the question posed a few hours ago: What happened when a former student at Pleasant Grove High in Alabama suffered a nasty skateboard spill and entered the high school hoping to get some medical help? Your guesses included: 1) No medical aid or assistance was rendered “for liability reasons.” 2) He was arrested for criminal trespass. Tasered. Pepper sprayed. Held overnight without medical treatment. Charged with terrorism. 3) When police questioned him, he blamed the Let’s Move Stamps for his poor choices in protective wear. 4) Somebody wrote a blog about it?…
Readers — It’s time to play a little guessing game again. A former student at Pleasant Grove High in Alabama suffered a nasty skateboard spill and was bleeding head to toe. He entered the high school hoping to get some medical help. What do you suppose happened next? I’ll tell you before the end of the night. – L
Hi Readers — A few weeks back we ran a little piece about an outdoor knife skills class for kids 8-12. Here’s the follow up! – L . Dear Free-Range Kids: You’ll be happy to know that the maiden voyage of the Sharp Kids program was a great success. The morning class was a little sparse with just 5 kids (no one likes to get up early on Sunday), but the afternoon class was filled! The kids were busy for the whole four hour class. They got in to it so deeply that we didn’t even get…
Readers? Have you heard of “Trunk or Treat”? It’s the growing trend of celebrating Halloween in a parking lot. (Woo hoo!) Folks fill up their trunks with candy and drive to a designated spot. Kids go car to car, collecting booty. As Wikipedia explains: Concerned parents see it as safer for their children, while other parents see it as an easier alternative to walking the neighborhood with their kids…. The problem is that Halloween is ABOUT kids walking around the neighborhood, especially when they get old enough to go out with just their friends. Think about it: They dress…
Folks — This story (also reported here) is tragic: A 15-year-old streaked at a high school football game, learned he could end up classified as a “sex offender” for doing it, and then hanged himself. I don’t like to run stories about suicides because we can never know all the reasons behind this saddest of endings. I am putting this one on the blog only because it highlights the absurd overreach of our sex offender laws, which corral the silly along with the evil and, just like zero tolerance policies, see no reason to make a distinction. One reader who…