Readers — I recently received this article on backpack overload and how it can hurt a kid’s back and posture. While it gets rather amazingly detailed about how to correctly pack a pack, it does include this great advice: Talk to the school about lightening the load. Be sure the school allows students to stop at their lockers throughout the day. Team up with other parents to encourage changes. I really do think that in addition to the whole parental fear of predators, one reason kids walk so much less to school is that backpacks are now often 10, 15…
Author: lskenazy
Folks — This new “Operation Predator” app is really revolting to me and I am not even sure why I’m so certain it’s a terrible idea. I guess because it is so out of the blue (was anyone clamoring for this?). And because it acts as if predators and child pornographers are common and ubiquitous, when they are neither. By acting that way, it re-enforces the idea that no kids are ever safe, especially outside, as it seems we’re living in such depraved times. That makes parents even MORE reluctant to send their kids outside, thus further eroding an independent,…
Today’s post comes to us from Reilly Capps, a writer in Denver finishing a book about couch surfing, which, he notes, “involves lots of trusting complete strangers.” Trust is not this school’s forte. — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: I’m not a parent, only an uncle, but today a question presented itself at my niece’s new school: When did picking up a kid from school turn into such a grueling, hyper-orchestrated ordeal? When did fear of accident or abduction necessitate so many onerous rules? At my niece’s school, the parents are required to stay in their cars, with a number on…
You read that right, readers (thanks to the Coventry Patch website). Here’s what got a Rhode Island 7th grader suspended for three days: My favorite part of this perfect tale of a society gone wild with fear and irrationality is that the kid will now miss the class field trip to — you’re going to think I’m making this up — SALEM, MASS! I do hope school administrators see the irony of visiting a place we look back on now with disbelief, wondering how could people have been so cruel and crazy as to believe in witches? Some day students…
Readers — One of you sent in this story of a 4 year old American girl, Portia Walton, saved by running to a man at the mall massacre. This quote should give courage to us all: Portia’s father, Philip, who was in the United States when the terrorists struck, was in disbelief when he saw the picture of his daughter darting across the mall. “She’s not normally the kind of girl that would run to a stranger, particularly one with a gun,” the 39-year-old dad told the paper. And she’s not alone in terms of bravery: The guy who saved…
Hi Readers — This story comes to us from Meg, a college student who came face to face with Overreaction Nation — a society so over-wrought with fear that it can’t see a young person without imagining some terrible thing is about to happen. Ironically, then it did. You’ll see why. — L. . Hi, I’m a former kid who was relatively Free-Range (sometimes even with my parents’ consent), but then had a nasty collision with the fear-driven culture we have now. . Here’s the situation: I was 18 (that’s actually technically adult, right?), and going to summer camp at…
Hi Folks! This post comes to us from Emily Oster, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, and the author of Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong — and What you really Need to Know. She tweets @ProfEmilyOster and she’s a non-alarmist. Woo-hoo! – L. FEAR AND THE PREGNANT WOMAN by Emily Oster When you’re pregnant, it can sometimes seem like you should be afraid of everything. Even some things you may not have thought of. Last week I saw an article about how you shouldn’t swim (causes asthma in your kid later, I…
Hi Readers — TheBBC reports that, “Child psychologists are being given a new directive which is that the age range they work with is increasing from 0-18 to 0-25.” The reasons given have to do with neuroscience of the still-developing brain, but the brilliant Frank Furedi, author of “Paranoid Parenting,” weighs in on that: “I think that what it is, is not that the world has become crueler, it’s just that we hold our children back from a very early age. When they’re 11, 12, 13 we don’t let them out on their own. When they’re 14, 15, we hover…
Readers: By now you have heard the story of the three Virginia Beach seventh graders who were suspended for playing with Airsoft guns on private property — the yard of one of the kids. A 911 call prompted a police investigation which prompted the school to take action. Yesterday, the school’s disciplinary committee voted unanimously to suspend the boys for the rest of the year, though their case will be up for review on Jan. 27. The principal wrote a letter explaining his actions: In the course of the investigation, conducted in concert with a police officer and the school…
Readers — Read it and argh, matey! Kids dressed as pirates to get free Krispy Kreme donuts on “Talk Like a Pirate Day” were spotted by some good (but crazed with fear) Samaritan in Colorado who alerted the sheriff’s office to a “suspicious group.” The authorities then had the local middle and high school put on lockout while they investigated this scary situation. (Hmm. Police being FORCED to go to a donut shop. I’d be suspicious, too. ) Fifteen minutes later, students were allowed in to their non-Davy Jones lockers. Was the booty shared by all? That we may never…