Readers — It is time to update the term “Kafka-esque,” which seems to suggest bureaucratic madness belonged to another time and continent. That madness is alive and well, even in Dallas, TX, as you’re about to read. This piece comes from a Facebook post by my speaking engagement agent, Judy Safern at Leading Thinkers. – L. I was delighted when my son’s fifth grade teacher asked me if I would accompany their class downtown on a field trip to the art museum. My son was, too. The night before the trip he texted me: “Goodnight!! I love you!! I can’t…
Author: lskenazy
Hint: The old version of this vehicle used to have a seat, handlebars and three wheels, period. I can’t figure out if I’m more distressed by the safety equipment that seems better designed for the Turbo Drop, or the fact that we don’t seem capable of doing anything for more than two minutes without a drink at hand.-L The website copy says: Designed for babies, toddlers and beginning riders, this attractive Pink/Purple, 3-in-1 Trike grows with your child! Features: Stage 1-Parent Push Trike-When the pink waist bar is installed the child will be unable to turn the wheel Stage 2-Parent…
Hi Readers! Christine Gross-Loh’s articles on HuffPo have been generating a lot of attention — with reason. She’s great! Thanks to her global perspective, she can attest that the worry and hovering so common in America represent a distinct and unusual type of parenting, not just the “instinct” many here feel it is. Meantime, she’s is a mom of four and author of the just published book, Parenting Without Borders: Surprising Lessons Parents Around the World Can Teach Us. Visit her at www.christinegrossloh.com! -L. KIDS ARE MORE COMPETENT THAN AMERICAN PARENTS BELIEVE by Christine Gross-Loh When our family first moved…
Readers, at some point I will stop posting what I have started calling Zero Tolerunce (so it rhymes with dunce!) incidents. But I couldn’t resist this one, as a Sunday evening sheesh: Last week a kindergartener who showed his cowboy-type cap gun to his friend on the school bus was hauled off to the principal’s office and interrogated for SO LONG (2+ hours), that he ended up peeing in his pants. Or so says The Daily Caller. As for the 10 day sentence…er…detention he received? He’s just lucky there were no caps in the gun, said the principal, or it…
Folks — Got this note today and had to share, so it’s not just ME going, “I am so sick of people amping up fear so as to tamp it down with some product or program!” While I haven’t seen or heard of this program, the way the writer describes it, it sounds excessive. — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: Are you familiar with the program radKIDS? It is a safety course for children that is extremely popular with the local moms where I live. I have not sent my children, but I have had the opportunity to eavesdrop on…
Readers — I was just responding to a woman who bravely lets her kids play outside even though she is almost consumed by horrible thoughts of the Cleveland kidnappings. For her, it’s personal: She used to live near there. But others feel it, too. So what I’m wondering about, that maybe some psychologists can explain, is this: Is this utter despair and empathy with victims new? I mean, I know we have always felt sympathy for crime victims. And certainly my mom must have heard about kidnappings and child crimes. But I don’t think parents of her era felt as…
Thanks very much to the commenter Gary who just sent this video in! (And if anyone can figure out the embed code, so I could put the clip here, instead of the link — please send it along!) – L.
Readers — Yesterday, on Google plus, I put a link to my post about the 7th graders who weren’t sure whether to help an 84-year-old who asked them to bring her a package from her driveway. I said that when we teach kids across-the-board “stranger danger” we aren’t making them safer. We’re stunting any kind of common sense and street smarts we’d like them to develop, by making them scared of absolutely everyone. Here’s the one response that got me shaking: Lenore: I usually agree with you. Unfortunately, this time, you’re dead wrong. The boys should’ve gotten a well known…
Folks — The Manifesto Club in Britain is just a brilliant group dedicated to many of the same issues as Free-Range Kids. Among them: The way that pedophile panic is making us distrust absolutely every adult around a child. The latest example? This: An Australian primary school has banned parents from taking photos of their kids’ swimming gala. The headteacher justified the move thus: “We want parents to be able to have a record of the children’s events and be part of that, but it’s about protecting our children. (Swimming) is part of their curriculum and they should be able…
Hi Folks! Here’s a bit of advice actual “safety experts” are giving kids — and parents. But first, the backstory. This New York Times guest parenting blogger wrote that her 7th grader came home one day and announced he “didn’t do it.” Didn’t do what? He and his friend were walking home from school (points for that!) when — Their commute home this February day was interrupted when a short, white-haired woman standing in her doorway called out to the boys and asked them to move a medium-size package from her front step into her house. On the sidewalk, the…