Izzy Kalman is a long-time school psychologist with iconoclastic ideas about how to help kids deal with bullying. Often, he says, kids can actually deflect the meanness by using what I would call psychological jujitsu. For instance, Kalman suggests that when someone says, “Hey Fatso!”, the insulted child can respond, “I wish I was skinny like you. What is your secret?” The idea is that in some cases, treating a bully like a friend is so disarming, that the bully is left without ammo. Here’s an article by a mom who, at her wits end, urged her bullied child to…
Author: lskenazy
It’s been 12 years since Free-Range Kids was published. In honor of the new edition, which just came out, I look at how childhood has changed, for the worse but also the better, in the years since it came out. What did I find? Check out my piece at Let Grow, by clicking here. But basically it boils down to: Getting Worse: The micromanagement of kids, in all sorts of spheres. Their anxiety. Parental anxiety. And the idea that kids spending any time unsupervised or undirected is reason enough to worry, and perhaps call 911. Getting Better: New laws that…
The updated and expanded second edition of Free-Range Kids: How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow will be released on Wednesday with all-new insights for parents and educators, including new chapters on anxiety, technology, free play, and how what kids do just for fun can often point them (sometimes unconsciously!) toward their careers. Author Lenore Skenazy (yep, me –but this is the press release) shot to notoriety in 2008 when she wrote a column about letting her 9-year-old ride the subway alone. She started her Free-Range Kids blog two days later, which grew into a book and…
A small, totally unscientific poll I ran on Twitter found that, of about 350 parents, 55% said that at some point they had WANTED their kids to do something independently, but decided against it, for fear of legal repercussions. You know, the authorities are supposed to protect us, so we need not live in fear. But sometimes…it’s Opposite Day. Obviously, we WANT the government to look out for kids in true danger. The fact that sometimes our public servants misinterpret parents who TRUST their kids as parents who NEGLECT their kids is the problem. I talk about this at Let…
Metaphors are the topic at Let Grow today. I just learned that the trees planted in Biosphere 2, the kinda kooky human snowglobe in Arizona, grew at an extremely fast rate. And then they died. Why? Life was just a little too sheltered — literally. Click here for the strange details of what trees (and kids) need. Photo by Eric Muhr on Unsplash
A dad wrote to Let Grow to vent: He’d been eating at the Costco food court with his 4-year-old daughter when he got up to go get ketchup and napkins. A concerned bystander tapped him on the back to chide him for this — he said it was an irresponsible “no-no.” In addition to the dad’s letter at Let Grow I’ve got a short discussion of how our new laws in Texas and Oklahoma will prevent incidents like this from becoming…well…actual incidents. Reasonable Childhood Independence bills allow parents to make reasonable decisions. Helicopter parenting cannot be the law of the…
Over at Let Grow we have a precious video: Kids actually PLAYING together, at school, outside, during COVID. It’s the work of Kevin Stinehart, Pickens County, SC, Teacher of the Year last year, who believes in safety AND the power of play. The health protocols inside the school were strict: Distancing, masks, cleaning, etc. But outside, the kids were afforded something that seems almost dreamlike — a pretty normal childhood experience. Ever since it became legally and medicinally feasible, Kevin has been running a Let Grow Play Club, where an adult is on the premises, like a lifeguard, but the…
On Saturday, Texas became the third state in America to enshrine the right of kids to a Free-Range Childhood. It follows Oklahoma and Utah in enacting a “Reasonable Childhood Independence” bill. When the Texas law goes into effect, fully one tenth of American citizens will enjoy new freedom under laws that Free-Range Kids and Let Grow helped to get passed. That is so cool! Give a cheer! And a beer! And a new lack of fear on the part of parents who want their kids to play outside and engage in age-old “independent activities” without worrying this could lead to…
Most of you won’t remember this Sesame Street classic — or will you? Some day this kind of independence will be normal again. Parents will trust their kids. Kids will trust their abilities. And it will seem sick and strange to call 911 to report a happy, confident child becoming a part of the world. But until then…take a look:
Over at Let Grow we have a LESS THAN ONE-MINUTE video by professor/author/TV host Tim Caulfield on how to rationally determine if you should let your child walk to school. Check it out by clicking here!