Readers — I just got off the phone with a mom in Pennsylvania whose tiny school district has allotted 0,000 for new security measures without even knowing what it will spend the money on. This district dropped about 10% of its teachers last year for lack of funding, but it is so freaked out by Sandy Hook that it is happy to throw cash at security companies. Here we witness a classic case of fear freezing the brain. When we’re scared we demand a solution NOW! This MINUTE! Without thinking about which measures — if any — make the most…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers! There’s the boogey man and then there’s the ice cream man. But thanks to a country suffused with predator panic, the two are fused together like the twin sticks of a Popsicle. It’s the same if you are guy and you want to work in day care, or as a birthday party clown, or even as a Cub Scout leader: everyone gives you the extra once over. God forbid an adult male likes being around kids! In our society, we’ve been conditioned into distrusting that. Hence, this zinsynheek latest proposal: Earning the right to sell ice cream or…
Readers — This is the continuing story of the 6-year-old detained by the cops for walking outside. It is disturbing and distressing. The family needs pro bono legal help. If any of you are lawyers or know someone who can help, please let me know and I will forward the info to the family. Remember: I am posting this story NOT because it is common and we should all worry about being hounded by CPS if we let our kids go outside. I am posting it in utter outrage at the idea that a child on her own could be…
Readers — As many of you know, when I’m not busy posting, I am often off to give a keynote. It’s how I make my living. (Not by blogging? No. Not by blogging.) I’ve spoken everywhere from Microsoft, to the Sydney Opera House, to the Yale Child Study Center (twice!). In the next two months I’m off to conferences in Edmonton,Charlotte, Chicago, and Toronto. And in June? Bulgaria! (I do hope to see you there.) Audiences love the lectures and they laugh a ton. (See below below.) But they also seem to leave changed — less afraid, more hopeful, more…
Hi Folks! Below is just one part of a great, fun essay called “Parenting the Way Your Great Grandmother Would.” It’s by Margaret Ables, a comedy writer who has written for Celebrity Death Match and It’s a Big, Big World. She blogs at shortfatdictator.com (Facebook) and has appeared on ‘Steve Harvey’ discussing parenting/ family issues. She lives in L.A. with her husband and 3 kids under 5. – L SUPERVISING MY CHILDREN AS IF A RABID BEAR WERE LOOSE AT ALL TIMES IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD by Margaret Ables When my father was a young boy growing up in Brooklyn he…
Hey Readers — Here’s an 8-minute CBC (Canada’s public radio) interview with a mom who let her boys play in the local park and got the cops called on her. What I absolutely love about her is the fact she sounds like us! She just wants the kids to have some free time to play. Apparently the nervous onlooker called the police after overhearing one of the kids say he was thirsty, and the other one reminded him, “Mom doesn’t want us back for another half hour.” The onlooker smelled ABUSE! But as the mom oh-so-beautifully explained to the radio…
Hi Readers — Here’s a story from this scary, scary Easter season that I’m reprinting in full from NBCPhiladelphia.com, (with some commentary): WOMAN TRIES TO GIVE CANDY TO KID: POLICE Police are on the search for a woman who tried to give candy to a child Friday evening along a quiet residential road. [HOW DARE SHE?] A neighbor on Berkshire Road in Erial, N.J. approached the woman after she offered candy to a 7-year-old boy around 6:30 pm., according to Gloucester Township Police. [WHAT A PERVERT! OR…WHAT A NICE LADY. BUT STILL.] The neighbor told the kid to go…
Hi folks! Our Sunday reading comes to us from far away — Hyderabad, India. It’s by Stephanie Smith Diamond who writes, runs, and studies for her master’s degree in political science there. She blogs at Where in the World Am I? — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: I recently came across your blog and read your book. I’d heard of your son riding the subway alone a couple years ago and didn’t know what the big deal was. I felt like mainstream media didn’t give the audience the entire story. If your son was raised in the city and was used…
Hi Folks! This comes to us from Heather Shumaker, author of It’s OK Not to Share — And Other Renegade Rules for Raising Competent and Compassionate Kids (Tarcher/ Penguin, 2012), which was named one of the Best Parenting Books of 2012 by Parents magazine. She’s a speaker, blogger and advocate for free play and no homework for young children who lives in northern Michigan with her family. She blogs at www.heathershumaker.com. Take it away, Heather! – L Ban Chairs — Not Tag, by Heather Shumaker Why roughhousing prepares kids better for life and school than a life of…
Readers — This came in response to the post about a mom who let her 7-year-old sit out on their front stoop for a short time and the husband declared this “bad parenting!” Sometimes our society expects so little from kids in terms of competence, helpfulness and general responsibility, it’s nice to zoom out a little and remember not everyone “loves” their kids so much they never ask those kids for real help. – L. Dear Free-Range Kids: Oh, and just for another bit of perspective, my husband (who did NOT grow up in the USA) at 7 years old…