Hi Readers! Have you noticed that study abroad programs are becoming very common at college? (Is this as obvious as saying, “Have you noticed kids spend a lot of time on Facebook?” If so, sorry. It’s just a jumping off point.) Anyway, while traveling strikes me as great — we can all use some perspective! — I’m nonetheless a little skeptical about the programs. They seem both more expensive and less immersive than simply taking a semester or two off and heading over to the country of one’s interest. With that thought nagging at my mind, I stumbled upon this…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers — I love and agree with the post below so much. It comes to us from the blog Life as an Adverb by the gal whose last name IS one: Bonnie Overly. — L. KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE GOAL (AND TAKE THEM OFF YOUR KIDS ONCE IN A WHILE) by Bonnie Overly Sometimes I feel like I must be from an alternate universe. I was reminded of this when a recent discussion at church turned to how we, as women, focus so much time and energy on our children that we never do anything for ourselves.…
Readers — Below is an excerpt from a 2011 interview with University of Toronto criminologist Scot Wortley (just sent to me), whom I now consider a genius. He is so clear and smart about why, despite Canada’s homicide rate hitting a 44-year low, most people feel LESS safe, a discrepancy that daily constantly confounds me. The interviewer is Jenny Hall: Why does it feel like it’s less safe than ever out there? This is one of the interesting things that we as criminologists are often asked to explain. We just recently did a survey in Toronto. We asked “do…
Readers: This article is one of the best things I’ve ever read about our increasingly cruel, counter-productive sex offender laws — laws in place because of excess fear and excess pandering when it comes to our kids. It appears in City Pages, a Twin Cities alternative newsweekly, and focuses on Patty Wetterling, whose 11-year-old son Jacob was abducted by a stranger in a small Minnesota town in 1989 and never found. Wetterling went on to lobby successfully for the first national sex offender legislation, but two decades of learning the facts about child safety and sexual abuse has changed her…
Readers — We all want some sensible safety precautions taken in schools, but as far as I can tell they were all in place about 50 years ago and don’t really need to get more persnickety. But just as something there is that loves a wall, something there is that loves another layer of excess precaution, bureaucracy and catastrophizing Hence, this note from a kindergarten teacher in Wisconsin: Dear Free-Range Kids: This school year, we had lots of warnings from our administration and our custodial staff that we needed to be in compliance with this: We are not allowed to…
Hey Readers — Just a little note about how kids surprise us all the time, when we let them. – L. . Dear Lenore: Just heard you on the CBC (Canada’s NPR). Here’s my anecdote of awareness: . Concerned for my Grade 6 (age 11) daughter’s safety, I insisted on her holding my hand to cross any street. At the same time, I arranged for her to participate in a class trip to Japan, where 10 girls from her school would spend two weeks. Each pair of girls was billeted with two families for 5-day periods. When she returned, the…
Readers — I’m not going to make this a long post, because the craziness is pretty obvious and I think there will be an uproar against it. Suffice to say some Maryland schools have outlawed (at least for the moment) hugs, homemade cupcakes and parent volunteers pushing any child other than their own on the swings. All in the name of…well, guess. Fear addles the mind and it REALLY addles school administrations. They respond with something like superstition, the way you wheedle with God when you’re afraid: “If we outlaw everything decent and fun, will you please keep our kids…
Hey Readers — As I prepare to speak Thursday night as kickoff for the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood’s conference in Boston (public invited!), here’s some toy research I can get behind. It comes to us by way of Fred Schueler & Aleta Karstad, who describe themselves as an “unemployable naturalist couple, whose unschooled daughter and her friends were designated the ‘Free-Range girls’ in the mid-1990s.” This study was conducted on their grandson. You can read about the family’s Free-Range exploration of Canada here. — L. MANUFACTURED TOYS USELESS, RESEARCH FINDS Bishops Mills, Ontario. 22 Dec 2012. A recently released…
Hi Folks – A reader named Jaimie sent in this story, noting that “These kids wouldn’t have been able to help if they weren’t outside, or if they were afraid to talk to a woman they didn’t know!” What happened? An Atlanta-area mom named Susanna Rohm was in her living room when she noticed her baby wasn’t breathing. Out of her mind with terror, she started screaming for help! And then — “We were outside playing football and somebody yelled call 911,” said Rocky Hurt, 9 years old, and Ethan Wilson, 10 years old. They helped save the life of…
Readers — Normally I don’t reprint whole stories from sites. Bad internet etiquette. BUT this story is so strange in its entirety, here goes: Scary false alarm puts Primrose School of Barker Cypress in lockdown by Tiffany Craig / KHOU 11 News CYPRESS, Texas — A mother got quite the scare after she saw a suspicious man in her children’s school parking lot. “There’s no words to describe it,” said Sarah Atchison. “It’s the biggest nightmare of my life.” [LENORE NOTE: HERE WE GO.] Atchison said it started when she dropped her 2- and 4-year-olds off at Primrose School of…