Becky Diamond is a reporter who has spent years and years in actual war zones. But now she’s really scared. She’s worried about what is happening to childhood. The scheduling, supervising, intervening, optimizing — and the psychological issues those can engender. So she wrote a letter to her son reminding him — and herself — that resilience is a muscle that you need to build. The building begins in childhood. When you’re trusted to roll with some punches, it doesn’t really matter whether you pop back up or pause to lick some wounds, because either way you have gotten a…
Author: lskenazy
When you feel ready to let your kid use a sharp knife, or bike around the neighborhood, or go on a stone-cold, old-fashioned, Nerf and Sprite-fueled playdate, you might want to have the wind at your back — that is, some other parents cheering you on, or helping you let go, or simply eager to learn from your liberation. Where are those folks? They gather at “Raising Independent Kids,” Let Grow’s Facebook Group. As I explain on the Let Grow blog: After a mom “confessed” that she was scared to let her 5-year-old use a knife, but then thrilled when…
Harriet the Spy. Encyclopedia Brown. Meg and brother Charles Wallace, Ramona, Beezus, Pippi, and that My Side of the Mountain Kid (what WAS his name?). They all shared something other than spunk. Freedom. Freedom of movement was a given in mid-century children’s literature. Of course the kids starring in books did more than most of their human peers. They solved crimes, befriended beavers, saved parents stuck in other dimensions. But the NORMAL stuff they did — hopping on their bikes, walking into town, playing outside — THAT has become almost as mythic as the ability to fly or cast spells.…
Gym teachers don’t have to have kids doing specific sports or skills all the time. When P.E. teacher David Benay decided to devote some class time to free play, outside, he was amazed by how active his students were, and how many lessons — physical and social — they were getting. When a tiny game of Capture the Flag organically grew to 23 kids, Benay noted that the students: …used their knowledge and understanding to organize the game. They showed great confidence and motivation to become the needed leaders at the time. Lastly, the students showed their physical competence and…
“I think this school is making a mistake,” tweeted Jonathan Haidt, co-author of “The Coddling of the American Mind.” What school? The Hackney New School in London that I write about over at Let Grow. (Click here to read.) “A school without bullying sounds like a utopia, but it is achievable,” Hackney’s head of school announced. But the way she eliminated bullying was by replacing recess with geography quizzes and poetry recitations. “We want every second at school to count.” I’m sure the kids are counting the seconds, too. As Haidt, a co-founder of Let Grow, put it in his…
Hi! I’m Lenore, the gal who let her 9-year-old ride the subway alone, wrote a column about it, got slammed in the media and labeled “America’s Worst Mom.” I started this blog to explain that I LOVE safety — helmets, seatbelts, mouthguards — but don’t believe kids need a security detail every time they leave the house. Lots has changed since that spring weekend in 2008. Parents and educators are starting to worry about the disappearance of childhood free time. Psychologists are studying the crucial role of free play. This year Oklahoma and Texas passed laws inspired by the Free-Range…
It’s not just that Oklahoma State Rep. Chad Caldwell (R) and Rep. Jacob Rosecrants (D) both believe parents shouldn’t be arrested or investigated for letting their kids have some “reasonable independence.” It’s that they both remember their OWN reasonable independence — and are grateful for what that freedom made them into. Read about the way childhood (especially play time) influences us for life, by clicking here to go to Let Grow. Photo by Annie Spratt (she is the absolute BEST!) on Unsplash
A 10-year-old boy picked up from his Chicago public school seven minutes late triggered a call from the school to the Department of Child and Family Services. Fortunately, the school community has rallied around the mom and son, writing a letter to the CEO of the Chicago Public School system saying that, “We do not think it is reasonable to equate being late for pickup, in isolation, with child neglect.” Let’s narrow those neglect laws so they can’t be triggered by the blips inevitable in any family’s life — including a late pickup on the second day of in person…
A dad takes his daughter for a walk in the rain and a passing van thinks he is tormenting her. Called to the scene of the “crime,” the cops back the dad — but the folks in the van don’t take, “Everything’s fine” for an answer. The dad’s story and our take on it are over at Let Grow. Click here! Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash
How does it feel? Read my thoughts (as it were!) over at Let Grow. Click here! And think about the fact that when China makes its students wear uniforms that track what time they arrive at school, whether they are snoozing in class, and where they go when they go home, we understandably feel this is creepy. But is America so different? It’s not the government tracking kids, per se. But we parents do a lot of it, as do schools. What does this portend? Photo by Parker Coffman on Unsplash