Readers — What can I say? It’s as if our country — its administrators, regulators, insurance execs and many everyday folks — are in competition with each other. The game is, “Can you think of a way that X or Y is dangerous?” If you can’t, well, clearly you don’t care enough about safety. Don’t be surprised if you are snubbed at the playground/voted out/passed over for the big promotion. But if you are clever enough to come up with a way that X or Y could, conceivably, even once in a very very very long while hurt someone, well…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Folks! Recently a 9-year-old in New Zealand was abducted on his way home from school and found 90 minutes later, abandoned on a bridge. This piece of reporting from the Timaru Herald AND the reactions of everyone in it, including police and principals, remind me there is sanity out there, if only we choose to hang onto it, instead of leaping straight into panic and over-reaction. I’ll put the beginning of the article here. This link will take you to the rest. This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for the resilience woven into us, and the ability to recognize and honor…
Hi Readers — Remember the Military-Industrial Complex? You should, because it’s still around. But now it’s time to consider a new one: the Hysteria-Bureaucracy Complex, whereby any and every potential danger triggers hysteria and bureaucratic intervention, especially when that “danger” has to do with children. To illustrate this, allow me to introduce an article from the Courier Mail in Australia. (Australia SEEMS like it would be the land of cocky kids wrestling crocodiles in the classroom. It’s not.) The article says that schools down under are now required to conduct a safety assessment of all potentially dangerous activities. But as…
Hi Readers! The librarian who wrote the letter below is very angry at us, thanks to a couple of misconceptions about what it means to raise a Free-Range Kid. Note to Librarian: We’re with you! We don’t want ill-behaved kids driving you crazy and putting themselves in danger. Thankfully, “Free-Range” does not mean neglect. It means assessing the world and our kids realistically. When (and only when) we feel we can trust both of them, we gradually give our kids more freedom. Free-Rangers do not believe in treating librarians as babysitters. We know you have a job to do…
Hi Folks! This post comes to us from England, where independent filmmaker David Bond is making a documentary about MARKETING nature. I like that idea because I’d like to do something similar: MARKET the happy, confident childhood kids can enjoy if parents “buy” the fact that it’s safe. If you have any more ideas on how to market EITHER of these lovely things — nature or Free-Ranging — let’s hear! And good luck to David with his film, Project Wild Thing! – L. Dear Free-Range Kids: Recently I came to a terrible realization. My kids, aged 3 and 5, are…
Hi Folks! Last week was a double-header media week for Free-Range Kids. First KTRK, the ABC affiliate in Houston, did a story on the movement and the reporter, Ilona Carson, totally got it: Our goal is not to put kids in danger, it’s to put danger in perspective. Wait’ll you see how Ilona wraps up the piece by comparing other childhood dangers to the chances of a kid being kidnapped. I never saw that on any news show before! Her piece is right below. Below that is an interview I did with Sun News TV in Canada about the mom…
Hi Readers! The post below this one is about a principal who chastised a mom for letting her 10-year-old daughter take the city bus to school. The daughter loves the bus and has made “people friends” (as opposed to “school kid friends”) on her daily commute. But the principal, as well as Child Protective Services, wanted to know why the mom would “choose” not to drive the girl. Here’s one comment the post got: My friend’s younger sister has Down’s Syndrome. She graduated high school at 21 and took a job about 10 miles from her home, which she shares…
Readers — This letter has me shaking with every unpleasant emotion: Rage, frustration and, sorry to admit this, contempt. It is a perfect snapshot of the way excessive fear for kids coupled with authority can turn parenting into a defensive art, where we must FIGHT for our right to raise kids the way we believe is safe and good. It comes to us from a mom named Anna who lives with her boyfriend, 10-year-old daughter and two cats in Rockville, MD. – L. Dear Free-Range Kids: There is something about school administrators that can make even the most accomplished adult…
Hi Folks! Here’s a letter from prison…er…Chuck E. Cheese, sent to us by Angelica Totten, who originally posted it on her Facebook page. I so agree that the policy at Chuck E’s is not only overkill, it’s cultural pollution, spreading the idea that predators are always lurking near kids and ready to kidnap them if we don’t maintain a police-state-like vigilance. – L. Dear Free-Range Kids: This culture of fear HAS to change. We are making ourselves into crazy people. Went to Chuck E. Cheese for the first time ever and it wasn’t as bad as I’ve always heard (although…
Hi Readers — Here’s a story getting a lot of attention, for what I think are good reasons. As reported in today’s Toronto Star: A York Region mother is fighting to have oak trees removed near her child’s school, fearing that acorns could pose a deadly threat to students with severe allergies. Donna Giustizia said the young trees on property owned by the City of Vaughan next to the St. Stephen Catholic Elementary School are littering the area with acorns. The school, meanwhile, is nut-free to protect students with potentially life-threatening anaphylactic allergies. “A false sense of security is putting…