Hi Readers! Wondering what’s happening at your local schools, vis a vis more security. My older son’s high school is conducting a lockdown drill today, my younger son’s principal emailed home a comforting note but did not discuss any new procedures. One reader wrote: Dear Free-Range Kids: I’m wondering if anyone has contacted or is getting ready to contact their school/district about NOT implementing more security measures in light of Newtown? Our elementary school has been handling things fairly well in my opinion, but in response to (apparently) repeated questions, the principal sent out a message this afternoon saying that…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Folks — I know everyone’s obviously tense at the moment, but here’s a classic overreaction: When some boys were shooting a video of themselves acting out the body’s immune system using an umbrella, they were mistaken for psychopaths and the school went into lockdown. Kids hid and cried, parents careened to the school (and, thank God, didn’t run anyone over). Here’s the story. – L.
Hi Readers — Here’s an issue I truly want help figuring out. I just got a comment on the post below this one (which was about why the Sandy Hook shooting feels so close) from a reader very far away: All the way over here in Australia, this pain is just as raw. The faces of these darling children beaming are out from the front page of today’s paper. The pain is gut wrenching….it’s in my heart, it’s in my head, and it’s in my womb. It does not make me fearful to send my children to school, but…
Hi Readers — Here’s a piece I wrote for The Atlantic about the shooting. It’s not about gun control, it’s not about mental health services or the lack thereof. It’s about how living in modern, instantly connected times changes us, our reactions and our expectations. – L. A School Shooting in the Distance In the end there were 38 children dead at the school, two teachers and four other adults. I’m not talking about the horrific shooting in Connecticut today. I’m talking about the worst school murder in American history. It took place in Michigan, in 1927. A school…
Readers, my heart is like yours: Shattered. My perspective, however, may be a little different. It’s impossible not to feel afraid, sad, sickened and deeply pessimistic when something like this occurs. However, “something like this” — well, there aren’t a lot of somethings like this, and that’s a truth I am desperately trying to remind my heavy soul. It may feel like “school shootings happen all the time,” but they don’t. They are rarer than rare. They are as unpredictable as anything can be. And if today we find ourselves making a mental list, “Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook,” that’s…
Hi Folks! Here’s a mom who requests your help on one of the issues of the day: The out-sourcing of playground squabbles to parents. I DO believe in being tuned in our kids, and providing them with comfort, support, wisdom and discipline. But what happens when the world around us expects something else: minute-by-minute involvement? Got any great ideas for this mom? – L Dear Free Range Kids: I am trying to raise 5 Free-Range Kids. My oldest is 9 and in Grade Four. I am struggling with how to deal with “girl drama” issues in a Free-Range way.…
Hi Readers! Here’s a question I’d love you to weigh in on — as would the writer, Maya. (And — totally off topic but too cool for me not to mention is that when I saw Maya’s unusual last name I asked her if she could possibly be related to a woman who shared it named Marie who, about 70 years ago, was my father’s mentor, teaching him interior design in Chicago. So Maya went and found her husband’s family tree and there on one of the branches was his great aunt, born 1900, in the Chicago suburb of Evanston.…
And now, a new feature I think we’ll call the Liability Chronicles, chronicling the way insurance, lawsuits, lawyers and the fear of all three are changing the world. Starting with winter. We are the first generation of hominids to be scared to have normal winter fun. – L. Dear Free-Range Kids: Our local ski resort, Ski Granby Ranch, used to have this amazing sled hill which anybody of all ages could use. My husband and I would take our son there all the time over the winter. Well, this year they got rid of it, and here’s the response when…
Ah, readers, here’s a wild story of a busybody gone batty: Seeing a toddler left alone in a running car, some nut stole the car AND baby because he was “upset” with the dad for leaving the kid alone. But as the reader who sent this story to me, Michele, dryly noted: “It seems to me that the only person the child was in danger from was the guy who took him as a ‘lesson.'” The story is here. And while I don’t like the idea of a car with keys AND a kid in it, the dad most certainly…
Hey Readers — This came in as a comment to the post below this one, about a mom named Tara who wants to be Free-Range, but can’t help dark, scary thoughts taking over brain. It’s a reminder that even though we cannot protect our kids from everything bad, we can still move beyond the Rapunzel Option. – L. Dear Free-Range Kids: My only advice to Tara would be to prepare her children to be survivors instead of victims. No one has a crystal ball or any guarantees that nothing will happen to our children. The proverbial lightning…