Hey Readers — This just in: A community in Florida is prohibiting anyone under age 18 from going outside unchaperoned by an adult. Yep, just like in Taliban-held Afghanistan, except for “women must be accompanied by a male relative” over there, substitute “minors must be accompanied by their caregiver” over here. In Florida, the rule means: …no bike riding, no walking to the bus stop without an adult. Some parents say their kids are under house arrest. Ten-year-old Yousif Mehyer and his friends have been skateboarding and biking around their neighborhood for years. But for the past few weeks the…
Author: lskenazy
Readers! As we approach our third annual, “Take Our Children to the Park…And Leave Them There Day” (Saturday, May 19), this story is outrageous. Apparently a dad let his two kids, ages 6 and 9, play in a local suburban Pittsburgh park on Saturday morning for not quite two hours while he did some shopping and took a shower. That is, while he went about the tasks of everyday life. Meantime, a woman noticed this unusual thing: Kids playing without an adult around! That this fact was “disturbing” to an onlooker is what is so disturbing about our culture. For…
Hi Readers! There’s not much I have to add to this video except a preface: Watch it! Then show it to anyone who wonders why you’re letting your kids have some plain old chillin’ time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faIFNkdq96U
Hi Readers! This is the kind of story that makes me bite off little pieces of my own arm in frustration (almost. Ok, let’s just say it makes me nuts.) An elementary school in Toledo, Ohio sent home a note that said a stranger had been speaking to some of the students at a popular bakery on their way to school. According to this story on WTOL: The letter said, “The situation is now in the hands of the police. Fortunately for us today, all of our children are safe.” The letter also tells parents to remind their kids to…
Hi Readers! Sometimes I think back on the days of the Soviet Union, when the government would put political dissidents into insane asylums. From our side of the world, that seemed twisted: If you are punishing those against the regime, why not put them in a real prison? But over in the Soviet Union the scenario actually made some (twisted) sense, this way: Since the regime was NEVER going to change, anyone who thought it could or would was literally insane. Delusional! And so to the asylums they were sent. That gives me some (twisted again) hope for our own…
Hi Folks! One of the things I like to remember is that what we think of as “normal” is normal for HERE (America, in this case), and completely freakish to other cultures. Keep that in mind when somebody screams at you, “How DARE you let your child play on your front lawn?” or some such local nonsense. – L. Dear Free-Range Kids: My kids are Free-Range almost by accident. We were overseas for my first 7+ years of parenting, I didn’t watch CNN, and I had no idea how insane things had gotten in the US. I just raised my…
Hi Readers! One of the ways I spread the Free-Range Kids word is by giving talks around the country (and world — going to Australia at the end of the month). Two weeks ago I was doing this in Seattle where, for a romp at one of my speeches, I flipped through a parenting magazine, pointing out just how absurd so much of the “advice” is. For instance, in an article called “Bug Off,” all about how to “keep pesky insects from spoiling your summer,” the magazine said, “Sweat and body heat also bring on the bugs. Bathe the kids…
Fresh from the annals of, “What If?” and, “Worst-First” thinking comes this timely tidbit: Dear Free-Range Kids: Yesterday was Palm Sunday and at my church there’s a tradition that goes all the way back to my own preschool days of the little Sunday School kids leading a processional into the church waving palm branches and singing. They had always used either artificial plastic palm fronds or real ones if someone had some to donate and seeing the little ones waving their branches was always a highlight. Well, this year I waited eagerly for my three-year-old daughter to come in with…
Hi Readers! I get so many fascinating stories from you,both hopeful and horrifying, that I can’t blog about them all. BUT — I don’t want to see them go by the wayside either. So here’s a new feature: News items of the week. If you have a better name for this new feature, I clearly need it! Of course, if you are on Twitter, you may have seen my Tweets about these pieces already. (So follow me there! Check out the widget on the upper left of this screen.) Anyway, dig in! — L *Dismaying: Feature on waivers before kids…
Hi Folks! I read this Wall Street Journal article with gratitude and a little rage. It’s called, “Stop Panicking about Bullies: Childhood is safer than every before, but today’s parents need need to worry about something.” My gratitude comes from the fact the author, Nick Gillespie, bothers to figure out if we are really in the midst of a bullying crisis. Rage because it seems we are not — and yet here we are, once again, fearing for our children as if they are in danger like never before. Same way we newly fear for our children staying home alone,…