Even during this very strange year, the middle school counselors in Milburn, NJ, were seeing the same anxiety in kids that had been on the rise for seven or eight years before it. Kids were very worried, often about scholastic achievement. How could the counselors help them? They asked kids to go home and…help out around the house. Vacuum. Sweep. Wash the dishes. The results were wonderful. And that, frankly, is The Let Grow Project for you: giving kids some trust and responsibility, and watching it work its magic. Read about it — and see the kids — by clicking…
Author: lskenazy
As Let Grow works with five states on Free-Range Kids bills this session, some lawmakers remain skeptical that their state’s definition of neglect needs narrowing. But they do. Here is Let Grow’s map of all 50 states’ neglect laws. Unfortunately, 47 of them are so open-ended that too much is left to the discretion of everyone but the parent. That is undermining the independence of parents AND kids. Unless there is obvious danger that parents are consciously or recklessly ignoring, they should be the ones to decide when their kids are ready for some unsupervised time. Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma (today!),…
From an op-ed in yesterday’s Las Vegas Journal-Review by Nevada State Sen. Dallas Harris and Assemblywoman Alexis Hansen, titled, “Don’t Criminalize Childhood Independence.” Maybe we look like complete opposites. One of us is a gay, Black and a Democratic mom of one from Clark County. And one of us is a white, Republican and a mom of eight — grandmother of 20 — from Northern Nevada. But we are thrilled to be working together because we are in heated agreement when it comes to this: Kids have the right to some reasonable independence. And parents have the right to give…
This sad story is getting a lot of attention, which is great. A 24-year-old Youngstown, Ohio, mom was working her shift at a pizza parlor when someone alerted the cops to her kids, unsupervised, in their hotel room. When the cops knocked, the 10-year-old explained their mother would be home by 10. The cops then went and arrested the mom. She was thrown in jail. Basically…for being poor. Over at Let Grow I discuss the case, but I’d also highly recommend reading this piece by Let Grow’s legal consultant, Diane Redleaf, asking the authorities to stop mistaking poverty for neglect.…
Let Grow’s annual Think for Yourself Essay Contest asks high school students intriguing questions about the role of free speech and open-mindedness in their everyday lives, including: *When did you speak up — or not — knowing your view might be unpopular? *Was there a time you could have taken offense — but chose not to? *Write a thank you letter to a JERK you learned something from. First Prize is a $5000 scholarship. Three runners-up get $1000 each. For details and to enter, click here and hurry! Essays due March 31,…
To “future-proof” is to design a piece of software, or a subway, or almost anything else expensive and important, with an eye toward the future. You try to build in flexibility for whatever is coming ahead. For instance, when I was a kid, my grandfather still had a giant radio console with an empty square in it: That’s where the TV would go…if they ever invented TV. With the world leaping and tumbling ahead, wouldn’t it be great if we could future-proof our kids? Especially if we did it better than my grandfather’s radio thing? That’s what I discuss over…
For over a decade I’ve been thinking about how we got so scared for our kids — and how our kids got so scared of seemingly normal childhood activities. Enter John Piacentini, a Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA where he runs an entire program — CARES — dedicated to identifying and reversing anxiety in kids. He explained to me how anxiety works, and especially the role of “accommodation of anxiety” — letting kids avoid doing something that we don’t think is dangerous, but they regard with dread. You’ll find my Q&A with the good psychologist over at Let Grow, including…
“Stranger Danger” gets it SO WRONG that even the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is asking adults to stop teaching it to kids — or believing it themselves. Over at Let Grow today I discuss the enduring legacy of the evil stranger trope and what to teach kids instead. And as I point out: We all want kids to be safe, sound and loved. In a country where most molesting is not at the hands of a stranger and childhood anxiety, depression and obesity are spiking, it’s time for the safety OF our kids to give them back…
…turn a budding interest into an adult-led activity. It’s as simple as that. Over at Let Grow, we’ve got some more observations of what turns on a child’s curiosity and the modern way to accidentally turn it off. Click here to read Part 1 of How to Nurture Kids’ Curiosity.
Talk about a perfect analogy. Today at Let Grow, we discuss what happens when kids are raised, according to society’s demands, with adults who never let them fall or fail. And then shoo them off to adulthood. The author, Vanessa Elias, has several sound ideas for how to make the home a little more like the metaphorical woods. Great piece, and a great way to frame why it doesn’t make sense to never let our kids do much other than soccer and homework. Read it by clicking here. Photo from Unsplash by Benjamin Wong