Hi Readers! I just wanted to call your attention to this amazing piece in Slate by Emily Bazelon. It’s titled, “Are Innocent Parents Being Prosecuted for Killing Their Babies?” And the subtitle is: “The Doctor Who Came Up With ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome’ Thinks So.” The gist of the piece is that the symptoms doctors automatically used to assume indicated abuse may sometimes be the result of natural causes. The Free-Range angle for me is that while we have become sensitive to child abuse — which is good — sometimes we now go overboard and see it when it’s not there.…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers: The letter below brings things full circle for me. While I have been interested in the way we underestimate kids and overestimate danger for a while now, I have been interested for even LONGER in the way decent people become trained not to use their brains or hearts. Eventually they come to think this is the RIGHT way to act. I think it is WRONG WRONG WRONG. And also: WRONG.- L. Dear Free-Range Kids: Today I was at baseball practice with my older sons when my 3-year old said, “I gotta poop!!!” I could tell by the look…
Hi Folks! I found this story fascinating, in how starkly it prioritizes our fears. — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: I recently had a conversation with a firefighter that stopped me in my tracks and I wanted to share it with you. I was writing a story about how to do a home fire drill for our local paper. Here’s my article. For the story, a firefighter came to my home and taught us about fire safety and even helped us conduct our own fire drill. In the course of interviewing him, I asked him about the red reflective circles that…
Hi Folks! Here’s an excerpt from an essay in The Houston Chronicle by 90 year old Leon Hale. He is pondering a personal “test” — driving his pick up around the downtown loop — to make sure he’s still in fine fettle. He feels good, his eyes are good, his writing is great so — why not? But his friends are less encouraging: Those who want me to quit the test say, “What if you get rear-ended by an 18-wheeler? What if you had a flat tire going over the Ship Channel Bridge? What if a dog ran out on…
Hi Folks! This jacket was recalled because it is coated in e-coli, contains a colony of venomous spiders in the left pocket, and was woven from the fur of rabid jackals. Oh, wait…no. It says here on the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s website that it was recalled because its elastic waistband has “a toggle that could become snagged or caught in small spaces or doorways, which poses an entrapment hazard to children.” Nice to know we are being protected from the terrible toggles! – L
Hey Readers!! Here’s great news! The school in Davidson, N.C., that had suddenly prohibited fifth graders from leaving the school on Fridays to walk down to the village green has reversed itself! On Friday, even as a big bunch of kids and some parents marched to “Occupy the Green,” the new principal (not the one who imagined the kids meeting up with internet predators) declared that parents need only sign a waiver absolving the school of any liability and — they’re off! If a slightly obsessive, overkill waiver is what it takes to give kids back the best part of…
Hi Readers! In a post earlier this week we were discussing a great tradition: Fifth graders in Davidson, N.C., who leave school on Friday afternoons and proceed to the town green for an an afternoon of just being kids. This was abruptly declared “unsafe” and ended. Here’s why, according to Davidsonnews.net: Ms. Nivens [the interim principal] said she thinks fifth graders are too young to be allowed outside home or school without an adult. “Even though it is not a school-sponsored activity, the school still is perceived as encouraging children to be unaccompanied … and to be unsupervised,” she said.…
Hi Readers: In our quest to make childrearing ever more worry-and-labor intensive, I submit the newest wrinkle. – L. Dear Free-Range Kids: My children go to a wonderful daycare center that is part of a franchise. While the center is owned by a local couple, they are part of a greater organization and subject to their rules. Earlier this week, we received a notice that the infants would no longer be allowed any type of blanket (previously, lightweight receiving blankets were allowed), and they would not at all be allowed to sleep in any kind of bouncy seat or swing.…
Hi Readers! The other day my brother-in-law asked me if I ever got really “down” about our culture. I told him that usually I don’t — I get so mad about ridiculous rules and outlandish fears that I just blog in a blind fury and feel better. But this story, sent by the folks at Kaboom, actually feels like lead in my soul. It’s about how yet another long-standing, joyous tradition — 100 unsupervised fifth graders frolicking outside on Friday afternoons — has suddenly been axed. Why? Oh, the usual, spanking new “safety” concerns. Sort of like the coffee ban…
Hi Readers! Here’s one to get your blood (and water) boiling, direct from The Mirror, in England. – L. Mums have been told they cannot have a cup of coffee while looking after their toddlers at a children’s centre — because it’s against health and safety rules. Council officers told the group to change its name from Coffee and Play to Baby Play — and swap biscuits for fruit and breadsticks as snacks — because it’s against health and safety rules. No children have been hurt in the five years the group has been running but the council said hot…