Hi Folks! This just in: Homicide has dropped off the Top 15 causes of death in America. It’s been replaced by something called, “Pneumonitis,” an illness caused by people accidentally breathing food or liquid into their lungs — a problem most prevalent in folks over 75. In other words, it is one of the panoply of things that can finally kill us if we live a long, un-murdered life. There’s good news at the other end of the spectrum, too: Infant mortality has dropped to an all-time low of 6.14 deaths per 1000 births. Read that again: all time low.…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers! I thought the analogy about overreacting, below, was great, which is why I’m posting it here. I have also long sensed a connection between overprotecting our kids from “strangers” and overprotecting their bodies from “strangers” — i.e., germs. Either way, kids get one single, isolating message: “Anything beyond your immediate circle (of bacteria or people) is bad. Resist all attempts at connecting.” Feh. — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: Loved this comment [on the Build-An-Adorable Choking Hazard post] : “Which is why I am always going crazy.” Exactly. As if parenthood isn’t demanding enough, now we have to consider…
Hi Readers — Here’s an incredible report on how the “School to prison pipeline” plays out in Texas, as published in The Guardian: In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 “Class C misdemeanour” tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time. What was once handled with a telling-off by the teacher or a call to parents can now result in arrest and a record that may cost a young person a place in college or a job years later. The other…
Hi Readers — Enjoy! (And just don’t ask if I get MY kids, aged 13 and 15, to do all this stuff. Wish I did!) — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: I just had a great `Free-Range’ moment! I regularly get my kids (5 and 7) to do chores around the house, unloading/loading the dishwasher, laundry sorting/loading/folding, vacuuming, etc. Today my son cut his finger while unloading the dishwasher at my mom’s house. It was on one of those huge chef knives and it went pretty deep so I make the trip to the ER since I didn’t know where Urgent…
Hi Readers! Here’s a nice piece from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation — Canada’s PBS) about Free-Ranging, Slow Parenting and my show. It’s about 12 minutes long. If I could figure out how to embed the video right here, you know I would. But I can’t, so click away! And in more TV news, this just in, from a reader in England: World’s Worst Mom starts airing in the UK on Monday 9 January on Real Time (Sky 240, Virgin 271) at 10pm (22:00). That’s tonight! Cool! L. UPDATE! Thanks to a reader named Gustavo, now I have an embeddable…
Hi Folks! As a reader named Michele wrote to me last week, “2011 wouldn’t quite be complete without wrapping up the year with another recall for the safety of our children!” She was referring to the recall of a mere 300,000 “Colorful Hearts Teddy” Build-a-Bears because the material they’re made of is “sub standard,” and hence COULD rip, and if it did, the eyes COULD fall out, and these, in turn, COULD pose a choking hazard. That’s a lot of “coulds,” and the Consumer Product Safety Commission notes on its website that it has heard of no incidents or injuries.…
Hi Readers! Here’s my Wall Street Journal oped from last week. Enjoy! (Or whatever.) — L. Perhaps 2011 will be recalled as the year that a toddler accidentally got served an alcoholic drink at a Michigan Applebee’s. Not the biggest news this year, but the fact that it was a national story at all shows we can’t seem to tell the difference between one stupid accident and a terrifying trend that we must do something about immediately! The Applebee’s saga, back in April, was just this: Some waiter grabbed a mislabeled container and poured the 15-month-old a very potent cup…
Dear Readers: As the new year begins, I’m looking back on things I meant to comment on and here’s a piece from November that gets my goat. It’s an essay by a mom who declares she would like to be more of a Free-Range parent, but she simply cannot. How come? Because she recently heard the story of an elementary school principal in some city not her own, who secretly videotaped boys using the bathroom. Now, this sounds like a disturbed and disturbing guy. Yecch. But the mom strikes me as disturbed as well. She seems to be saying that…
Hi Readers — I’m sharing this reader’s story because I like to remind us, from time to time, that the intense fear of our kids being beyond our sight, doing ANYTHING on their own, is not just “normal parental concern” kicking in. It is NEW. It is born of this era. (I explain how it came about in my book). And, just like the fear of neighbors-as-witches in Salem, some day it will seem weird and inexplicable. I’m just hoping to hasten that day. And here’s a note from a reader in Florida that may help! — L. Dear Free-Range…
Readers — As we enter 2012, there is cause for hope, as this article shows. Legislators in Colorado, home to the Columbine massacre, are taking a new and rational look at their zero tolerance laws. These are laws that REQUIRED schools to act brainlessly and not distinguish between, say, a wooden replica of a rifle and a smoking AK47. Laws that told school administrators they’d be WRONG to treat a butter knife as a butter knife rather than as a deadly weapon. According to the website TimesCall.com: A legislative committee moved forward with a proposal that seeks to give education…