So asks Matthew Laufenberg, the reader who sent in this photo from the wondrous Passive Aggressive Notes blog:
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers: Use this instead of coffee to get your heart pounding on a Monday morning: A tree house that has been delighting children in the Bondi neighborhood of Sydney, Australia, for six years could be torn down soon, says the Sydney Morning Herald: Made by a builder, the Bondi cubby has attracted complaints ranging from the suggestion that vagrants have moved in, that people come from other neighbourhoods and spoil the quiet of the street, that the structure is unsafe, that the tree harbours spiders, and that children are left to play unsupervised. Those against the treehouse are mostly…
Hi Readers — This is a column I wrote for Creators, my syndicate. (Feel free to ask your local paper to carry me every week!) Anyway, I wanted to make sure you saw this one, so here it is. Happy weekend! — L. NO CHILD LEFT OUTSIDE For almost a half-century, kids at the farm-based Moorestown Children’s School in New Jersey have spent a lot of their time stomping in the mud, running through the meadow and visiting the barn, blissfully oblivious to the danger in their midst. Trees. Oh, the child care inspectors don’t use that term. They call…
Hi Readers! Weirdly, this advice on friendliness comes from…Los Angeles.Yes, THAT Los Angeles. And in fact it was written by Amy Alkon, a.k.a., the Advice Goddess, who happens to have written an entire book on rudeness.. It’s even called “I See Rude People.” But apparently Amy also sees nice people, and if she can, by golly, so can we. This piece appeared in The L.A. Times. RUDE AWAKENING LOS ANGELES IS A STRANGEROPOLIS. BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO STAY THAT WAY by AMY ALKON Snapshot from Los Angeles, the place Travel + Leisure readers deemed the rudest city in America:…
Hi Readers! I’m hoping this California high school freshman gets to keep his tire swing swinging…but we shall see. You know why. — Lenore
Hi Readers: It’s weird, isn’t it, how something as remote as litigation ends up changing REAL, daily life? But it does. This note is just a great example of what happens when we see everything in terms of a court case down the road. — Lenore Dear Free-Range Kids: I live in the suburbs of DC — Frederick, MD to be exact, a lovely community that is rich in history. We have a fantastic “downtown” area that hosts lots of community and cultural arts events on a regular basis. Anyhooo, last Friday was their yearly “Fire & Ice” display. The…
Hi Readers — This comment, inspired by the previous post, gets to the heart of the matter for me: Connecting. Free-Range Kids is about giving kids freedom, of course, but delve a little deeper and it is about trust: Trusting our kids, our neighbors, ourselves. And the more we trust and connect, the more safe and powerful we are. The more we distrust and disconnect, the more we look to the fear-mongering marketplace or draconian laws or plain old demagogues to protect us. Personally, I prefer connecting. — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: I love delving into the sociology of our…
Hi Readers — Just as we were rejoicing about sanity across the sea (see below, regarding Britain’s re-evaluation of its excessive background checks), comes this story, from The Express: A MOTHER who left her son of 14 to mind his three-year-old brother while she went to the shops was given a police caution for “cruelty” and was suspended from work. …Although there was no “incident” and they were not believed to be in danger, the mother was cautioned by officers for “committing an act of cruelty on a child or young person.” You want cruelty? How about the cruelty of…
Hi Readers! This story is almost too exciting in its implications. England had been requiring background checks for anyone who had any contact with kids once week. (And the original proposal over there would have covered folks having any contact with kids once a MONTH. Sheesh!) The assumption, of course, was that predators are everywhere. Also, that predators all come with a rap sheet clearly labeled, “PREDATOR” and thus could be easily weeded out. The result? Any mom or dad who wanted to volunteer at school, or help out at Scouts, couldn’t do that unless they underwent “vetting.” But over…
Hi Readers — As a gal who is ALWAYS shivering, and wears a million layers, and did not particularly love recess back in my Chicago youth — but who has come to wholeheartedly endorse outdoor time now — I feel bad for the kids in this county: Dear Free-Range Kids: Question for you about outdoor/indoor recess policies. I live in Montgomery County, Maryland, where it is rarely below 25 degrees by the middle of the day. And yet, there are many days when the elementary school kids have “indoor recess” (which means that they sit in their classrooms). A friend…