Author: lskenazy

Hi Readers — This is less about a society than gone crazy than something that drives ME crazy: Power in the hands of people without brains. This particular incident involves a family at a festival in Sydney, Australia. The dad hoisted his not-quite-2-year-old onto his shoulders to get a better look. A guard told him to put the child down — she was in too much danger. After all, WHAT IF the dad got knocked to the ground (as so many parents do at family festivals)? The child would be hurt! Then a gang of guards surrounded the dad to…

Hi Readers! To get the blood flowing this Monday morn: Dear Free-Range Kids: I got a random issue of a parenting magazine in the mail. I don’t subscribe, but I guess it’s a teaser issue to try to drag me in. There’s a Q&A feature in which a mother asked if it was okay to leave her 2.5-year-old in the living room watching a movie while she put her infant down for the night, which involves nursing the baby to sleep in another room.   (From my experience, this is usually a 15 minute task, 30 minutes, max.) The response…

Hi Readers — The following is so bizarre, all I can say is, “Wow! The following is so bizarre!” Here goes: Dear Free Range Kids: Here’s a  letter from the superintendent that was sent home from school with my kids last night: Beginning around 11 a.m. today, our entire campus was put under “lockout” due to a break-in at a residential home near our campus. Through the efforts of the Niagara County Sheriff’s department, Lewiston Police and local residents, the suspect was apprehended near Cain Road, in Youngstown, around 12:45 p.m. We applaud the efforts of our law enforcement agencies…

Hi Readers — Here’s a letter I couldn’t answer. Can any of you? If so, please do! L. Dear Free-Range Kids: Regarding, “No More Playing in the Dark, Kids.” What would be helpful to know, is how we — parents, scout leaders, teachers and other carers of children — can find ways around this. For example: *Are disclaimers needed to be signed by parents and children? *Can leaders do spur-of-the-moment activities or must every thing be risk assessed in advance? I’m all for a little spontaneity. The Telegraph article is sparse on the details. I’d like to know precisely why…

Readers — Did you hear about the New Year’s Eve discovery of a supernova by a 10-year-old? Pretty cool. That inspired Mental Floss — one of the best-loved magazines at our house — to come up with a list of “10 Amazing Discoveries by Kids.” Having dreamed of becoming an archeologist (my book is dedicated to the teacher who took us junior high kids on a real dig), I was particularly envious of the 9-year-old who found one of the world’s most intact skeletons ever — of a boy 2 million years older than him. What’s more: right next to…

Hi Readers — Just a little day brightener from the Free-Range Front. L. Dear Free-Range Kids — I have a parenting theory: I never do for a child what that child can do for himself.   For the past few months I’ve given my three-year-old daughter my library card and stood a few feet behind her while she checks out her books in the children’s section of the library.   This morning I decided to take it a step further.  I gave her my card and told her to go check out her books on her own. (I did tell…

Hi Readers! Jeffrey Goldberg penned this pretty darn perfect bit of advice in a column called, “What’s Your Problem?” in the current issue of The Atlantic. Here’s the question: Ever since our first child was born, I have slept very poorly. When I close my eyes, my mind becomes crowded with worries. I worry about my kids’ safety, their future, college education, happiness, just about anything you could think of. Is there anything I can do to put my mind at ease? N.E., Atlanta, Ga. Dear N.E., Alas, no. You are suffering from an incurable disease called parenthood. The birth…

Hi Readers: Here are some excerpts from a discussion going on — the kind of discussion we can all undertake, when we come face to face with the safety “advice”  that only makes people more scared.  The tips that begin this exchange (vastly edited down, by me) were posted on a PTA list serve by a police department’s “safety expert.” Here goes: [FROM THE LOCAL POLICE DEPARTMENT] TO ALL: If you are a parent, you are certainly concerned about the increasing amount of criminal activity directed against children of all ages. From assaults, molestation and kidnapping of very young children,…

Hi Readers! Remember this story — about the mom whose neighbors called the police because they saw her three children playing outside, unattended? That sort of epitomized my fears for our country: Busybodies AND the authorities meddling in normal  childhood, as if it’s too dangerous. This new note from the mom gives me great heart. Let’s hope it bodes well for 2011! — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: All week I have been wanting to write to you. Fortunately, this time, with good news! It has been a year since you posted my story regarding the police telling me my kids…

Hi Readers: This one will make your blood boil even if it’s freezing outside. It’s about a North Carolina high school senior suspended for a paring knife found in her lunchbox, which, for the record, was actually her dad’s identical lunchbox that she brought to school by mistake. (Dad pares his apples at lunch, his daughter doesn’t.) Sometimes I worry that by printing these weird Zero Tolerance stories — stories of kids suspended for the most innocent of “crimes” — I am giving as warped a picture of our culture as the nightly news does. (Albeit, with a different slant.)…