Hi nekzradadn Readers: From today’s mailbox, an intriguing little piece. – L. . Dear Free-Range Kids: I have two boys — 6 and 8 — and am learning about letting go. Can I talk about a “What If?” a little in reverse? . I took the stupid netting off my kids trampoline because I thought it was making them complacent about how to jump safely. The net was always there to stop them from learning. . A month ago my boys and a friend were all jumping and the friend decided he would push my older son off the trampoline…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers — One of the biggest frustrations in Free-Ranging is dealing with other people’s “What If?” fears. Why? Because they can never be answered! If a parent starts worrying about, “What if X, Y or Z happens while my child is doing…” anything, there is no way to say, “Don’t worry, it won’t.” Because, of course, something bad always COULD possibly happen. “What if??” doesn’t take into account probability, or even reality. It just builds big, bright, horrible possibilities and projects them, Power Point-like, into the conversation: “Ha! You tell me not to worry, but LOOK at this! This…
Readers — I gotta go cook a turkey, but meantime, look at this. The REASON this Cleveland elementary school is making Chapstick contraband is that kids might SHARE it: Parents were afraid that children would share the Chapstick and spread germs,” [schools spokeswoman] Sessoms said. “By requiring written permission from the parents, parents would be aware that their children had Chapstick and would be able to remind them not to share it with other children. This would also be a way for teachers to be aware so that they could deter students from sharing it with others.” For this same…
Hi Readers — A bunch of you pointed to this story today and indeed, it’s pretty irresistible: A teacher sent a memo home to all sixth grade students saying the could NOT bring pencils to class. Furthermore “… any students caught with pencils or pens after Nov. 15 would face disciplinary action for having materials ‘to build weapons.'” The higher-ups at school later said the teacher was not authorized to send home this note. (Then they took her out back and shot her with a Ticonderoga #2.) — Lenore
Hi Readers! This is such a disturbing story. A Scottish boy who was 10 was painting scenery on the ground for a school play back in 2003 when one of the other painters got up, bumping into him. This caused him to fall on another student’s paintbrush, which — this is so horrible — pierced him through the eye, causing blindness in the eye and brain damage. Now a court has ruled that the teachers at the school should have “foreseen” that such an event was, if not likely, at least POSSIBLE. Wrote the judge: When one looks at the…
Hi Readers: Or rather, a belated HELLO! I am so sorry I totally missed alerting us all to World Hello Day on the 21st– a day when we are all exhorted to greet 10 different people. This reminds them and ourselves that most people are pretty good, and that talking beats fighting. Also that everyone is better off when we are greeting each other, rather than, say, sneering or snorting or staring with ill-concealed suspicion. So why not make this long Thanksgiving weekend a Hello Weekend? And yes, that means even saying a kindly hello to the folks you see…
Hi Readers! Well, it’s not that I want to see MORE Worst-First thinking out there. I’m just looking for examples of it — examples of incidents when people, confronted by normal behavior (like the kindergarteners in the post below this one) AUTOMATICALLY interpret it in the WORST way FIRST. E.g, “This is perverted!” rather than, “This is probably quite normal.” The most salient example I have of this I may have already told you about. A young man at a grocery store passed a mom and a kid in an aisle and waved at the child. Nice. He happened upon…
Hi Readers — Got this note and had to vent. I am SO SICK of everyone thinking of everything in terms of perversion. It is a perverted way to think!! Here goes. — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: This isn’t strictly a Free-Range issue perhaps, but it illustrates the nonsensical trend of treating inappropriate but harmless behavior with fear and suspicion. The following is a quote from the training module that every parent who wishes to volunteer at our school must endure, even simply to serve cupcakes to a class. The policy of requiring training and background checks on all…
To be filed under: Coming To, What the World Is:
Hi Readers — Those clever folks at KaBoom, the playground people, have created a “virtual funeral” for the swingsets of West Virginia’s Cabell County. The sets died an unnatural death, after a painful lawsuit brought by the parents of a boy who broke his arm jumping off a swing. In a response worthy of Greek tragedy, the county responded by murdering all its swings. They will be missed. — L. Pictured here: A child in hideous danger.