Hi Readers! This just in from the middle of the country, where delusional do-gooders dwell: Dear Free-Range Kids: Greetings! I live in Lincoln NE, which is a fairly level headed community for the most part. I was reminded of this yet again recently with an incident involving my wife… Parking is nuts at our school (a good reason to walk), so one day my wife didn’t get there in time to get a good parking spot. She had to park somewhere else besides “the usual,” which ended up being in a drive up lane right in front of a play…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Folks! Yes, Wednesday is the day for kids to do what they used to do without it requiring a special event. And let’s hope your school signs on without all the shenanigans of my friend’s school. There, any parent who wants to help out by, say, acting as a crossing guard, must first undergo a background check. Because obviously volunteering for a single day, outside, and molestation go hand in hand. Also: While her school is ENCOURAGING “Walk to School Wednesdays” it is FORBIDDING Walk to School Monday, Tuesday, Thursday or Fridays. That’s right. Kids along the bus route…
Hi Readers! My friend and inspiration, Gever Tulley, just got this GREAT write up in The New York Times by the lyrical Lawrence Downes. Allow me to lift it in full: Playing With Fire By LAWRENCE DOWNES Rearing a child is already a journey through self-doubt and guilt, and now here comes Gever Tulley to say we’re doing it wrong, and that what we really need to do is hand our young ones power tools and let them lick nine-volt batteries. Mr. Tulley is a pedagogical theorist, though not an academic one. He wrote a book, soon to be out…
Hi New Yorkers! Today — Sunday, Oct. 3 — is the “Ultimate Block Party” at the bandshell area in Central Park, from 11 till 5 (enter at 72nd and 5th). I know it sounds a little strange to say there will be booths and volunteers teaching kids about things as simple as playing “store,” or making music with pots and pans. But let’s give credit to the organizers, a group called Play for Tomorrow. Their goal is a noble one: to bring old-fashioned play back into the lives of kids. In their own words: In 2009, a small group of…
Hi Readers — This story makes me sad and sick but it doesn’t surprise me. The same thing is happening at playgrounds: No adults are allowed without a kid — as if every adult who LIKES or even LOVES kids must also want to MOLEST them. Good ol’ “worst first” thinking. Anyway, here’s the latest: Dear Free-Range Kids: Thought you might be interested in what happened to me today. My husband and I had some appointments and arranged to meet afterwards at the recently renovated Cambridge Public Library. I had brought my laptop and my husband some paperwork, and we…
Hi Readers! The Australian media have been very keen on the Free-Range Kids story. I’ve done more than a dozen TV, radio and print interviews so far, but it wasn’t until this morning, when I was on a drive-time radio talk show, that I finally heard the words: “Oh, I could never let my child out of my sight. I just couldn’t live with myself if something terrible happened.” What’s amazing is that this is pretty much what I hear EVERY time I am interviewed in America. So it seems as if catastrophizing every aspect of childhood has not yet…
Hi Folks — My friend, who is a magazine editor, is already compiling her December gift guide (of course), and one of the many products that just crossed her desk is this: A backpack with a built-in car alarm! Just pull the string and the thing starts shrieking. “Because,” my friend noted, “nothings says ‘Happy Holidays’ quite like a school bag with a built-in car alarm.” Yes, that is why we are friends. Good day/night from Australia — Lenore (who is not giving out the URL for the backpack peddlers because they don’t deserve publicity).
Okay, I won’t say, “G’day, Mates!” again, because apparently that is about as cool as going to Kentucky and hooting, “Yeehaw, y’all!” or, for that matter, arriving in New York and saying, “Greetings to my peeps!” (Unless, of course, one is greeting a cadre of small, marshmallow bunnies.) So hello from Australia where the food is great, the people are fun and the time is all screwed up. And below is my interview with Kerry O’Brien on The 7:30 Report. Now I shall go throw another shrimp on the barbie…not. (Come on, I’m not that pathetic. And also: I’m in…
Hi Readers — Like the headline says: A Jersey boy, 11, found a lighter on his way to school. Brought it in, another kid noticed it, by 8:40 a.m. he was suspended for the day. Why? Because the lighter, “has the potential to compromise student safety in this building,” according to the superintendent quoted in this APP.com story. “It’s our responsibility to keep kids safe. I feel very secure about our decision. We have zero tolerance for this type of thing.” Later she added, “It depends on your whole interpretation of what a weapon is. It’s not a weapon as…
Hey Readers — Here’s one of those game-changers: A new, light, 3-wheeled scooter called the Mini Micro is suddenly so popular in England that kids are abandoning their cars (well, their parents’ cars) and getting to school on kid-power instead. As reports The Economist: The devices and their proliferating cheaper imitations have drawbacks. At school-run times, some London pavements resemble racing tracks, as tiny speedsters weave and zoom…. But the benign impact on traffic and carbon emissions may offset such annoyances. At Oxford Gardens, a diverse primary school in the inner-London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the number of scooting…