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…
Author: lskenazy
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…
Hi Readers — A note from a reader who’s a reader, Linda Wightman, who blogs at Lift Up Your Hearts: Dear Free-Range Kids: I seem to be seeing everything through Free-Range eyes these days. I don’t know how old you are, but did you or your kids ever read Elizabeth Enright’s The Saturdays, The Four-Story Mistake, and other Melendy tales? I was recently re-reading them, on the grounds that any book good enough for children is good enough for an adult seeking distraction from the pain caused by imprudently descending from high altitude with a head cold. To quote from…
Hi etbsaasibs Readers — This note is RIGHT ON! Dear Free-Range Kids: Just thought I’d let you know of this snippet from the most recent All You Magazine. It incensed me to the point of writing an email to the author scolding her for her “professional advice” (this column is written by “Relationship Expert” Nancy Carol Rybski, PhD). Here is the article: Q. A 6-year-old boy in our neighborhood stops by often to play with my 7-year-old son. His mom and dad never check on him or pick him up – he just walks home when I say it’s time…
Hi Readers! I have a piece running on ParentDish titled, “GPSing Your Kid is Crazy.” It argues that, far from really giving parents “peace of mind, “GPSing does the opposite. It reinforces the idea that our kids are in danger every second they are not in our line of sight. It makes us distrust our community, which means we hold our kids even tighter. The constant connectivity of GPS also makes us panic whenever we CAN’T reach our kids — an experience I’ve approximated when I couldn’t get my sons on their cell phones. It’s the same panic you feel…