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).
Author: lskenazy
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…
Cave, cave, cave. Apparently Sesame Street has decided not to air this Elmo/Katy Perry duet thanks to Katy’s own duo — the ones in her skin-tight outfit that had grown-ups worrying about kids seeing “Cleavage Street.” Or so the rumor goes, according to the folks at TMZ. (Yeah, yeah, I know. Look, I don’t use them as my source for MUCH.) Anyway, this was too cute a clip not to show you. So voila: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUsIGiYL5rk
Hi Readers! The question that Emily poses, below, is so central to Free-Ranging that I’m embarrassed to admit I don’t have a truly killer response. But when in need, as we teach our kids, ask for help. So that is what I’m doing — asking all of you: How can we let our kids do things on their own at an age that WE consider appropriate, if much of the rest of society does NOT? I’d love to hear from any of you who have done this successfully, as well as those who have not. I’d also appreciate any feedback…
Hi Readers! One of the things I do in my book (remember that?) is show that what we think of as a “normal” amount of child oversight is actually not the norm around the world. Here’s a mom who is enjoying that gap! — Lenore Dear Free-Range Kids: I’m living in Okinawa, Japan now, while my husband serves a three year tour on a military base here. We were fortunate to get a nearly American-sized house off-base with a yard, albeit a small one, so as to immerse ourselves in the culture. When we arrived in 2008 our kids were…