Hi Readers — Here’s a note from today’s mailbox. The lesson? If you can dream up ANY DANGER, no matter HOW RIDICULOUSLY REMOTE, you can try to scare a parent. It’s easy! It’s fun! It’s our new national pastime! — Lenore Dear Free-Range Kids: I’m currently pregnant with our first child, due in October. I’ve already aligned myself with Free-Range Kids, and I’ve been getting a kick out of how anti-Free-Range the pregnancy and infant industry is. It’s scary. We had our first prenatal class, put on by a nurse at the local health unit. Awesome class. But they had…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Folks — Once again, here are some recent Tweets, providing links to stuff you might enjoy. So enjoy already! — Lenore A mom won’t let her kid drink from spigot at outdoor museum. “I’ll buy u bottled water.” WHY??http://bit.ly/aQ0gTm Amazingly cool, true, short article: The Death of the Phone Call. (It’s intrusive & old fashioned!)http://bit.ly/bcWEuo So a guy (or gal)”s disability scooter breaks down near a group of kids. What happens next? http://bit.ly/bZX2f1 Go back to work & your kids’ll be just fine, a large study shows: http://bit.ly/c5XWNq According to Daily Beast, swings, see-saws & slides are all EXTREMELY…
Hi Readers! I was reading this lovely link one of you sent in, nodding along with the whole gestalt, and then suddenly found myself quoted. Nice feeling! Here’s the beginning of the piece, which appears in SFGate.com, the San Francisco Chronicle’s web site: How Do We Teach Kids Independence in a Fear-Driven World? by Amy Graff My 7-year-old daughter, Paris, spent a week with her grandparents this summer in the tiny coastal town of Gearhart, Ore. If you ask Paris what her favorite thing was about the trip, she won’t tell you the about the root beer floats she and…
Hi Readers — Why was I up till 12:45 last night? I HAD to finish, “Little Brother.” It’s the young adult book by boingboing’s Cory Doctorow that’s all about what would happen after a terrorist attack if the government started suspecting EVERYONE of terrorism, and most of the people were fine with this. Naturally, the hero is a geeky/brave 17-year-old and his posse of smart friends, and the action is non-stop. Naturally, i’ts being made into a movie. UNnaturally, I loved it. Normally, I’m more of a historical fiction kind of gal — think, “Girl with a Pearl Earring” —…
Hi Readers — Here’s a piece I wrote for ParentDish about “Annie’s Mailbox” (which seems to be filled with nuts). The question — or really statement by an Annie reader was — “Don’t put those little decals on your car that say your family members’ names or you will be followed by predators.” To which Annie replied, “That’s paranoid! Is a predator really going to schlep around town, following your car? Don’t forget that MOST child abuse occurs at the hands of someone the child knows.” No, she replied the usual, “Can’t be too careful” and “Just in case” and…
Hi Readers — This seemed like the perfect companion piece to the post below this one, about our intense, almost obsessive focus on predators. Gosh, remember when “predator” was most commonly used to describe, like, a mountain lion or great horned owl? Those were the days! — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: We belong to a very small Methodist church, about 100 people attend every week. Our Sunday School classes are small, maybe 5 to 7 kids in each. The conference came out with a Safe Sanctuary policy to help us address issues of child safety. Now all of our teachers…
Hey Readers — Here’s a comment that came in the other day in response to a woman who is very wary of stranger danger. I liked its logic: Dear Amy (the woman who was consumed with predator fear): I can sort of see where you’re coming from, but take a logical approach. There’s a chance for something bad to happen in cars and buses, which people use on a daily basis. And there’s also something dangerous that could happen with almost everything you do in life. Some we just don’t think about. Others, people are VERY aware of. Like kidnappings.…
Wow, folks. This just in. The very, very brave and hard to spell town of Niskayuna, New York is finally allowing ice cream trucks to cruise the streets again (for a month-long trial) after a 34-year hiatus. The trucks were banned for a year back in 1975 after a girl was struck and killed while running to a truck. The next year the town allowed the trucks back IF they played no music and didn’t try to attract kids by driving up and down the street. (Putting good ol’ ice cream telepathy to work, I guess.) They were allowed to…
Hi Readers — I’ll write about my fabulous day with Mary Duval and her “sex offender” son soon, but first: One of you just sent in this piece that resonated so much. It’s called, “Frolicking 101: When Did Kids Stop Knowing How to Play?” by comedian/essayist Sarah Maizes. Excerpt: My kids are frolicking! Really!! MY children! They’re outside, they’re running around, they’re having fun – without colorful plastic toys, without a play structure, without an adult overseeing, supervising, or facilitating…without ME! Just a big backyard, rolling grass, a random hill or two and my kids. I’ve never seen…
Hi Readers! I’m very psyched because tomorrow I am going to meet a young man named Ricky and his mom, Mary Duval. Ricky is a Tier 3 Predator Status Sex Offender, on the list for life. Or at least he was, for almost four years. How he finally got off that list this year is a story of a mom’s tenacity. How he got ON it is a story of a country that has passed sex offender laws that just don’t mesh with what we need. We NEED to keep child rapists away from our kids. We HAVE laws that…