Hi Readers! This cool note came in from the West Coast. I feel darn timid and tame after reading it. — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: I’m a 47 year old lawyer, male, married 22 years, kids 5 and 8. I was born in Southern California but raised from age 2-6 in Guadalajara, Mexico where my father went to medical school. I remember riding the bus there with my brother who was four years older and it was no big deal. My parents left us with the maid/nanny named Letty for 10 days while they went to California to work and…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers ! This just in. Read it and…give your kids some matches! (Yes, yes, properly supervised, of course.) — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: I am a high school science teacher, parent, and grandparent and a former cubmaster, and I couldn’t agree with you more! This summer I taught a workshop on building model rockets for 12 to 14 year-olds. None of the 17 kids in the workshop had ever sprayed spray paint, most had never used a utility knife, and two did not know how to tie a knot. Many of my high school students light their first match…
Hi Folks — It’s Sunday, a lazy day, so here are some my recent Tweets (from Twitter) you might like: Great Salon piece: When do you let your kids babysit? http://bit.ly/carbKy Perfect one-panel comic about kids and their chemistry sets! http://bit.ly/by86B8 How a country without A.C. would be warmer in many GOOD ways: http://bit.ly/8Y7fsv Strange new trend: “Make believe” camps where kids are encouraged to play the old-fashioned (sort of) way: http://nyti.ms/czSkZe Students not allowed to touch rocks! Given a POSTER of rocks instead: http://bit.ly/d2Q98p Excuse me. This is a toy for…a kid? Not, say, a lonely mom? Dora, I’m…
Hi Readers! In response to a post about schools and camps outlawing hugs (for legal and fear-of-perverts issues) a reader named Melanie wrote this: When will society as a whole stop modifying, changing and politicizing every single normal human action? The rules are becoming so numerous and far-reaching that it’s difficult to know how to act when outside your own home! Are we breeding a society of unemotional, anti-human, mini robots with all this nonsensical, fear-minded thinking? It hit home with me, since I think everything from baby classes on how to “clap,” to new contraptions to “help” non-disabled children…
Oh Readers — Who can resist the temptation to quote from America’s Finest News Source? Not me. So here goes. To read the perfect article in its delightful entirety (complete with mom trying to set the boy up), click here! — L. TAMPA, FL—Despite having been hurt more times than he can count, local kindergartner Kyle Gallagher told reporters this week that he’s finally ready to get out there and start playdating again. Gallagher, whose last serious relationship ended three months ago, said his decision to meet new children and return to the playdating scene wasn’t easy. “I’d be lying…
Hi Readers — This is so disturbing. Two professors studying family law have written a paper saying that “intensive parenting” is becoming the norm that judges expect good parents to practice. As Walter Olson explains on his blog, Overlawyered, “Gaia Bernstein (Seton Hall) and Zvi Triger (College of Management School of Law, Israel) say custody law rewards parents for greater involvement in their kids’ lives even if it amounts to over-involvement.” And as the authors themselves say a bit more verbosely in the abstract of their paper (to be published in the U.C. Davis Law Review): Today the child is…
Oh, Readers: How I wish I’d created this! Bravo!!! — Lenore
Hi Readers — Here’s a note and a plug from a Free-Ranger across the pond who has come up with a new way to lure kids outside. His name is Daniel Raven-Ellison, he lives in London and he’s a “geography activist.” As such he’s a founding member of The Geography Collective — a partnership of geography teachers, academics, artists and explorers. Their goal? To get kids adventuring again and learning their way around, so they become curious, clever and bold. To find out more about Mission Explore, click here, and to find out more about the Geography Collective itself (which…
Hey Readers — It’s summer, and I’m re-reading, as I do every summer, my very favorite book: “She’s So Funny: 1,768 of the Best Jokes from Women Comedians,” edited by Judy Brown (who seems to have done a lot of funny books). I have actually gone through and checked off my favorites, and — thanks to a rapidly aging brain — each summer they tickle me anew. And suddenly I thought: Hey, why not tickle YOU, too? (Figuratively, that is.) So here are some of my faves and, where possible, a link for the funny ladies, too. Enjoy and we’ll…
Alas, readers, not my own interview with him. But Reason.TV caught up with Doctorow outside of some pub in London and asked him about many things, including his books (my older son LOVED “Little Brother”) and boingboing (a site that brought early attention to this blog), and, most saliently for us: “The War on Kids.” The problem, according to Doctorow? Fear. Fear OF kids and fear FOR kids. Of course that excessive fear FOR kids is the kind I concentrate on. In fact, today I was at the supermarket and asked a mom why she had her son in one…