Hi Readers! Here’s a feisty post from Ellen Seidman, a New York mom whose blog is Love That Max. She’s also hoping to win a blogging contest at Parents Connect, so if you like what you read, go vote for her here. (Hey, why not help each other out?) Onward! — Lenore WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER by ELLEN SEIDMAN The other day, I was Twitter-ing with a mom of another kid who has special needs, and she asked me how protective I was of Max. I wrote, “Not very. If his NICU experience didn’t kill him, nothing…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers — Here’s a letter from Korea (where my book was just published in translation!). What’s upsetting is how parental paranoia seems to be creeping around the world, like a virus. — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: I’m an elementary/middle school English teacher in South Korea, arguably one of the safest countries in the world. Here, kids work very hard, spending almost all of their time studying in school and in private academies. However, what little free time they have is entirely their own. It’s not unusual to see older kids and young teens (10-16 year olds) out on their…
Hi Folks — Here’s my ParentDish column on the sexualization of hugging. Ugh!!
Hey Readers — Just a nice summer note from a gal named Lynn: Dear Free-Range Kids: So, last week were were out camping at Chincoteague, VA, and my kids and a man with four kids ranging in age from about 5 to maybe 10 or 11 were in the pool. The man with the four kids had a son who was about the age of mine, and they ended up playing together. I’d give them the “go” and they’d jump in the pool at the same time, seeing who could jump furthest. Anyway, in the course of this…
Hi Readers — England has been in a tizzy about a Free-Range family since last week. A family I support! Here, London’s Jennifer Howze weighs in. Jennifer is a partner in the online social network British Mummy Bloggers, and she’s lead blogger on the Times of London’s parenting blog Alpha Mummy . Free-Range in London: What’s a Reasonable Bike Ride for a Kid? By Jennifer Howze Once you want a nice suburban-type neighborhood in which to raise your kids (but you still want to be in London), you move to Dulwich, so the thinking goes. This picturesque, sedate enclave looks…
Hi Readers — Last week I wrote a piece on ParentDish about the tragedy that happened here in New York: A mom was holding her 6-month-old, posing for her husband to take a photo just outside the Central Park Zoo, when a tree branch fell killing the baby and seriously injuring the mom. Horrible. My piece, however, dwelt not on the tragedy nor the sadness, but on the fact that the father — understandably beside himself with grief — is preparing a lawsuit against the city. This, even though the branch was leafy and seemingly healthy, and the tree had…
Hey Readers — Take a look at this column by Glenn Cook in The Las Vegas Review Journal, “The Obesity Cure: Free Range Kids.” I know we are not all positive that there IS an obesity epidemic or, if there is, what its root causes are, but I think we can all agree that most kids today are less active than their parents were, for reasons ranging from Club Penguin to Nancy Grace. And even if they’re in organized sports, that’s still a different kettle of fish than coming home and riding a bike around the neighborhood till suppertime. Yesterday…
Hi Readers — Just got this letter today and what’s cool is that the writer, Aaron, is asking for your input, not just mine. That’s good because I don’t have a lot of advice for this fellow, except, “Alert the police.” So — let’s see what other great ideas are out there! — L. Dear Lenore: I am interested in your advice and the advice of other Free-Range Kids readers about a situation we appear to be having. The area I live in is decidedly suburban and middle class (suburban DC actually), and I’ve never for a moment felt…
Hi Readers — Here’s a cute letter from a new mom: Dear Free-Range Kids, I”ve thought of your book often during this first month of parenthood. Thought you might want to know that I have: 1) Left my baby in his Pack and Play while I…….stepped outside to get the mail!!!!! 2) Put my baby carefully in his bassinet while I…….took a shower!!!!!!!! 3) The big one: We went to Target, and when I approached a crowded aisle, I left him in the shopping cart by the edge of the aisle and stepped about five feet into the aisle to…
Hi Free-Rangers: Do we have some advice for this fellow? If so, let’s share it! — L Dear FRK: I have embraced Free Range parenting. Unfortunately my ex-wife and mother of our four children is afraid to let our 8-year-old out of her sight, and plays the “What if?” game: “What if he is attacked by space aliens who want to steal his bike and bully him on the way home from school in our upper-middle-class neighborhood where there is hardly any crime, let alone violent crime, but it COULD happen?” It’d be great if there was a “tools to…