Hi Readers — I’m still on the road and just gave a speech in Chicago sponsored by the National Center for Safe Routes to School. (A jolly bunch!) Safe Routes reps every state gathered to talk about the pressing question: How can we get more kids walking to school? The organization says that a generation ago, two thirds of f kids walked or biked to school. Today, 20-25% do. I’ve heard numbers even lower than that. So Safe Routes (funded by the Dept. of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration) aims to get kids back to walking to school by whatever means…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers! I’m in Minnesota to give a Free-Range talk. Always happy to spread the word because then things like this — see below — start happening! This post originally appeared at the blog Last American Childhood. by Rachel Federman. Enjoy! A Free-Range Exeperiment by Rachel Federman In the playground this morning I tried to apply a bit of Free-Range parenting to my usual routine (albeit with someone else’s kids). A lady with a newborn was trying to round up her boys (3 and 4) so she could put her laundry from the washer to the dryer in a nearby…
Hi Readers! This post origianlly ran on Brain Twinkles, a blog by Layne Aingell. Some of us may join Layne in her break up! — L. I have watched The Today Show for over thirty years. I remember when it was hosted by Jane Pauley, her pony tail, and Tom Brokaw. I started watching it as I’d get ready for school during junior high, through high school, college and beyond. I watch it with my girls as we get ready for school and work. It always has interesting stories and does it really get any cuter than Matt Laurer. Plus,…
Hi Readers! A bunch of you have forwarded this story, from livescience.com, that I’ve been mulling for days: ‘Helicopter’ Parents Have Neurotic Kids, Study Suggests The piece is about a study of 300 college freshmen that found the students who are “dependent, neurotic and less open,” may have their over-involved, over-worried, helicopter parents to thank for crippling them. It even went on to say that “in non-helicoptered students who were given responsibility and not constantly monitored by their parents, so-called ‘free rangers,’ the effects were reversed.” [Boldface, mine.] So here’s our movement, being scientifically legitimized, and even called by its…
Hi Down There! In about an hour I’m giving a talk to the YPAA — Young People & the Arts, Australia — and I’m psyched! (And Skyped!) Meantime, an Australian TV show, Today Tonight, is looking for Free-Range Families to appear in a story about the movement. If you’re down there and interested in being on the show, please drop an email to the producer, Erina, at EFlessas@seven.com.au , SOON! Thanks! — L.
Hi Readers — Boy, your letters keep blowing me away. Here’s another one that made me think — and fume. It reminds me of a great essay by Spiked Online contributor Nancy McDermott (Spiked is sort of Britain’s Slate) about how this generation of parents treats every childrearing decision as a Nobel-worthy research project. McDermott calls it the “tyranny of scientific parenting.” I’m sure it’ll sound familiar to any of us who’ve ever said, “Aw, let’s not sweat it. ” Read on! Dear FRK: I am a first time mom of a four month old son. I wouldn’t think…
Hi Readers! Here’s a boiled down excerpt from a book I loved, Ada Calhoun’s “Instinctive Parenting: Trusting Ourselves to Raise Good Kids.” Ada was the founding editor at Babble.com and the more she read about parental doubts — is this the right way to raise kids or is that? — the more she realized: All that really matters is food, shelter and love. Not the “right” equipment, or the “right” phrases, or the “right” sleeping solution, or “stimulation,” or all the rest. She’s so sensible — and funny, too! Here’s her blog and here’s her take on: The Truth About…
Hi Readers — As usual, I’m sitting here wondering whether it’s “lucky” to live in such a first world country. Check out these two notes I just got: Dear Free-Range Kids: I am a writing from Estonia, it’s a small country in Europe. I came a cross your blog through babble.com and a quick flip through your posts left me a bit astonished. I mean, you seem to be sane and a thoughtful lady, but has rest of the America gone insane? 🙂 Around here, we have no problems with children playing in the parks by themselves, going to school…
Hi Readers — I am hearing so much about “Can I ever EVER leave my child in the car?” lately that I thought I’d share this note that just came in from a sane and loving mom. Voila: Dear Free-Range Kids: I thought of you today as I was standing in Papa Murphy’s waiting for my pizza. You see I had left my 8-year-old son and his 4-year-old brother in our van. I had the keys. They were about 20 feet from me and I could clearly see them through the big Papa Murphy’s windows. You came to mind as…
Hi Readers! This note from a teacher interested me so much — and not just because I really hate bottled water. (Always have. It’s a waste of plastic, and a waste of fuel, in that it gets transported from Fiji or wherever, by boat and truck. And in a country with clean tap water, it’s a waste of money! Especially because so many brands, including Dasani and Aquafina, are just re-filtered tap water anyway!) But anyway — the letter interests me not just because it has to do with over-coddling, but also because of insidious privatizing: The triumph of bottled…