Goodbye, 2024 – but first, a quickie look back at the forces that were allied against Free-Ranging last year. And then? A hairpin turn to hope! Worst first! Child Reported Walking: As, ahem, I was the very first person to report, Georgia mom Brittany Patterson was charged with “reckless conduct” when her son, 10, walked to town (pop: 370) without telling her. Cops handcuffed Brittany in front of her kids and threw her in jail – which is not reckless conduct at all. Now Child Protective Services wants Brittany to track her son at all times. Because walking could, theoretically,…
Author: lskenazy
Thanks to John Stossel, here is a half hour of me getting the chance to make all the points swirling around in my head and heart: How we got so afraid for our kids. What it’s doing to them — and us. How these misconceptions about kids, crime, and child development feed into crazy norms and even crazier laws. AND the ways we can beat back the culture of fear and distrust (which is what it all boils down to). You’ll hear many shout-outs to Let Grow, the nonprofit that grew out of Free-Range Kids, and the work we’re doing…
My thoughts on the Brittany Patterson case, which I was the first to report. (I’ve been having trouble with my FRK blog distribution lately. Sorry for the delay in getting you this!) Brittany Patterson had to take one of her four children to a medical appointment, and her youngest son, 10-year-old Soren, was going to come with them. This was a few weeks ago on a Wednesday afternoon. But at the last minute, Soren wasn’t around, and when Patterson called him, his phone was dead. So, like moms and dads throughout history, she had to make a quick decision: Do…
What social changes gave us “helicopter parenting” and, now, even more “intensive parenting”? This New York Times podcast from a few weeks ago, inspired by the Surgeon General’s report on parental burnout, explains all. Michael Barbaro, host of “The Daily,” interviews Claire Cain Miller, the Times reporter covering family issues (and the mom of kids 8 and 12). Cain Miller defines intensive parenting as “child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor intensive and financially expensive.” Plain old hovering is so 1999! To be intensive, she says, a parent walking with their kid in the fall wouldn’t just admire the pretty leaves. They’d say, “Look, the leaves are…
We no longer live in an era of footbinding, writes my Let Grow Co-Founder Peter Gray, the psychologist who studies the importance of mixed-age, unsupervised play. But for about a thousand years, he notes in a recent Substack post, girls in China would have their feet broken and bound to stop them from growing. This was considered not only normal but crucial: Girls with unbound, functional feet were considered low class and ugly. It wasn’t until the 20th century that this practice went from cultural norm to culturally unthinkable. But today? “There are other ways in which we interfere with our children’s…
This video of John Stossel’s is going viral — as it should! It shows how crazy our country can sometimes be when an onlooker thinks all unsupervised kids are automatically in danger, no matter WHAT the actual circumstances. And then what can happen when the cops agree! TWO BIG CAVEATS: 1 — This is still rare enough that it makes news. Yes, we are trying to change the laws so it NEVER happens, but thank goodness it is not an everyday thing. And of course, the more that kids play outside again, the more seeing a kid outside becomes renormalized!…
What has been sapping our kids’ can-do spirit? Covid? Phones? Too much TikTok not enough teeter-totter? No matter what is to blame, Bill Kuhn, Head of the Birch Wathen Lenox School in New York City, was determined to fight back. That’s why his school is doing The Let Grow Experience again this year — and, as of this week — starting a Let Grow Play Club as well. How do you build independence? You don’t. Kids do — with their actions. “What really drew me to it was that Let Grow is trying to solve the same problems as we are: Building confidence and…
Once again, friends, I. MUST. RANT. Why? I — just heard from a mom trying to get two other families to let their kids play with her kids in her yard for an hour a week, outside. Unsupervised. AN HOUR A WEEK. She lives on a quiet street in quiet suburb in a quiet state. Classic single family homes. Zero traffic. Other parent (who has stood and watched three previous playdates) says, “Okay…but only in the backyard!” He worries that in the FRONT yard “something” could happen to his kid, “And if it did, I would kill myself.” His actual…
Child psychologist Tovah Klein visited the special schools in China where kids are given a vast amount of time and space for free play. What she saw blew her away. The kids seemed so much more creative, competent, and curious than the kids she saw here. So today’s wisdom comes from her new book, “Raising Resilience: How to Help Our Children Thrive in Times of Uncertainty.” (With a foreword by Amy Schumer. She knows from play!) Tovah has spent three decades working with families, including traumatized ones. Her book s about how to maintain a strong, healthy parent-child bond, even…
The Surgeon General just issued a report announcing something most of us suspected: Parenting is not easy. In fact, it is frazzling folks. To ease the pain – parents are woefully lonely, and about half report overwhelming daily stress vs. 26% of others – General Vivek Murthy endorses measures personal, political, and workplace: more paid time off, more child care funding, more mental health screening and more funding, more child income-tax credits, more meditating, mindfulness (on the part of parents), more helping out and empathy (on the part of everyone else). And all this goes double for parents in poverty and/or whose…