Hi Readers — Here’s a link to my essay on ParentDish, “Can a Mom Leave Her Kid Alone at the Library for Three Minutes?” It’s about a mom who left her kid in the children’s room to run upstairs and check out a book in the adult department. She told the librarian she’d be back in a few minutes and the librarian warned her that this was okay, but that the dangers of the real world lurk in the library too. My piece said that while I don’t think librarians should be treated like babysitters, this seemed like a fine,…
Author: lskenazy
Dear Readers: This one just proves what monkeys we become when we refuse to use our brains (or tails). A 5-year-old boy in England climbed up a tree at the end of recess. Fine. But rather than helping — or even ordering — him down, the teachers followed their “health and safety” guidelines…and left him there. Their rules apparently say they are supposed to “observe from a distance” (lest they distract the child) rather than actually DO anything. Well they observed from such a distance that it wasn’t until about 45 minutes later that some lady passing by saw the…
Thank you, Onion, for your invaluable perspective: Increasing Number of Parents Opting to Have Children School-Homed.
Hi Readers — his just in. Read it and grin. — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: My 9-year-old son and I went to a little strip mall yesterday. It has five stores. Joey needed a haircut and I needed thank you cards and wine. I sent him with money to get his hair cut while I hit the other two stores. This is where he always gets his hair cut and he knows what clipper setting he needs them to use and such. He came running into the store saying that they would not cut his hair without a parent present…
Hi Readers — Well, here it is. The ad that a bunch of you alerted me to this week. It shows a mom and daughter in a mall, near an escalator. The mom is letting her daughter shop “on her own” for the first time. (“On her own” turns out to mean with two friends, who are waiting right at the bottom of the escalator.) The girl is 3. No, I jest. The girl looks to be 11 or 12. That’s what makes this ad so ridiculous. Because by the time the girl is at the bottom of the escalator,…
Hi Folks! Here’s a lovely essay by The Wall Street Journal’s Laura Vanderkam about, well, the cultural significance of The Baby-sitters Club. Yes, I know how ridiculous (or at least American Studies for Dummies) that sounds. And yet — you don’t sell 176 million copies of any series without making some kind of impression on society. And the impression young readers got from the girls in the Club was that kids their age could actually be responsible and make money. Like adults! As Ms. Vanderkam puts it: Hidden in the plots that show that friendship is good and that teasing,…
Hi Readers! This is an encouraging story (from boston.com), in that Arlington, MA., a town outside of Boston, is pushing to get more kids biking to school. But the fact that this initiative is CONTROVERSIAL is enough to make you bang your head against a bike horn. (Or vice versa.) Here’s a bit of the story, which begins by describing how bike-friendly the town seems to be: No corner of the town is more than a few miles from the Minuteman Bikeway, the most popular bike path in the country. The town is home to two bicycle stores and a…
Hi Readers! Afternoon fun (yes, ’tis a joke), thanks to brilliant Brian Briggs at bbspot.com: Motion Control Advances Mean Future Generations Could Play Outside by Brian Briggs Recent advances in motion controller technology as exhibited by Sony’s PlayStation Move and Microsoft’s Project Natal reveal a future where newer generations of gamers could play things like sports or in places like “outside.” “These technologies show that we’re not far off from more active children,” said futurologist Ben Carlson. “The evolution has been rapid. First controllers vibrated, then the Wiimote simulated bowling, and now Project Natal has us jumping around the living…
Hi Readers! This mom needs some great ideas in how to deal with friends, neighbors — and PASTOR — who equate “Free-Range” with NEGLECT. Let’s give her some strategies! — Lenore Dear Free-Range Kids: My nine-year-old, eight-year-old and five-year-old have been walking to school alone for a couple of months now. The walk is about thirty minutes child pace, fifteen if you’re adult. We built this trip up slowly we me walking them most of the way, then half etc. I promote independence in my children, they can all cook, peel and chop veg, do laundry etc. They are not…
Hi Readers! Here’s a nice story for a Sunday. Enjoy! Dear Free-Range Kids: Due to a recent bankruptcy and divorce my four children (ages 6-14) and I moved from our home of 10 years (great neighborhood) into a small group of very upscale townhomes. We are renting. I didn’t see much evidence of children around the small complex and felt a little nervous that maybe my children’s rambunctious ways (truly just normal children) wouldn’t be appreciated. You can imagine my delight when last week we had a beautiful, warm, sunny day and my three younger children (6, 9, 11) were…