Hi Readers! Maybe you were watching “Good Morning America” today, with its incredible footage of Jaycee Dugard and her family. Jaycee is the 29-year-old who was kidnapped at age 11 and forced to live with her rapist for 18 years, bearing him two children. But, according to George Stephanopoulos, “Jaycee, in some ways, is one of the lucky ones. She finally made it home. But more than 2,000 children are reported missing every day.” Great sound bite, George — but you got spun. Yes, 2,000 kids are reported missing every day. I’m sure my mom reported me the time I…
Author: lskenazy
No, not kids directing the space program. A documentary maker from Austria is coming to do a film about Free-Range Kids and she needs to find a Free-Range (ish) family in Houston. If you belong to one, or know of one, please contact her pronto! She’s practically boarding the plane! Her name is Katinka and here’s her email: katinka.nowotny@orf.at Danke Schoen!– Lenore
Hi Readers! That’s what it was for two days in February when an air traffic controller took his two kids into the tower and actually let them direct plane traffic at New York’s JFK Airport. Read all about it here and here. As a Free-Ranger, I am all for bringing kids into the workplace and even having them help out. But not at a job where lives are at stake. I know that the dad, Glenn Duffy, was right there, no doubt shadowing every move and making sure the kids didn’t say, “East,” when they meant “West.” But I find…
Hi Readers: Here t is! NPR’s Lynn Neary and me, talking about the things that parents are encouraged to believe are “risky.” Enjoy (carefully)! — Lenore
Folks — Here’s a post by my friend, Tom Henderson, at ParentDish. I admire it and him. You may too. It’s about how he taught his teenage son about sex and sexism at the same time, with the help of, yes, a blow-up doll. And a Playboy. Just wanted to pass it along. (The story. Not the doll.) — Lenore
Hey Readers! This just came in over the transom (okay, over email): A lovely list of really great ideas for how to get kids volunteering. For instance: Take shelter dogs for a walk. Babysit to help a single parent. Form a clean-up crew to go in and help a senior clean her apartment. And so many more! This is a subject close to my heart. My son and I help out in a homeless shelter and he’s there sort of sub rosa. Most volunteer jobs — like most other jobs, even newspaper delivery — now insist that participants be…
Hi Readers! The other day I wrote a column on ParentDish called, “Just Chute Me.” I was saying — I thought — that we really do not have to play with our kids. We have to love and nurture them, yes, but unless we are really psyched for a game of CandyLand or make-believe, there’s no reason we have to do it. Kids can and should be able to entertain themselves. Well I got a lot of blowback about how play is essential for kids. (Yes it is. That’s why they should learn how to do it.) I also kept…
Hi Readers! Excuse me while I gag. Amazing how one sign can make everyone who passes this stroller feel big, dirty, disgusting, diseased and depressed. Remember those “Baby on Board!” signs, that made it seem as if people who were seriously considering crashing into a car would reconsider upon realizing it was carrying someone small? I’m having flashbacks. — Lenore
Hi Folks — Sometimes the inbox brings a little symmetry. Here’s a story one of you sent in about a condo association that can’t stand kids running around “from yard to yard” making “unacceptable noise.” Perhaps children should be taught to use their “indoor voices” outdoors. But then here’s a story, also just in, about how Berlin is now officially allowing children to run around and MAKE noise (just not on Sundays). So there’s hope. Far away. On weekdays. Finally, I didn’t alert you to my current piece on ParentDish, “If You Don’t Have Kids, Can You Give Parents Advice?”…
Hi Folks! Just read this bizarre new wrinkle on TechDirt about the case of the Pennsylvania school that gave its 1800 students laptops and then used them to spy on the kids — 42 times! While the school claims it activated the cameras only when trying to track down a lost or stolen computer, nonetheless the original student we were talking about here was disciplined for selling or taking drugs. That’s an activity the kid did in his own home, as witnessed by a school administrator via a secretly activated laptop. And the administrator witnessed wrong! The drugs turned out…