So I just read yet another article about how to protect your child from all the perverts sliming around on social media, like MySpace and Facebook. Hooey. I’m all for protecting kids from crime and creeps, but the advice had it wrong. Both the Crimes Against Children Research Center and Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society studied what happens to kids on line. Both concluded that when kids are posting photos and chatting with each other and even giving out personal info — the big “no no” everyone warns about — they are not putting themselves…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers: Here’s a note of transformation from a mom of five who is going Free-Range after three decades of fear. Her oldest is 32, youngest is 10. Thank you, thank you. I went from “You have got to be kidding — she let her kid take the subway?” to “This makes so much sense and I totally have to change my mindset.” I am still reading the book, and I can feel truth replacing fear in my whole perception of life around me. I am in that rare statistic of knowing someone well who was abducted and murdered.…
At the risk of wasting my, “What is this world coming to?” quota for life (I think we’re only issued about 7 million), WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO? Look at this article in Tuesday’s Washington Post. It’s about a brand new device, normally used to secure NUCLEAR REACTORS now being used to secure a…pre-school. The doors at Lola’s Place pre-k in Maryland are guarded by a “vascular recognition system.” A what? “…a machine that uses infrared light to read a hand’s veins, 4 millimeters beneath the skin. Like fingerprints, vein patterns are unique, and the computer installed at Lola’s…
Hey Free-Rangers! Here’s a cool idea I got from the gal who runs the blog Mommy Wizdom. She said: Why not post a Free-Range Challenge and have folks write in to say how it went? Sounds good to me! So here’s Free-Range Challenge #1, based on a comment that just came into this site. A reader wrote: I live in a typical residential subdivision with my seven-year-old son. I honestly cannot remember ever seeing any kids riding their bikes or walking around the neighborhood in the 3+ years we’ve been living here. Everyone stays on their own…
If you needed more proof that our society is a little wacky when it comes to kids and safety, get a load of this: A North Carolina off-duty fireman SHOT A DAD RIDING HIS BIKE WITH HIS THREE-YEAR-OLD IN A BIKE SEAT because the fireman thought the road was too busy for this kind of fun. He said he found the situation “unsafe.” Guess in a way he was right about that. Here’s the story, sent in separately by a couple of Free-Range readers, Gyula Voros and Robert Freeman-Day, who found it on BoingBoing. You’ll be happy to hear that bike helmets…
English school boys are suddenly being forced to switch from old-fashioned ties to clip-ons. What overactive overprotective notion is behind this development, sent in by reader Gregory Sutter? The BBC explains: In May the Schoolwear Association, the trade body for the school uniform industry, said 10 schools a week in the UK were switching, because of fears of ties getting caught in equipment or strangling pupils. It’s about time someone put those fiendish neckties in their place! I just hope the authorities mandate adult supervision at tie-donning time, as kids could all too easily puncture their windpipes with…
Gotta thank Amy Bronee, host of the show Real Parenting on C-FAX in Canada for alerting me to this story in the National Post: Minding your marshmallows Katherine Dedyna, Canwest News Service Published: Friday, July 24, 2009 There’s no such thing as being too careful when it comes to kids and camping – even for hyper-vigilant parents. But peril can take unexpected forms – including the seemingly innocuous marshmallow, if improperly handled. For maximum health and safety, one B.C. doctor offers his wish-list of marshmallow-roasting techniques for 21st-century campfire kids: 1. Apply hand sanitizer before selecting marshmallow. 2. Sterilize the…
Sometimes, when I try to explain how frenzied we have become about the real but extremely rare crime of childhood abduction, I compare our era to that of 1692 Salem. There was no way — back then, back there — to convince the average person: Don’t you see you’re being swept up on a wave of mass hysteria? History will judge you as totally mad! (Though eventually, I suppose, that’ll be great for tourism.) Folks in and around Salem were convinced that witches were everywhere casting spells. In the end, 150 people were tried as witches and 19 hanged, all…
Now I know how Al Gore felt. Well, at least about playing to TV. Remember how he was caught rolling his eyes during one of the Presidential debates, and that sealed his fate — for some folks, anyway — as a hopelessly smug know-it-all? I rolled my eyes on TV today, too. Wish I hadn’t, because I don’t mean to be a know-it-all. But I’ve done my research and I do know some. The show was “Fox & Friends,” where I’d gone to debate the idea of Free-Range Kids with a nice lady who believes that children are being snatched…
Here’s a piece about the wonderfulness of sidewalks — a great place for kids to play, meet, walk, chalk, ride. BUT! In the sweet town this lady is writing from — Bangor, Maine — she has gotten complaints from drivers: Kids shouldn’t be on sidewalks! They’re too close to the road! Excuse me? Where SHOULD kids be? Inside playing Halo 3? — Lenore