Hi Free-Rangers and Others! Below you’ll find a post that I just loved from the blog Rancid Raves. It’s about my book, but it’s also about the big issue of, “What if?” I.e., how come so many parents immediately try to conjure up the very worst case scenario whenever we give our kids an ounce of freedom. (Or half ounce, even.) The post is by a woman named Kelli and I herewith present it to you! WHAT IF? by Kelli Oliver George What if?? I dedicate this post to a mom I used to hang out with long, long…
Author: lskenazy
Granted, this quote is about a competely different topic — one I don’t even want to discuss here: swine flu. BUT this observation by Professor Dirk Brockmann, who models epidemics, holds so true for so MANY fears, I just had to to shout it out. Here he is, as quoted in today’s New York Times: “People have a very weird perception of large numbers. If you have 2,000 cases of flu in a country of 300 million, most people think they’re going to be one of the 2,000, not one of the 299,998,000.” That is just how our minds…
Hi Readers! Quick answer to the question a lot of commenters have brought up: Are crimes against children down so dramatically simply because there are fewer children left outside to be victimized? And doesn’t that prove that we SHOULD keep our kids cooped up? Very reasonable questions. But no: Keeping kids cooped up is not the cause of the crime decline — and so it’s not what we need to be doing. The head of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, David Finkelhor, points out that ALL crime has been declining since the early ’90s — property crimes, assault, sex…
Hi, Free-Rangers! Leaving behind the topics of politics, feminism, environmentalism and all that, here is a comment from a few posts back: “I work in law enforcement in the child predator unit in a mid-size city. Kids meeting people on the Internet is the tip of the iceberg. It doesn’t sound like anyone here has any idea of the extent that perpetrators use new technologies to victimize. I won’t “bore” you with details since you don’t think this stuff can happen to you anyway. No one does. “But it is kind of sad to me to see how proud people…
So I didn’t. I’m simply reprinting this great comment here, to share with all and sundry. There is so much to chew on and a whole lot of insight. Thank you, commenter Lloyd Gray, whoever and wherever you are! (He wrote this under the post about the mom who let her son walk to soccer and got slammed by the police.) “There has been a concurrent rise in concerns about automobile crash survival (read: airbags and SUV’s), and municipal water (bottled water being sold in places where what comes out of the tap is not only safer than…
Hello, Free-Rangers! My book is officially out today and I’m delighted to say the media is taking notice. If you’d like to see some of the upshot, here’s the chat I got to do on the Washington Post parenting blog this morn. And here’s a lovely interview about Free-Range (or not) toddlers on Cafe Mom and a perky podcast from MojoMom.com! Meantime, New Yorkers can hear me tomorrow (Tuesday) on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC at 10:40 a.m. (That’s 820 on your am dial, or online at http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/.) And — yikes — I’ll be on The View on FRIDAY…
Hi, Free-Rangers! I wrote that headline as if I’m so used to “live chats.” As if this is something I do all the time. In truth, this is my first and I have no idea what it’ll be like. But if YOU know what I’m getting myself into and would like to join in, here is the URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/04/24/DI2009042402113.html I’ll be on from 11 a.m. – noon, Eastern Standard Time, on Monday. Somehow answering questions. If I figure out the techonology. I do thank the Post’s parenting blogger, Stacey Garfinkle, for this opportunity. I just hope it works. You can…
Here’s what Psychology Today’s Susan Newman has to say on the smothering issue: http://tinyurl.com/dcssf3 And here’s what I have to say: I really don’t believe that kids who are overprotected will all end up crippled with incompetence and fear when they grow up. In a way, that’s too bad, because it would probably be great for my book sales: Raise your kids “Free-Range” or forget it! They’ll be living in your guest room till they’re 60! And they STILL won’t make their beds. But really, the reason I believe in raising kids Free-Range is this: They only get one childhood,…
Yowza. A mom fed up with her bickering daughters, age 10 and 12, ordered them out of the car in the downtown district of an upscale suburb, White Plains, New York. Then she drove off. They were three miles from home. One kid made it home on her own. The other was picked up by a Good Samaritan who found her outside, upset. Now the mom has been arrested. There’s a temporary order of protection against her. And, of course, at least one psychologist has already been found and quoted by the press, warning of the deep and lasting scars…
“….Once upon a time, decades ago, mothers were able to let their elementary-aged children roam free and alone.
“While many, including us, look upon this halcyon time with fondness and a longing for its return, the fact remains that things are different now. The days of Andy Griffith’s Mayberry and “Leave it to Beaver” are gone.”