“Ask Lenore” is a new-ish feature over at Let Grow, and this week, I address the worry about the long-term effect of this awful episode on kids. Hint: I’m pretty optimistic, and so are the experts I spoke with. Check it out by clicking here! Photo by CottonBro at Pexels.
Author: lskenazy
This is a banner year for seed companies — guess why. I live in an apartment in NYC so no victory garden for me. But Let Grow’s content director, Stacy Tornio, has some real-world tips for anyone with a little bit of land and maybe some kids interested in being able to pick their own strawberries, cucumbers, or something else good and want to…let grow, as it were. Click here to read some basic instructions. I’m rooting for you! – L.
Kids 5 to 17 can enter our Let Grow Independence Challenge. The first week — this week — we have an essay contest (deadline: April 12). The week after that, a photo contest. And the final week it is — what else? — a video contest. We want to see what kids have started to do on their own, thanks to the strange brew of unstructured time, quarantine, and distracted parents. First prize: $500! And we’ll have five runner-ups of $100. So click here and get the kids started!
Now can be the time your kids become more independent. We have a free Independence Kits with ideas and a poster and such that you can download, over at Let Grow. Click here!
Kids and dirt. It’s a classic combo that has fallen out of favor, like peaches and cream. (Something I’ve never actually eaten — have you?) But when kids don’t get enough dirt and all its microbes into their system, the system is too clean for comfort. It needs a dose of dirt to boost the immune system. Over at Let Grow we’ve got a piece that explains all this, so click here to read it — maybe while you send the kids out with a shovel. (Just keep their friends 6 feet away.)
Gary Karlson is a master teacher — so “master” that he is now an assistant principal. But last year, when he was still teaching third grade in a Title 1 school, he invited us to meet his incredibly sweet students who had done dozens of independence-building Let Grow Projects throughout the year — from teaching a sibling to ride a bike, to learning to make tortillas, to fashioning an “amphibious vehicle.” Below is our 2-minute video. And now here is Gary’s first blog post for us, about the absurdity of considering “soft skills” as educational also-rans. As he…
Ironically, Childhood Anxiety Could Go Down In this New York Post op-ed I wrote with Let Grow co-founder Dr. Peter Gray, we say: SILVER LININGS are hard to come by, but maybe this could be one. With the cataclysmic coronavirus upon us, it is just the tiniest bit possible that, in terms of child development, something good could come of it: A way to press the reset button on child anxiety. Yes, even during — and precisely because we are in — these insanely anxious times. ….” We suggest that before COVID, childhood anxiety was one of the worst problems…
Okay, it’s Sunday. Here are some funny tweets about “distance learning” and a typical COVID homeschool day. Yep — just click here. Hang in there! – L
Empty those junk drawers, take a step back, and probably close the door. Your kids will make something. Educators call it “loose parts play” and they have everything good to say about it. And were you going to use that broken pipe anyway? (Why do you even HAVE a pipe?) For some loose parts ideas click here — it’ll take you to the piece at Let Grow. Hang in there, friends. – L. Photo by Liz West: https://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/
As I write on Reason.com : The COVID-19 crisis has produced an interesting role reversal. Many people over the age of 50 are currently being hectored by their protective progeny to keep safe and practice social distancing—no more lunch with friends, or church, or cards, or even strolling the neighborhood. Wash all the clothes you went out in today, including daddy’s jeans… bring Clorox wipes… use baggies for gloves…. etc. Frankly, I’m fine with this. Hectoring is where it’s at in these times of global crisis. Hector on, I say! But it does feel just the tiniest bit like Freaky…