Regarding: Schools outlawing normal human behavior, this one has got to be the best. Or worst. You know what I mean. Sent from a father of three named Timothy: Last nbbzzfaisn fall, my 4th grader’s class banned playing football at recess after one child fell down and hurt his arm. You might say that that isn’t too outrageous of a response, except for one fact — the boy wasn’t actually injured by playing football. He was injured after he tripped over a tree root while showing the other kids his touchdown dance. Because football motivated the dance, it was…
Author: lskenazy
We’ve already heard about teachers no longer being able to comfort their students for fear of being accused of child molesting. Even pre-school teachers are not immune: A hug is a grope until proven otherwise. But here is a new level of hyper-worry: After a child got injured, a school in Connecticut has banned ALL touching between ALL students. http://wcbstv.com/local/school.bans.hugs.2.969949.html No more backslaps. No more high fives. Fist bumps, be gone. You can understand the administration’s frustration. A kid was seriously hurt by a kick to the groin — that’s just awful. But why is the response to criminalize all…
Each week I get an email blast called “Connect with Kids” that veers between helpful and crazy-making. Today it’s the latter. (http://www.connectwithkids.com/tipsheet/2009/430_mar25/thisweek/090325_house.shtml) In a little article about babyproofing, it quotes an “expert” who casts her eyes around a new parent’s home and, “immediately spots something she doesn’t like in the kitchen. Plastic trash bags.” Continues the blog: “‘You think these are great for your trash cans, well, they are, but it’s terrible for your baby,’ she explains. ‘Children love plastic. For some reason, they are drawn to it. They will eat it, and they will suffocate.'” Excuse me, but children…
Here’s a little excerpt from a very positive review of the book, “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned” in today’s New York Times: “….In the other stories the danger may be less operatic, but it’s no less alarming: a child molester lures a 7-year-old boy into a portable bathroom at a carnival; a tattooed stranger tries to abduct a teenage girl…” Talk about the perfect Mother’s Day gift! Now, I’ve got nothing against authors choosing whatever subject matter attracts them. But if you ever wonder why we feel so worried all the time about pedophiles and abductions and even — especially! —…
The death of Natasha Richardson is the definition of tragedy — sad, senseless, shocking. It’s just horrible and a lot of us are haunted by it. In fact, as parents, we maybe a little too haunted by it. How so? “It’s a wake-up call,” announced a mom friend of mine on a field trip last Friday. “Wake-up call to what?” I asked. “Parents now know that when their kid gets hit in the head and says they’re all right, they may not be.” “So we should take our kids to the emergency room every time they hit their head and…
My 10-year-old son wanted the chance to walk from our house to soccer practice behind an elementary school about 1/3 mile from our house. He had walked in our neighborhood a number of times with the family and we have driven the route to practice who knows how many times. It was broad daylight – 5:00 pm. I had to be at the field myself 15 minutes after practice started, so I gave him my cell phone and told him I would be there to check that he made it and sent him off. He got 3 blocks and a police car intercepted him.
At last, the video age is upon us. Click on this if you’re wondering if you can let your kids eat raw cookie dough (one of the many parental fears I examine in “Free-Range Kids” — the book): [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8kiMKtixAo]
Well, my fellow Free-Rangers, here goes. Since my book is coming out in just about a month, the publishers have posted my introductory chapter on a web site called Scribd (the YouTube of documents, or so they say). If you want to get an idea of what the book is like, this would certainly do the trick: http://www.scribd.com/doc/13224933/FREE-RANGE-KIDS-Intro-by-Lenore-Skenazy Off goes the book into the big, wide world. It’s sort of like seeing your kid graduate. (Not that I’d know, yet. But I can hope! And while I’m at it, I’m hoping your kids graduate some day, too.) Have a great…
Here’s a campaign it’s easy to get behind, “Tell Scholastic: Put the Book Back in Book Clubs.” It’s sponsored by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood http://www.commercialexploitation.org/, which noticed that a whole lot of the items for sale through those little Scholastic book club flyers were either NOT books, or were books that come with little doodads like jewelry or toys. Let’s call them “Happy Meal” books. Scholastic enjoys a very privileged position in childhood in that it is allowed to advertise in the schools, via those flyers. You don’t see Toys R Us handing out catalogs during reading workshop,…
Organic? Whole wheat? Whole Foods? Who cares? A lot of us. But maybe we shouldn’t. Or at least, maybe we shouldn’t burden our kids with all our nutritional correctness. When my older son (now12) was in kindergarten, he came home with a keen interest in cans. Not to build towers with, or roll down the stairs. He wanted to read the labels, because his teacher had been showing the class all about sodium, fructose and calories. So much for story time. Anyhow, those kindergarteners must’ve been mighty advanced, because I’m a grown-up and I still have a hard time figuring…