Go outside and play! Michelle gets to say that now, because as of yesterday afternoon, the Obama girls have a place to go: Their own backyard playset, not much different from a whole lot of other backyard playsets in America — except that when you’re on the swings you can wave to that guy in the Oval Office. The whole thing looks lovely and even cozy — there’s a tree house (which will probably be protected by a very bored Secret Service guy, but still, cozy) — and a tire swing and a climbing rope, climbing ladder, climbing this, climbing…
Author: lskenazy
Two scenes from Mexico, where my family just spent a week’s vacation. (Skip the envy. Nice weather, yes, but my husband slipped before we left and spent the whole time on crutches. Meantime, this was the general tenor of our kids’ conversation: “I just saw a stingray.” “No you didn’t.” “I did too!” “You just think you did.” “But I did!” “See?”) Anyway, that’s not the point — thank God. The point is to contrast two scenes. The first, in town: A Mexican boy of about 8, sweeping his home. Not its floor. Its roof. With no guardrails. Scene two,…
Perhaps you will recall, readers, a few months back when I asked for your input on the cover for my upcoming book, “Free Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts With Worry.” Overwhelmingly — 10 to 1 — you voted for the girl on the wall (versus the aviator boy). But a bunch of you added, “There should be a boy on the cover, too.” Amazingly, the publishers then found a photo with a girl on the wall — trailed by a boy! All right. Maybe someone Photo-shopped the fellow in. They don’t tell authors…
Once five friends forward you the same article, it is time to share it with the rest of the world. This one was by the New York Times health writer, Jane Brody, and it stated, quite simply: Dirt good. Well, it didn’t state it quite that simply. Ms. Brody works for The Times, after all. While they’ve still got a dime in the bank (and that does seem to be their current balance), they’re willing to spring for whole sentences. So what she wrote was: Accumulating evidence strongly suggests that eating dirt is good for you. In studies of what…
Last night I helped one of my sons do the dishes, but I didn’t help the other son clear the table. Time to reserve a shrink appointment for the table-clearer sometime around 2017? Or perhaps an appointment with the parole board? Turns out: No. Neither. A brilliant study by researchers at Temple University looked at 1369 siblings between the ages of 26 and 74. The idea was to find out whether the ones who felt their parents had been harder on them than on their siblings ended up with a chip on their shoulders the size of a dishwasher. A…
Turns out children are feeling pretty good about themselves lately. Maybe a little too good. As reported on the website Connect with Kids (http://www.connectwithkids.com/), a study by researchers at San Diego State University found that high school seniors are bursting with more self esteem than a generation (or two) ago. For example, in 1975, 49% of them believed that they will be successful at their job. Today, 65% do. It’s nice to feel confident and instilling that “World, here I come!” attitude is actually a Free Range Kids goal. But (there’s always a but) instilling baseless self-congratulation is not. And…
Ho ho ho, my child was escorted off the Long Island Railroad today for riding without an adult. The police were called. He’s 10. He — Izzy — has ridden this route solo a dozen times before. It’s a straight shot on a commuter train and, as always, he was being met at the other end by his friend’s family. But today’s conductor was appalled to see a boy riding alone. For some reason, the conductor wouldn’t talk to me, even though Izzy called from the train when the ordeal began. The man had no interest in hearing me state…
This post comes to us from Kenny Felder, a high school teacher and father of four in North Carolina who has been thinking about why our kids are always inside, instead of outside playing. To see the full essay, please go to http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/kenny/essays/safety2.html. By Kenny Felder Here is a little science fiction story I made up today. A group of children spend the entire summer of 2009 playing video games, watching TV, and doing…well, whatever it is that children seem to do for endless hours on Facebook. They never go outside, never interact with any other human being in person,…
Ho ho hokum. Those are my seasons greetings to Baby Einstein and the rest of the infant educational complex. If you’re wondering what to buy baby that’ll guarantee ’em a good time, a bright future and possible admission to a college that Obama went to, so-called “educational” videos are not the way to go. Here’s what Harvard’s Susan Linn has to say: “Baby educational media is brilliantly marketed and a complete and utter scam.” Linn is a psychologist and founder of the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood. It was her organization that got Baby Einstein to drop the word…
A school district in Massachusetts is weighing whether to go ahead and teach students as young as 10 how to fight back against terrorists and Columbine-type shooters. I guess officials there have not read the statistics. A child’s chances of being killed at school are .00003% (not counting the ones who die of boredom). So teaching the kids how to use their books and backpacks as shields — or weapons — seems about as useful as teaching kids to duck under their desks in case of a nuclear attack. On the other hand, there are some simple safety skills that…