We no longer live in an era of footbinding, writes my Let Grow Co-Founder Peter Gray, the psychologist who studies the importance of mixed-age, unsupervised play. But for about a thousand years, he notes in a recent Substack post, girls in China would have their feet broken and bound to stop them from growing. This was considered not only normal but crucial: Girls with unbound, functional feet were considered low class and ugly. It wasn’t until the 20th century that this practice went from cultural norm to culturally unthinkable. But today? “There are other ways in which we interfere with our children’s…
Author: lskenazy
This video of John Stossel’s is going viral — as it should! It shows how crazy our country can sometimes be when an onlooker thinks all unsupervised kids are automatically in danger, no matter WHAT the actual circumstances. And then what can happen when the cops agree! TWO BIG CAVEATS: 1 — This is still rare enough that it makes news. Yes, we are trying to change the laws so it NEVER happens, but thank goodness it is not an everyday thing. And of course, the more that kids play outside again, the more seeing a kid outside becomes renormalized!…
What has been sapping our kids’ can-do spirit? Covid? Phones? Too much TikTok not enough teeter-totter? No matter what is to blame, Bill Kuhn, Head of the Birch Wathen Lenox School in New York City, was determined to fight back. That’s why his school is doing The Let Grow Experience again this year — and, as of this week — starting a Let Grow Play Club as well. How do you build independence? You don’t. Kids do — with their actions. “What really drew me to it was that Let Grow is trying to solve the same problems as we are: Building confidence and…
Once again, friends, I. MUST. RANT. Why? I — just heard from a mom trying to get two other families to let their kids play with her kids in her yard for an hour a week, outside. Unsupervised. AN HOUR A WEEK. She lives on a quiet street in quiet suburb in a quiet state. Classic single family homes. Zero traffic. Other parent (who has stood and watched three previous playdates) says, “Okay…but only in the backyard!” He worries that in the FRONT yard “something” could happen to his kid, “And if it did, I would kill myself.” His actual…
Child psychologist Tovah Klein visited the special schools in China where kids are given a vast amount of time and space for free play. What she saw blew her away. The kids seemed so much more creative, competent, and curious than the kids she saw here. So today’s wisdom comes from her new book, “Raising Resilience: How to Help Our Children Thrive in Times of Uncertainty.” (With a foreword by Amy Schumer. She knows from play!) Tovah has spent three decades working with families, including traumatized ones. Her book s about how to maintain a strong, healthy parent-child bond, even…
The Surgeon General just issued a report announcing something most of us suspected: Parenting is not easy. In fact, it is frazzling folks. To ease the pain – parents are woefully lonely, and about half report overwhelming daily stress vs. 26% of others – General Vivek Murthy endorses measures personal, political, and workplace: more paid time off, more child care funding, more mental health screening and more funding, more child income-tax credits, more meditating, mindfulness (on the part of parents), more helping out and empathy (on the part of everyone else). And all this goes double for parents in poverty and/or whose…
The latest parenting insanity is coming from England: Popular TV personality Kirstie Allsopp let her 15-year-old son go on a 3-week train trip around Europe with his 16-year-old buddy — and found herself under investigation by child protective services. Here’s the happy tweet that started it all: Kirstie’s story inspired a lot of folks nostalgically recalling their own youthful travels. But then, as dusk must follow dawn, the trolls followed the fans: He’s too young, the Twitterverse spat. Anything could have happened! The world is unsafe and so is Kirstie Allsopp! . Kirstie punched back. Sure, every kid is different,…
Hi Folks! I wrote this piece for my syndicated column, but am posting it here because it gets at one of the core beliefs not just tearing divorced families further apart, but driving many parents mad with guilt and worry: The idea that kids need a mega-dose of mom to grow up healthy. As we discuss here (endlessly), secure parent/child attachment is good! But so is trusting that kids will end up decently well-attached without constant, intensive adult supervision! So here’s my column on… The Solomon of Divorce “Relationships don’t last anymore,” observed comedian Rita Rudner. “When I meet a…
“The Hero’s Journey” is the name we give to the universal journey into risk and fear to achieve something important. All of us grow when tested this way — whether or not we succeed. Those challenges can run the gamut. For one boy, 11, doing his Let Grow Independence Experience in Santa Fe, New Mexico, his challenge was…finding an item at the grocery store. In the half-minute video below, Kathleen Murphy, the young man’s teacher at the Fayette Street Academy charter school, explains what happened. She also told us that though she was assigning the Let Grow Experience every-other week…
Folks — This is a topic that sometimes comes up and is indicative of our culture’s worst-first thinking: The idea that anytime anyone takes a picture in public that happens to include kids, the kids are automatically in some sort of danger. The “thought” process seems to be: Someone photographed my kid? HOW DARE THEY? As if anyone with a camera is a pervert. As if kids in public should be treated as if they were in private. As if one’s particular kids are SO ATTRACTIVE, they are obviously going to be pimped out. That’s a pretty unrealistic outlook. We…