Hi folks! I’m mostly blogging at LetGrow.org these days — a paid job! a bigger platform! someday even an OFFICE! — so please click here and join the conversation!
Author: lskenazy
Hi all! My latest post is up at Let Grow, about de-normalizing trick or treating. Hop over by clicking here. Thanks and Happy Halloween! – L. . .
Hi friends! Here’s my piece on Halloween-themed TV shows, over at Let Grow! See you there!
Readers: Starting today I am president of a new non-profit dedicated to the Free-Range ideals of giving kids — and parents — back their freedom. It’s calledLet Grow. I’d told a friend about this a few months back and she just informed me that now when her kids think she’s micro-managing them they actually use this phrase, “Mom, let grow!” So let’s hope it becomes a thing. Anyway, from now on, most days when you come to Free-Range Kids, you’ll find my newest posts are a click away, at Let Grow. I will include a link here each day I…
Can’t be too safe! Or…um… you can, if you follow every bit of this Halloween advice from a suburban New York paper, sent to us by columnist/author Naomi Schaefer Riley. Whether you’re a ghost or zombie, vampire or witch, poor costume choice — including decorative (colored) contact lenses and flammable costume — and face paint allergies can cause injuries that haunt you long after Halloween. [Remember, kids: Halloween isn’t fun. It’s an invitation to suffer unless you follow EVERY RULE.] Enjoy a safe and happy [!] Halloween by following these guidelines from FDA, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the…
Last week The New York Times ran a huge (even by New York Times’ standards) article on adolescent anxiety. It was scary yet familiar. Stories I’d heard from friends and acquaintances suddenly fit into a framework. Their young loved ones live in fear of the world. You’ll recall that a week or so ago I countered a popular article that claimed the lack of play could be what lead the Vegas shooter to do his evil deed. I said that with 330,000,000 people in America and only one Vegas shooter, you couldn’t say that X always (or even often, or…
Zach Anderson’s tale is terrifying. It could happen to almost any of our sons, and even our daughters (like Shawna). At least, in Indiana it could. To recap: After Zach, 19 at the time, met a girl on the app “Hot or Not,” they had consensual sex and went their separate ways, he back to his home in Indiana, she back home in Michigan. Consensual sex between two teens 17 and 19 is not a crime. What Zach didn’t know is that the girl who said she was 17 was actually 14. If the victim lies about her age in…
Let’s find out for real (more or less) what is going on with Halloween these days. Over on the Free-Range Kids Facebook page, we’ve got a poll running: What age did you let your children start trick or treating on their own, without you or another adult, or even older siblings. While I’d love you to take the actual poll, I’m also curious about a question I didn’t ask there and will ask here: How does that compare to the age YOU started? And while we’re at it, please also let us know what your town is doing re: Halloween.…
Alex McDaniel tweets a lot — about sports, books, politics. She’s fun, and not a punch-puller, and when she tweets about her life as a mom, usually it’s for laughs. For instance here’s one from when her son was two: me: no eating cookies in the bed 2yo: i eating them in my mouth Love that. So a couple weeks ago, after tweeting about her son using the potty and the funny things he said, she added: “3-year-old for sale. $12 or best offer.” Which kicked off a human trafficking investigation. As McDaniel writes on the blog MagnoliaStateLive: The saga…
UPDATE: Zach’s hearing, scheduled for Weds., Oct. 18, has been postponed until further notice. Zach Anderson, the young man from Elkart, IN, whose harsh punishment for consensual teen sex made headlines around the country in 2015, has been arrested for two violations of probation. What, exactly, did he do? He had dinner at his parents’ home with his younger brother, 17, and the brother’s friend. The brother thought his friend was 19, but he turned out to be 17. Zach is not allowed to have contact with anyone under 18 except his siblings. That’s Violation #1. Then, at church, Zach…