An exchange between an 18-year-old and her mom has gone viral, reports the website Shareably: Kaelyn is 18, has graduated high school, and is going to be leaving for college shortly. Before she leaves, she decided to have a movie night with long-time friend Stevie. Kaelyn’s mom is what you might call “protective” and has a policy of requesting selfies from Kaelyn at random times so she can confirm that Kaelyn is where she says she is. Well, movie night turned into selfie night thanks to Kaelyn’s mom, and the teen posted the text exchange to Twitter. The tweet blew…
Author: lskenazy
Here’s a note from a mom containing some common questions: Dear Free-Range Kids: I would LOVE to allow my very active 11-year-old to go out and play like I used to. You are probably going to roll your eyes or heave a heavy sigh when you read my concerns, but here they are. I don’t roll my eyes. I know it’s really hard to give kids a plain old childhood! Things ARE very different than they were when I was a kid. For one thing, when I was a child, we lived on a block where all of…
We can’t control the busybodies out there (sigh). But this mom wonders how can we get them to stop interfering with our kids’ sense of safety — especially if our kids are anxious to begin with: Dear Free-Range Kids: I have always been a Free-Range parent/educator and for me, it’s about common sense and raising kids to be confident and capable adults. I have a son, 13 and daughter, 11, who enjoy walking and biking to school alone, messing around in the stream nearby, and going to the store to buy candy — all activities I enjoyed doing as…
A reader’s note: I can’t believe you are a reporter. Sounds more like you are trying to sway public opinion about protecting your children to make it easier for pedo abductors. Actually, I am trying to sway public opinion. But rather than making it easier for predators (not the goal of many reporters), I am trying to make it harder by helping parents focus on actual abuse prevention, rather than on stranger danger, or the names on the Sex Offender Registry. The vast majority of crimes against children are committed by people they know. So to really help keep kids…
After the NY Times did its story on how easy it is particularly for poor people to have their children taken away for trivial reasons, including normal parenting blips and/or the desire to give the kids some freedom that a bureaucrat deems too much too soon, the New School’s Center for New York Affairs did a Q and A on the topic. They spoke with Joyce McMillan, whose Child Welfare Organizing Project reminds me of Diane Redleaf’s organization in Chicago, the Family Defense Center. Both are adv0cating for justice for families in the child welfare system: Last week, the Center…
Don’t bother bringing a plastic shovel when you head to a San Francisco playground anymore. The city is getting rid of all its sand at all its local playgrounds. You know why. Of course you do. According to this report by Christin Ayers at KCBS, the city regards sandboxes as unsafe. Suddenly. Connie Chan, a spokeswoman for Rec and Parks (which sounds backwards) says that, “We often face issues such as sharp objects, broken glass, even cat feces in our sandboxes throughout our playgrounds.” Joe Frost, a professor who has written 19 books on play and playgrounds, once had his…
A reader writes: Dear Free-Range Kids: I’m sending a link to a WHEC (Rochester NY local station) news story with updates on the mom who was charged after leaving her kid at the Eastview Mall LEGO Store. The officer in the video said some interesting things, both discouraging (under 16 and left alone for 2 hours is too long) and encouraging (it depends on the child). I’d be interested in reading your take on it. http://www.whec.com/good-question/unattended-child-when-can-parents-be-charged/4538715/?cat=10853 My take: How amazing and cool that this station did a follow up on something people truly wonder about: What age CAN you legally…
Any mom seeing these videos of her son traveling the world would probably feel reassurance, pride… And a jolt of new worry. That is the lot even of the freest of Free-Range parents. As someone once said (and I’m mangling it): Courage is the thing with wet pants. It’s not that Free-Rangers don’t worry. It’s that we try to teach our kids how to navigate the world — starting with how to cross the street safely — and gradually let them go. Except we don’t. We still worry to a greater or lesser extent AND we wave them goodbye. Some…
This New York Times piece on the new “Jane Crow” — poor black and Hispanic moms whose kids are taken away for trivial or even non-existent reasons simply because it’s assumed they are lazy, bad parents — will make you scream. It’ll also make you see how the Free-Range Kids fight is for ALL parents. We fight for the right of parents to be imperfect without this being considered a CRIME. Kids don’t need perfect parents. And they certainly don’t need their parents arrested or harassed for not conforming to the June Cleaver (who was fictional!) extreme. Maisha Joefield thought…
A 7-year-old Brooklyn girl was in the backseat, in her seatbelt, out for a drive with her dad when suddenly he passed out, seemingly from a drug overdose. The girl unbuckled her belt, jumped onto his lap and proceeded to steer the car. Two emergency medical technicians spotted her and one, Arlene Garcia, started yelling at her to brake, something the girl apparently couldn’t do. Then, reports the New York Daily News: As the child kept a snail’s pace, the first responders came up with a plan. “We said to ourselves, ‘How do you stop her?’ So we pulled right…