A confession: I learned to ride a bike when I was 9, probably the oldest of all my friends. Maybe I started a trend? Dear Free-Range Kids: I was recently visiting the Long Island town I moved away from several years ago, and was visiting some old friends. I have a 7-year-old daughter, and she was at a playdate with several kids, ages ranging from seven to ten. I was absolutely shocked to learn that my daughter was the only child out of the whole group that knew how to ride a bicycle. The rest of the kids still…
Author: lskenazy
My kids’ public school released kids from homework a few years ago — a move met with some pushback. As the NY Daily News put it: Parents Outraged After Principal Dumps Homework for more Playtime. . As if only the time spent bending over worksheets is learning! Prof. Peter Gray, author of Free to Learn, explains on the site Aeon: . Learning, according to that almost automatic view, is what children do in school and, maybe, in other adult-directed activities. Playing is, at best, a refreshing break from learning. From that view, summer vacation is just a long recess, perhaps…
See below. This is the kind of “safety tip” that enrages me: a vague warning that kids must never be trusted to do anything on their own because any kind of imperfect “choice” COULD lead to death and it COULD have been prevented if only YOU, the parent, never took your eyes off your them. If you’re not doing that, WE WARNED YOU (without giving you any actual suggestions, perspective, or statistics — just guilt and terror). This is NOT advice. It is lazy fear-mongering and finger-pointing masquerading as advice. Dear Free Range Kids: I took my 11-year-old in for…
Is your child’s school being cancelled for moon-in-front-of-sun reasons? If so, let’s hear all about it. And where are you? And what’s the buzz? Thanks. Say sighted! — L .
Mike Tang, the California chemist who got 56 days’ “hard labor” for making his 8-year-old son walk home at about 8 p.m. in the dark, just lost his appeal. Tang had left his son outside a local grocery store as punishment for cutting corners on his homework. He told the boy he had to walk home. The child had walked the route many times before. “I just wanted to reinforce that money is hard to earn and that, if he doesn’t do a good job at school, he could end up sleeping…[with] the homeless” outside grocery stores, Tang told Reason.tv…
America is suffering from a terrifying syndrome: IHOSFO — It Happened Once, So FREAK OUT. Only IHOSFO explains today’s MSN Headline: Why you should never leave plastic water bottles in a hot car Ok, MSN: Why shouldn’t you do this thing that I’m guessing about 200,000,000 people are doing right now, seeing as it’s August? Because one time the sun hit the water bottle just right, and the bottle + water concentrated the beam of light like a magnifying glass (or, as the reporter says, “like a laser”) and began to burn a hole in the seat. “Experts say” never…
Hi All! I have a friend doing research on bullying. His question(s): Has any minor incident been classified as “bullying” at your school? If so, what was it and how was it dealt with? Frankly, I’m curious too. No one is in favor of bullying. (Note: political discussions are for other blogs!) But neither is anyone in favor of over-reacting to the everyday frustrations and spats that kids can work out on their own. It’s that balance thing again: We don’t want to assume kids are so fragile that they can’t handle any unhappy situations without adult involvement. But not…
It’s time for us all to become familiar with the work of Michael Hynes, superintendent of the Patchogue-Medford School District on Long Island and passionate promoter of PEAS: the physical, emotional, academic and social growth of kids, not just their test scores. Hynes put his district where his mouth is, doubling recess. Kids at his schools get 40 minutes for lunch AND 40 minutes of recess — “The one block of time when they can actually make decisions for themselves.” And wouldn’t you know it — the problems at Hynes’ schools went DOWN, even as attendance went UP, with more…
Money, time, car travel, lack of free play: There are a lot of costs to starting soccer ultra-soon, ultra-seriously. This post is excerpted from a much longer one sent to us by Jon Mikelonis, father of boys 11 and 9. He writes, “My wife is from Brasilia. We reside in Northern Nevada. I am an Information Designer by trade but consider father to be my primary job. I am a believer in nature’s positive influence on us and spend my recreational time fishing and playing soccer. I am a defender of my boys natural tendency to play free.” After…
A recent Johns Hopkins study found that today’s kids are so inactive that by the time they reach 19 they have the activity level of 60-year-olds. I have a piece in today’s Wall Street Journal, “19 is the New 60,” looking at childhood sluggishness and making one blindingly simple suggestion. But first off: Why are kids so sedentary? On top of the lure of electronics, which the Hopkins study recognized, there’s another unaddressed reason: The belief that kids must spend all their free time in supervised activities (and, often being driven to and from them). Senior [Hopkins] author Vadim Zipunnikov…