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…
Author: lskenazy
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…
What a lovely memory Ike Brannon shares in The Weekly Standard. He was 5 years old, traveling with his cousins on a camping trip. The year was 1970, and Glenn Campbell was one of America’s biggest stars, country or otherwise: …One afternoon I had an urgent need to go to the bathroom, so my uncle pulled into the next service station and I ran out, alone, to the bathroom. While I was standing at the urinal a wasp landed on my shoulder and I froze in fright. The man next to me noticed it, too, and whispered to not move…
Woof woof woof! Er…I mean, chew on this: A study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests the way a puppy’s mother raises it may be the key to the dog’s success, or failure. A research team at the University of Pennsylvania found that puppies destined for guide dog training are more likely to fail if they’re coddled by their mothers. Okay, once again, correlation is not causation, and guide dogs are not humans. But (bow) wow. The puppies apparently spend their time in a kiddie wading pool without water. Compared to, shall we say,…
This is a topic covered often by commenter Donald Christensen, who points out that repetition turns into belief. So when the media repeat the same type of stories day after day — murder! kidnapping! danger, danger, danger! — our brains soak it up and eventually incorporate it as “The way things are.” This brilliant short video by a motivational guy named Rob Dial reminds us that this is nothing short of brainwashing by the media: . .
This remarkable piece in The Atlantic by psychologist Jean Twenge looks at the emotional demographics of Millennials. She has been doing generational research for 25 years, and writes that: Typically, the characteristics that come to define a generation appear gradually, and along a continuum. Beliefs and behaviors that were already rising simply continue to do so….I had grown accustomed to line graphs of trends that looked like modest hills and valleys. Then she started looking at before and after the introduction of the iPhone. Here’s one of her many stark graphs: . Feelings of loneliness and “being left out”…
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…
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…