Welcome to America, 2017, where it requires an act of bicameral legislation to even CONSIDER allowing children the teeniest modicum of self-sufficiency: In Washington State, the House just passed a bill that would allow students to use sunscreen at school without a doctor’s note. It’s like open carry, but for Coppertone. In an article titled, “Lawmakers consider allowing sunscreen in schools” by the Associated Press, the Tri-City Herald reports …The Democratic-controlled [House] unanimously passed the measure Monday and it now heads to the Republican-controlled Senate for concurrence. Right now, students must have a prescription or note from a licensed health…
Author: lskenazy
Recognizing the chilling effect a successful lawsuit against a school could have, a judge in Dublin denied payment to a family whose child had fallen and broken her arm during a schoolyard game of chase. As reporter Ray Managh wrote in The Independent: Games of chase in school yards throughout the country could not be prohibited, the President of the Circuit Civil Court, Mr Justice Raymond Groarke, ruled today Monday. “I just cannot accept the proposition that they should,” he told barrister Adrianne Fields who successfully defended a €38,000 damages claim taken against a school on behalf of a six-year-old…
Here’s another viral video people are sharing — a short and actually kind of impressive lesson by a girl showing how to escape from a zip tie, “In case you ever get kidnapped.” Except…kids don’t need to KNOW how to escape from a zip tie. They are not going to be zip tied. Making them think about it is kind of like inserting a horror movie in their hearts: “Hey honey, don’t worry if the bad man snatches you, because you’ll know how to get out of zip ties if that’s what he uses to tie you up and not,…
Last week, Arkansas voted on the very first Free-Range Kids and Parents Bill of Rights. Oh, it wasn’t called that. Nonetheless, the proposed law would have ended “neglect” investigations of parents who simply let their children play outside, walk to school, wait in the car for under 15 minutes in temperate conditions, or come home as a latchkey kid. If the parents were otherwise neglectful or abusive, of course, the state was allowed to probe. But if the parents simply trusted their kids with a little independence, the worry that they could face charges would be lifted. The bill was…
Update from Philly.com, which was even kind enough to alert us to this! Police on Thursday issued this statement: “On April 5th,2017, the parents of Baby Doe were located; they reported that their baby was fine and they did not believe that the male was attempting to remove the baby from the stroller.” The video below ran in yesterday’s New York Post. It shows a man in a Philadelphia Dunkin’ Donuts who goes up to a stroller, leans over the hood from behind, places his hands into the stroller, and seems to be (to my eyes) trying to get…
Bryce Maine, an Alabama grandson who puts all other grandsons to shame, chose as his date to the Eufaula High School prom: Grandma. . At first, the Washington Post reports, Grandma — that is, Catherine Maine — demurred: “I just thought, well, it’s just so nice that he wanted me to go,” Catherine told WTVM. “I kept asking him, ‘Don’t you want to take someone else?’ But he kept saying, ‘No, I want my Nanny.’ So I was just so shocked, privileged that he asked me.” . “My grandma is the most important woman in my life and she’s never…
Last week a spokesman for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children went on Good Morning America and told us to stop teaching our kids “Stranger Danger,” despite having rammed that fear down our throats for over a generation — a point I discussed in this post. To demonstrate how important it is that children learn to approach a stranger for help, in case they ever need it, Good Morning America and the spokesman, Callahan Walsh (John Walsh’s son) staged a bizarre little experiment. They dressed a school stage like an abstract minimalist grocery store and then asked a…
Readers — The parent-criminalizing bill that was postponed a few weeks ago is back on the Rhode Island House agenda for TUESDAY, APRIL 4. Here, once again, is local activist Randall Rose’s explanation and plea: The bill that criminalizes leaving kids in cars, S72, is having a hearing Tuesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee at the State House, Room 313. People can come and sign up to tell the committee what they think of the bill at this hearing, which starts at 4:30 or 5 Tuesday. This is the last hearing on this bill. . If you can’t…
On Good Morning America last week, a spokesman for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children — the people who put the missing kids’ pictures on the milk cartons without bothering to explain that the vast majority were runaways or taken in custody disputes, not nabbed by predators — told parents NOT to teach their kids stranger danger. And actually, NCMEC told me that, too, when I interviewed them for my book — I quote them. But it always felt like they were talking out of both sides of their mouth, because when they were interviewed by OTHER sources,…
This letter illustrates the kind of “Mothers must be perfect or all bets are off!” belief that makes my blood boil. (Ouch!) Dear Free-Range Kids: I had a friend whose wife went into labor sixteen weeks early due to all kinds of complications. She was in the ICU for nearly a month, massive blood loss, several major surgeries, medically induced coma, you name it. Then she developed a serious infection. They weren’t going to put her on the antibiotic the disease specialist recommended because, get this, it’s not safe for breastfeeding. . My friend (normally the most mild-mannered guy you…