This note had my jaw dropping, which in itself is dangerous, because what it it dropped onto a hard surface and broke? Could I sue the commenter, who hails from Flemington, NJ? My second grader still has recess and breaks during the day. However, she routinely complains that they aren’t allowed to go upside down on the monkey bars and aren’t allowed to sit on the top of the climber. I always wondered why kindergarteners weren’t allowed on the playground until October or so. It turns out that it’s because the playground equipment is designed for ages 5-12 and the…
Author: lskenazy
This wonderful, rousing piece by Rachel Lu at The Federalist had ME trembling. (Not shivering! Trembling.) It’s titled, “Stop Siccing the Police on Me If My Kids Don’t Wear Coats For 20 Seconds,” and begins: The envelope trembled in my hands as I slowly broke the seal. This was it. Even when you know it’s coming, you never feel fully prepared. Slowly, I unfolded the page. “Dear Parent,” it read. “Winter weather has arrived, and it’s time for a reminder about appropriate winter attire.” Emotion welled up inside me, and I could read no further. Emotion wells inside me with…
This public service announcement tells you not to abandon your toddler in the park, even if you’re having a bad day. Because…this is such a pervasive problem? . Here’s what Ellie Lee, director of the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies at the University of Kent, has to say: How can any responsible public service organisation make a film like this? This film serves no possible positive purpose.It’s single most likely outcome is to provoke unnecessary alarm about the safety of any child who does not have a parent right next to them at all times. In general it will fuel…
In light of the annual warnings about “dangerous” toys, and these litigious times in general, we asked you to come up with the ultimate — a trial lawyer’s sweetest dream, the insurance industry’s wish come true: A warning label for a ball. Because when there are NO ACCIDENTS, the world is your courtroom! Contest winner will receive an autographed copy of my book, but these are all so fun. Thanks to everyone who entered, even those who did so on Twitter. And please, please watch out for spherical objects. Fun kills! *******AT LAST! A WARNING LABEL FOR A BALL******* …
A 7-year-old boy in Switzerland was ostensibly so “pampered” by his “overprotective” parents that he now is being sent to a school that sounds like it is for kids with special needs. I am a little skeptical of this story line, for a couple of reasons, the first being that I did an entire TV series where I intervened in 13 families where the parents were extraordinarily risk-averse when it came to their children: a 10-year-old whose mom still hand-fed him like a baby; an 8-year-old whose mom let him have a skateboard, but he could only stand on it,…
The whole point of the public sex offender registry is ostensibly to keep children safe. Read this story, which I wrote for Reason.com, with that in mind: In Florida, a wheelchair-bound man with end-stage Alzheimer’s must move out of the hospice where he’s dying, because he is a registered sex offender and the hospice is too close to a preschool. Phew! That will certainly make the kids a lot safer. Not that he was ever a threat to kids anyway. The dying man, Jack Ehrhart, was convicted of a sex offense about 30 years ago, when he was a doctor.…
From my mailbox on Tuesday, Letter #1: My seven year old son has demonstrated to me that he can lock and unlock the car by car by himself from inside, initiate conversations, and look before walking across streets. I did not see anything wrong with leaving him in the car while I go grocery shopping where the parking lot entrance has speed bumps. I have been doing so over the last year with the result of my son gaining confidence and maturity, sometimes reading, petting the dog, doing homework, or just looking around. . Just yesterday I came out to…
Per usual, Angela Hanscom, author of “Balanced and Barefoot”and founder of the outdoor program TinderNook, has penned another painfully insightful piece in the Washington Post about the way we keep kids safe. Too safe. So safe that we’re hurting them. This time, she interviewed some kids about what recess is like and got these replies, the first one from a 10-year-old boy: “We have monkey bars, but we aren’t allowed to go upside down on them. They think we are going to hurt ourselves. I think I’m old enough to try going upside down.” An 8-year-old girl said, “We have…
This succinct, compelling TED Talk by Steven Johnson, author of How We Got to Now, explains that many great inventions, including the computer, often began as simply new ways to play. The Free-Range corollary is that if we want to raise great inventors (or simply happy humans) we need to let kids do the same: play more. Have fun. Goof off. Necessity is not the only mother of invention. And homework isn’t the only way to learn. A brilliant guy like Steven could probably find the embed code for his talk. Me, I could only find the link, which is…
Playing off of yesterday’s post, about a trial lawyer who annually releases a laughably litigious TOP 10 DANGEROUS TOY LIST, which some of the media still treat as legit, here’s our Free-Range Kids contest: Come up with a product warning that a nervous company might put on a ball. Any kind of ball. Winner gets a copy of Free-Range Kids, the book, signed by me. Deadline for entries is the 5 p.m. Eastern Time, next Weds, Nov. 23, the day before Thanksgiving. In case of similar entries, first one posted wins. And remember: Type carefully! Your fingers are precious!…