Maybe the answer to, “How can we get kids back to walking to school?” is, “Um…suggest it?” That’s what St. Raphael Catholic School in Toronto did. The student-run Heath Action Team pushed for kids at the K-8 school to start walking. They held a why-it’s-good-to-walk assembly, they organized official walk-to-school days on the last Friday of every month, and they partnered with Safe Routes to Schools, which did a study of the reasons parents don’t let their kids walk. And? Here’s what Metronews.ca reporter May Warren found: A blast of cold winter weather didn’t stop St. Raphael Catholic School student…
Author: lskenazy
It was the year of Pokemon Panic—any toy that gets kids outside must be stopped! —and the year a Florida school cancelled its “Powder Puff” all-girl football game (suggesting the girls bob for apples instead). It was the year that we saw the first academic study of bouncy house temperatures—”something that no one had really examined in the published literature,” according to one of the researchers. Imagine that. But in all, it was a particularly great year for busybodies. This video went viral—a man screaming at a woman who had the gall to pop into the gas station while her…
Wondering how to stay safe this terrifying happy holiday season? Here are some actual tips from the police of Fishers, Indiana. Fishers, by the way, was named the #1 city for families by The Learning Channel. (Maybe because they’re too scared to go outside, so they’re inside watching…the Learning Channel?) It was also named one of America’s “friendliest” towns by MSN.com-Forbes. Wikipedia reports the median Fishers family income is $103,176. But read this advice from the cops and you’d think it’s the third circle of Hell. I was going to just choose my favorite tips, which include, “Residents should NEVER…
Wow! A real-world example of how NOT IMPOSSIBLE it is to pop the parenting bubble of fear. Dear Free-Range Kids: When our kids were pre-school aged I noticed that our park visits were taken up with pushing kids on the swings, or helping them up things. One day I noticed that parents were in the way of everything — making the rules, enforcing the rules, and generally stopping kids from noticing that other kids existed in the park! One day at a picnic my husband spent an hour pushing our three year old daughter — she loved it, but he…
Here’s a question to crowdsource: Dear Free-Range Kids: My son makes a wonderful Free-Range Kid. His older sister not so much. In Grade 4 she still holds my hand walking to the school bus and is very upset that I have determined that they walk the last two blocks on their own. Daily she begs me to walk all the way. I know that she is capable and competent. If she were to get locked out of the house, she is sufficiently resourceful to handle the situation. But she almost never goes outside without me unless I essentially physically propel…
From my mailbox: Dear Free-Range Kids: I’m currently being blasted in my local mom’s group for my questions about the events outlined in the police statement below. Yes, I agree that a 40 year old man asking a 13 year old out for coffee is weird, but are we really calling that luring now? It saddens me to read the comments my fellow moms are making like, “I don’t want any men my daughter doesn’t know talking to her!” Why? We live in a well-off Chicago suburb that is known for being safe. From what I read below, all this…
This powerful piece is reprinted by permission of Rise, an extraordinary magazine written by and about those whose kids have been in the foster care/Child Protective Services system. We have heard so many stories here of parents investigated for letting their kids play outside or wait a few minutes in the car. Suddenly, they had the authorities second-guessing their personal lives. For Piazadora Footman, that kind of intrusion has been a constant. The Fear Stays With Me — Living my life right hasn’t made me feel safe from an investigation October 18, 2016 by Piazadora Footman It seems like…
As we contemplate the family being investigated, the kids being stripped, and the dad doing time in jail, all because of a pre-school child being left to nap in the car for 20 minutes during a Christmas errand, let’s remember it was not always thus. Children were considered hardy. While I don’t advocate leaving them alone for days when they’re young, I do believe that the species is a lot more capable and resilient than we have come to believe. Here, for proof, is a bit of a bio from Wikipedia entry sent in by a reader: …One summer afternoon…
You can probably figure out why an astute reader sent in this column from Patrick Smith’s “Ask the Pilot” blog. It’s titled, “The Silent Anniversary,” and begins: AS NOVEMBER comes to a close, we’ve passed a remarkable milestone. It has now been fifteen years since the last serious crash involving a major U.S. air carrier. On November 12th, 2001, American Airlines flight 587, an Airbus A300 bound for Santo Domingo, went down in the Belle Harbor section of Queens moments after takeoff from JFK airport, killing 260 people (see below for details). Since that day, there has not been a…
You’ll recall that on Saturday, the Cheung family in Valley Stream, Long Island, let their 4-year-old son stay sleeping in the car while they went into a Home Depot to get some Christmas lights. They came out about 20 minutes later to find firefighters had smashed a window to extricate the boy, as if the car had been on fire. Then, despite the fact the kid was fine, they rushed him to the hospital in an ambulance (mom went with him) and threw the dad in jail. Dad was released later that same day. He picked up his son and…