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…
Author: lskenazy
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!…
Every year, the “non-profit” organization W.A.T.C.H. (World Against Toys Causing Harm) comes up with its “10 Most Dangerous Toy” list, which the media laps up. I bet you couldn’t guess the group is run by product liability lawyer James A. Swartz. Here’s my favorite warning of his this time around: . W.A.T.C.H. is raging against Bump ‘n Bounce Body Bumpers, an inflatable garment that seems to make kids into beach balls. The manufacturer dutifully printed on the package: “WARNING! To avoid risk of serious injury or death: …This product does not provide protection. Impact hazard may present; protective equipment (for…
Why do you think Samsung made this nearly 2-minute commercial of young people riding their bikes, talking to strangers, meeting new friends (and, of course, using every single Samsung device on the planet)? (Also getting wet and suddenly dry again. But I digress.) Is the idea to appeal to young people dreaming of such freedom? Nostalgic adults dreaming of their youth? Is Free-Ranging something that BOTH generations long for and just aren’t sure how to get back, so it’s like a fantasy? Or is it on the cusp of a new reality? In other words, is the ad instructional, representational…
UPDATE!The Guardian reports that: A grammar school boy missing for two months after telling his parents he was bored with his life has been found safe and well. Arthur Heeler-Frood, 15, who sparked a nationwide hunt, was apparently making his way home when he was recognised on a train and intercepted by the police…. Speaking to the Guardian on Tuesday night, Caroline Heeler-Frood confirmed he was back at home in rural Devon. She said he had not been abroad but said she wanted to have a proper talk to him before she revealed more. The boy’s mother said: “He is…
A couple of you have sent me this ad that is making the rounds: It was just a normal day at the mall for Jennifer Dellert… until everything went horribly wrong. Sigh. She had just left the mall carrying her shopping bags, and was walking to her car when the unthinkable happened. “I wasn’t parked too far away, and was busy on my phone texting my daughter. “It was about a 60 second walk or so to my car from the mall,” she remembers, “and I kind of had that feeling I was being watched.” Right as she was…
This charming, cheering video — and plea for outdoor adventures for kids — comes from Alastair Humphreys, who describes himself this way: I’m a British Adventurer and author. I spent years tackling big adventures such as cycling 46,000 miles round the world, rowing across the Atlantic Ocean, or walking across India. But a few years ago I took to a very different path. I realised that many people loved the idea of adventure, but very few felt able to live as adventurously as they would like. There are many individual reasons for this, but the general issue was a lack…
Dan Shuchman, chairman of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), the group that fights for free speech on campus, has written this Wall Street Journal review of a book by one of my favorite thinkers, Frank Furedi. Furedi wrote “Paranoid Parenting” back in 2002, which was the first book I read about this new phenomenon of “helicoptering.” Now he is at the vanguard again, and I think there’s a direct link from that book to this one. “What’s Happened to the University?” is about hypersensitivity on campus and the idea that if you do or say anything that anyone…