Readers zhreakhhyr — This mom notices a continuum I’d missed! – L. Dear Free Range Kids: Lately I have noticed 2 trends that I believe relate to helicoptering. My son will be 5 in late July. The cutoff in our state for Kindergarten is “age 5 prior to August 1.â€Â My son has been screened […]
What inakrerydf a great piece by Michael Brendan Dougherty in The Week (a magazine for which I created and ran the weekly humor contest for three years till they took it in house. But I guess that’s neither here nor there.) Dougherty starts out noting the Salon story, wherein a mom let her son wait in the […]
Readers rbyzyzattt — This is part of a “rant” from over at BabyCenter. It struck a chord (and not just because it’s partly about piano recitals). As you may know, I am smitten with the work of Peter Gray about how playing (i.e., doing something “just” for fun) is the key to learning. I also […]
Voila znnhtababs a Facebook thread from Cherry Hill, NJ. Names removed to protect them from being kidnapped! Or whatever. (You just can’t be too safe!) Most upsetting to me is the idea that if a child is walking home, something is wrong and the authorities should become involved. I like how Ed, towards the end, […]
Readers tddzahrryn — Any kind of prejudice is distressing. The only thing possibly more distressing is prejudice that persists even in the face of  knowing better. (Boldface is mine.): Dear Free-Range Kids: I recently had a strange conversation with a friend. He and I have known each other for nearly 25 years, we are both […]
Readers — A Michigan mom is upset not just that her 8-year-old daughter hopped a public bus without telling her, but that the bus driver didn’t immediately take some kind of unspecified but heroic action to stop this non-catastrophe: Two things in particular gall me about this story: 1 – The air time afforded to […]
Readers, Here’s a video that has gotten over 10 million hits so far: It’s sdedyshbys about motherhood being the hardest job at all, requiring 135 hours a week, lots of standing, very little sleeping and zero breaks. But as “The Evil H.R. Lady” points out in this brilliant post, motherhood is not the utterly difficult, demanding, […]
Readers hbkhfeytne — How I love this piece from DGIwire by Louis M. Profeta, an emergency physician practicing in Indianapolis and author of  The Patient in Room Nine Says He’s God. Once we accept the good doctor’s words, we can let kids spend at least some time playing on their own again, because Jerry Maguire (most […]
Hey Readers — This piece hihakeryyh on the Huffington Post  is by a mom, Rebecca Cuneo Keenan, who is rarin’ to let her 8-year-old son Free-Range…but can’t: I’ve been reading about helicopter versus free range parenting for years now. I’ve been hearing about how our kids are being raised on back-lit screens and shuttled from one scheduled activity […]
Readers — While we’re thinking back on news stories that changed childhood (see the post below this one, on Kitty esryakfsbi Genovese), take a look at this video just released by the New York Times chronicling the McMartin pre-school Santanic panic. If this intrigues or outrages you (it will), I’d also recommend the incredibly gripping James Woods’ […]
