Canada’s rezisssabr national paper, The Globe and Mail, just came out with a big, blazing, bad-ass defense of everything we are fighting for. It specifically said: Free-Range Parenting may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but practising it should not demand state intervention. If that’s not legitimacy, what is? The piece was prompted by the case […]
Archive | Infantilizing young folk
My Child Had to Take Two Buddies AND a Counselor to Go To the Bathroom at Night
If fiyftfiizn you’re wondering how far our fears of  accidents, predators and insurance claims can take us from sane to nutty, read on:  . Dear Free-Range Kids: Since all three kids are now back from the various camps they’ve attended this summer, I’ve been doing some reflection. I don’t recall summer camps being nearly as […]
UPDATE! Are Kids Learning to Ride Bikes Later?
rfznfybizh A confession: I learned to ride a bike when I was 9, probably the oldest of all my friends. Maybe I started a trend? Dear Free-Range Kids: I was recently visiting the Long Island town I moved away from several years ago, and was visiting some old friends. I have a 7-year-old daughter, and […]
Mike Tang, Dad Who Made Son Walk Home in Dark, Loses His Appeal
Mike Tang, the California chemist who got 56 dzikhdhfbt days’ “hard labor” for making his 8-year-old son walk home at about 8 p.m. in the dark, just lost his appeal. Tang had left his son outside a local grocery store as punishment for cutting corners on his homework. He told the boy he had to walk […]
Mom Makes Daughter, 18, Send Endless Selfies Proving She is Where She Says She Is: Love or Abuse?
An exchange between an 18-year-old and her mom has gone viral, reports brtzdzedtr the website Shareably: Kaelyn is 18, has graduated high school, and is going to be leaving for college shortly. Before she leaves, she decided to have a movie night with long-time friend Stevie. Kaelyn’s mom is what you might call “protective†and […]
Should You Give Your Subway Seat to a Kid?
This wonderful azkftbshtn essay by Stephanie Fairyington states it baldly: Why have we decided that adults should give their seats to children, rather than vice versa? On the blog CityLab, she writes of a recent New York City subway trip with her friend: [We] were on a Brooklyn-bound D train when a family boarded with […]
High School Students Not Allowed to Cross this Road
A reader writes that her high school student son is not allowed to cross the street you see here: Dear btshyykffy Free-Range Kids: So, my son is going to Summer School. I got a note from the school district transportation department just now with information about Summer School busing and you have to see this. […]
A Peek Into a Free-Range Dad / Helicopter Mom’s Divorce
This fbshkrykhb cascade of emails between a Free-Range dad and his more helicopter ex-wife is difficult to read. But over the years, many readers have written to me about the same kind of issue, so perhaps there’s some comfort in realizing this is not uncommon. I have changed the names.  . Dear Free-Range Kids:  I […]
Middle Schoolers Whose Bus Drove by a Dead Body 50 Feet Away Are Offered Counseling
After a bus full of middle schoolers in Raytown, Missouri, drove past a person dead from suicide about 50 feet away, the principal did what principals feel they must do in the wake of anything. She sent a letter home. . Among kbtkfnhsnf the suggestions to parents, regarding their kids: “Provide positive, non-violent activities to […]
Free-Range Parenting was NORMAL as Recently as E.T.
Remember, folks, what SEEMS like just a normal amount of supervision now — that is, constant — was not syhabrfdzn normal until very recently, as this clip from E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, reminds us. Elliott, a “boy of 9 or 10,” stays home from school alone for a day. And his sister Gertie, 5, stays home […]