[brightcove vid=1777239257001&exp3=1684488549001&surl=http://c.brightcove.com/services&pubid=35121359001&pk=AQ~~,AAAACC1laJk~,tMO2d6O4mickzCfG8Kpt2wQCZRxpuzpo&lbu=http://www.ksdk.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=1777239257001&w=300&h=225] Readers — Will you please watch this news report and tell me what is going on? A man in a pick-up truck calls out to a girl, “Come here” and this is the BREAKING STORY OF THE DAY? Every single cop car is ON THE CASE? The newsroom is scrambling its reporters to […]
Archive | Media Madness
Re: The Sand Tunnel Tragedy. A Little Perspective, Please?
Readers — Just wanted to weigh in for a sec. Tragically, a boy died on Tuesday in the sand tunnel he dug. The kihertrben Yahoo story says, “This is not terribly uncommon. According to CBS News, there were at least 16 beach-hole-related deaths between 1990 and 2010.” It says another source reported 31 deaths in 20 […]
Help Needed! Your “Kids Outside” Stories for Dr. Drew TONIGHT!
Hi Readers — I’m going to be on Dr. dsrdsrffdi Drew tonight discussing the idea of letting kids play outside on their own, a topic inspired by Saturday’s  “Take Our Children to the Park…and Leave Them There” Day. If you have allowed your children to play outside, unsupervised, either on the holiday or on any […]
2 Child Murders, 2 Different Pages in the Paper: Why?
Hi Readers: Not to sound too cynical, but today’s New York Post  carried a afdiekbayb big story about the Etan Patz case — a blonde boy who disappeared 33 years ago, whose case was recently re-opened in the hopes of finally nailing the perp. (Alas, that didn’t happen.) Eleven tabloid pages later, there’s a much […]
Predators on the Yahoo Home Screen
Hi Folks! This trzftstekb is a great piece in the Atlantic, about how the filters on our computers create a sort of feedback loop that can really distort our perceptions. In this case, the author, Sarah Kendzior, clicked on a single story of a child murder, and from then on she found that her home […]
And So The Revolution Begins (With Flipping Through a Parenting Magazine)
Hi dsdhskriyb Readers! One of the ways I spread the Free-Range Kids word is by giving talks around the country (and world — going to Australia at the end of the month). Two weeks ago I was doing this in Seattle where, for a romp at one of my speeches, I flipped through a parenting […]
You Can Be Anti-Bullying and Still Not Buy Into New Bullying “Crisis”
Hi Folks! I read this izziihzdkk Wall Street Journal article  with gratitude and a little rage. It’s called, “Stop Panicking about Bullies: Childhood is safer than every before, but today’s parents need  need to worry about something.” My gratitude comes from the fact the author, Nick Gillespie, bothers to figure out if we are really in […]
“Every Parent’s Nightmare!” Really?
Hi ebnnbskrbf Readers! Just got  this article from a self-described “heathen daddy from Attleboro, Mass.” who summarized the story thusly: A kindergarten girl gets on wrong bus on her second day of after-school care. Instead of going to the program she gets on the bus for home, gets home, realizes she made a mistake because no […]
A Walmart Abduction Attempt — And What the Video Means
Hi Readers! By now, you probably have seen the shocking video (below) of 7-year-old Brittney Baxter fighting off a would-be kidnapper in the toy aisle of the Bremen, Ga., Walmart. What you may not realize is that this is a scene you will be seeing forever — replayed on the news and then re-imagined on […]
Why Are Parents So Scared? Ask Barry “Culture of Fear” Glassner
Hi Folks! Just read a wonderful, kndybztfda cogent Q&A with Barry Glassner, the author of The Culture of Fear and now the prez of Lewis & Clark University. He’s been tracking our escalating worries for over a decade and come to the same conclusions as me (he came to them first!!) Â about where the fear […]