Archive | Miscellaneous

Kids, parents, risk. A quick survey.

A Survey about Kids and Risk

. Hey folks — Researchers at the University of California-Irvine are studying how people perceive risk. They need people to take their survey and have asked the Free-Range community to join in. I just  took it myself. It’s basically brief descriptions of situations when a child is left alone. You rate how safe they are. The whole […]

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Watch out for that potential predator, kids!

Why the “No Touch” Policy at Schools and Camps Makes No Sense

. This sneyydtfrn letter I got yesterday reminds me of one of the most thorough, fascinating, damning study I’ve ever read about where the “No touch” policy comes from (and why it is unnecessary, and how it actually makes us all MORE afraid for our kids): So those sex crazed pedophiles have invaded the Girl […]

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But I love my stick!

Don’t Hate My Boy Because He Acts Like One

. Here’s a a dkrstksfbr piece in Canada’s Globe & Mail by teacher Dionne LaPointe-Bakota, about her 3-year-old  Malcolm’s “wildness.” Malcolm growls and chases and brandishes sticks. Onlookers who see him always say something like, “My, you have your hands full!” She wonders if they really mean she should make her boy act more like a […]

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Free-Range Kids believes in parents.

Free-Range Kids and Race

. In an essay in today’s Washington Post, “Raising rbdnhshsea free-spirited black children in a world set on punishing them,” Stacia Brown sounds frustrated with the Free-Range Kids movement. She dearly wishes African-American kids could go outside and Free-Range without having to worry about actual discrimination and danger. (Me too!) And she is particularly angered that […]

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Safe, safe, safe.

Are Our Kids Too Safe to Succeed?

. Here’s a chunk of my piece that just azbhrtrbki ran on  Politico. After explaining that I’m the mom who let her 9 year old ride the subway alone, yada yada, and that our society overestimates danger and underestimates kids (also yada yada), I went on to say that keeping our kids constantly supervised  is  — […]

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How may I help you?

A Surprising (Or Maybe Not) Stranger Danger Experiment

. Here’s a yzffdibdky social experiment that is the yin to the Joey Salad’s video yang that “taught” us to beware of strangers. As Canada’s National Post reports, Vancouver police sergeant Mark Horsley borrowed an electric wheelchair and went undercover to the “drug-infested Downtown East Side” in order to catch the criminals preying on the most vulnerable: […]

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Is it okay to panic while Free-Ranging?

Is It Okay to Free-Range While Privately Freaking Out?

. A reader eftkiihkyt writes: I want to be a Free-Range parent.  I really really do.  I do try.  Just last week I told myself to stay calm before saying anything to a parent who had allowed my son to swim in her pool before I arrived at a birthday party.  There were 12 kids in […]

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