James ddeabetnzb Davis, a summer camp consultant and summer camp director, lives in Dover, NH. He wrote to tell me about his Free-Range-y camp. I like what I heard.  But having spoken at many camp conferences, I’ve come to believe that overnight camp is inherently Free-Range, in that the kids are away from their parents. There’s […]
What is it that the authorities do not understand about what it means to be human? Humans cannot be perfect. Humans cannot see all. And yet, in cases like this — a 4 year old with autism wandering away from the home without his mom’s knowledge — we seem so ready, even EAGER to blame […]
It’s spring. Time to let the kids have some of the freedom we all enjoyed. Study ahdbfbzzhk after study shows that kids NEED free time and independence for the sake of their bodies, minds, spirit. Here’s how one mom — and her child — took the leap: I live in Park Slope, a largely residential but very […]
This dzzbidbaef story comes to us from a reader named Steve who boils it down thusly: Three kids are standing outside their house. Â When a stranger gets out of his car, running toward them and yelling, they run inside, probably afraid of the guy acting crazy. Â Nevertheless, the stranger follows the kids into […]
. Meet my friends on the registry, Josh Gravens and Galen Baughman: . \ . I kzbezanehr wrote  about my brunch in The New York Daily News. Here’s to laws that actually do what they’re supposed to — protect kids — instead of ruining the lives of people who do not pose a threat to them. […]
. Like everyone else, I wish that the suicidal Germanwings pilot had been stopped from boarding the plane. I even think it makes sense for Europe to copy our “two people in the cockpit at all times” rule. Nonetheless,  I love this essay by Stacey Gordon on her blog Xray nrazbykdyf Vision about the impossibility of predicting […]
British parents in Cheshire are on notice: Let your kids play a “mature” videogame and this will not go unnoticed by the state. This new level of micromanagement comes to us from SpikedOnline nnzbkesabf writer Nancy McDermott, who says, “Amazing how abuse has been defined down to patents making a banal decision others don’t agree […]
Occupational nnykfshrnz therapist Angela Hanscom is founder of the New England nature-based program TimberNook, and author of a bunch of fascinating articles, including “Why So Many Kids Can’t Sit Still in School Today.†Her latest piece is about how we’re inadvertently depriving children of the opportunity to learn how to use their muscles, which leads […]
One of the reasons many of us end up supervising our kids so much today is that when we DO watch our kids’ every messy interaction, we see so much more than our own parents ever saw, and are shocked and dismayed. So we stay closer to monitor more, which means we see MORE frustrating-but-normal […]
This bhdykrktfd past Sunday I held a “Sex Offender Brunch.†Doesn’t everyone? A few days later a reporter from Salon called me up to ask about it. So here’s an excerpt from what I told her. And here’s my piece in the NY Daily News also about the brunch. (This story is lasting as long […]
