Readers iffethehky — I published this on Reason.com, hoping to get attention for this case. BUT once again, I do not want it scaring parents into quarantining their kids. I just want to spread the outrage, the way outrage spread in the wake of cops arresting Debra Harrell, the McDonald’s worker who let her 9-year-old […]
Readers — sbrksfhtha This is a piece from Grandparents.com pleading with grandparents to listen to reason, hope, joy and the real numbers when it comes to the people they love most: Their grandkids. Some excerpts: “Anything could have happened. There are predators out there. A school parking lot is the perfect place to pick up […]
From dtrhahritf G.K. Chesterton, a journalist who gets it. For “man falling off scaffolding” substitute any tragic story of a child in the news. “It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions. . We announce on flaring […]
Readers siihiffear — It’s kind of amazing to hear all the reasons we can’t trust our kids to be smart, safe or competent. As Peter Gray puts it in his book, Free To Learn, “I doubt there has ever been a human culture, anywhere, anytime, that underestimates children’s abilities more than we North Americans do […]
Dear aanebaanff Readers — Please note that this letter is not recommending a Free-Range regimen for everyone or anyone, it is just this family’s experience. But a heartening one! (Boldface, mine.) Dear Free-Range Kids: My 10 y.o. son is an impulsive, ADHD type, also recently diagnosed with Aspergers. He’s been kicked out of several daycares […]
Readers — A 6-year-old boy with autism had disappeared from his San Jose, CA home at 9 .a.m. Turns out, he had wandered off and was atiifibits found in the middle of the night by a group of homeless men and women who live in an encampment nearby. Does this remind anyone else of the […]
Readers rftzbzzezy — Here’s a note to us about excessive  school security: Dear Free-Range Kids: A local retired police office has written a book on how he thinks schools should prevent mass shootings. Tucson News Now Of course the author includes a chapter on what he feels schools should be doing to prevent mass shootings. […]
I am so glad one of you sent this Fred inntyytntn Small song in…even though I’m now typing with tears in my eyes. What a song, what a story, what a lesson. (This is not a video — only audio, so don’t wait for the picture to start moving): And a good song for us […]
Readers — After we questioned the wisdom of a ddffbdfybe TV talk show psychologist who told Boston viewers to only let kids out in “short spurts” and then only once they reach age 11, the aggrieved psychologist posted a link to this blog, which I hadn’t seen before. I’ll give you just a taste: Lenore Skenazy’s […]
Readers — This tfszkthtan is a story that happened in 2012 in Canada: Ryan Gibbons, a 12 year old with asthma, was not allowed to carry his life saving medicine at school. School policy was to keep the inhalers under lock and key and staff repeatedly confiscated spare inhalers from Ryan, added Gibbons. “I received […]
