My yndabyefaf kids’ public school released kids from homework a few years ago — a move met with some pushback. As the NY Daily News put it: Parents Outraged After Principal Dumps Homework for more Playtime.  . As if only the time spent bending over worksheets is learning! Prof. Peter Gray, author of Free to Learn, explains on […]
The yhyhtbakks next time you are having issues with your school (or neighbors, or ex) about letting your child walk home, please print this out. Point by point it explains how walking is not just healthy and fun, it’s actually safer than insisting children NOT walk. This comes to us from Michael Lewyn, an associate professor […]
. What happens when polio and smallpox aren’t taking their toll anymore? Well you just have to look a little harder to find an unspeakable menace stalking our kids. As so, reports this zhitzttfek article from Science Daily: Heat safety issues in bounce houses can put children in danger, according to a new University of […]
. This nhdrsbayni Fox 59 WXIN ad is so classic it belongs in the Fearmongering Hall of Fame…or maybe on The Simpsons. I so wish I could find the embed code, but I can’t. (Can anyone? Please send!) In any event, here’s the transcript. Imagine dirge like music and out-of-focus pictures of kids playing (which happens […]
. Trying not to scream about this article in the Toronto Star, “Child rrtteansei Abduction and Murder Paint a Chilling New Portrait.” As reader Frankie wrote: Just the WORST kind of scaremongering!! They use these huge scary numbers but the bottom line is that in all of Canada, coast to coast, there have been an […]
. Oct. 17 and 18 I’ll be speaking at the amazing Battle ekrhszhyza of Ideas in London. The weekend’s wide-ranging topics include “Is Happiness Good for You?” “Can Big Data Save the World?” Â and “The Lighter Side of the Dark Net.” (Which I can’t wait to hear!) My session is, “Free-Range Parenting: Reckless or Responsible?” […]
. A bunch of you sent me this feahsntrbr CNN piece about the hidden dangers (every TV producer’s favorite kind!) of hand sanitizer. While the video is about teens deliberately drinking the stuff, the written story is about Purell-pickled nippers, and that’s what I’d like to discuss today. It starts with a story that’s almost too […]
. This is the article everyone’s talking about: The izyinabenb Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, on the cover of this month’s Atlantic. It discusses the idea taking root on college campuses that students cannot be exposed to any ideas, words or phrases that discomfort them in any way, even […]
. The Family  Defense Center in Chicago defends families being torn apart by pointless yet devastating Child Protective Services investigations. Families like Natasha’s. Remember her nsiskkkiht story? Natasha let her kids, 11, 9 and 5, play in the park literally across the street from her home, where she could peer out at them every 10 […]
. 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 […]
