Great grandma Joanne Ward of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, read my piece about the fastest, cheapest child therapy — FREE PLAY. Then she emailed us this worksheet filled out by her pride and joy, Emma, a second grader. Emma is wiser than many an adult, when it comes to what kids NEED THE MOST. In case […]
Gever Tulley saw it before a lot of us: That anything “shaper than a golf ball” was getting labeled too dangerous for kids. And that kids were losing out because of this. Tulley’s 2008 TED Talk, “5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do” remains a personal touchstone. I just re-watched it and couldn’t […]
In Part 2 of Let Grow’s “Practical Tips for Getting Your Kids Outside” series, one mom divulges the simplest, cheapest trick of all: Hands down, the best thing I have ever done to encourage outdoor play (other than modeling loving the outdoors) is to purchase a stack of 8-foot 2″x3″ pine boards. Lots and lots of […]
A mom in Ireland, Trish Frazer, was, it seems, a little fed up with the day-to-day pushing/prodding/cooking/plodding that is modern-day parenthood. So she proposed to her kids, ages 12, 9 and 4, that they switch places, a la Freaky Friday. (But without Lindsay Lohan.) Not only did the kids take her up on it for […]
A mom was put on an Arizona blacklist for letting her son, 7, play at park with his friend, age 5, for half an hour, while the mom bought a Thanksgiving turkey during COVID. She was hesitant to bring the kids into the store and they wanted to play outside. (I’m not naming the mom, […]
The word “Sittervising,” invented by by Busy Toddler blogger Susie Allison, is a new way to describe a once venerated practice: Sitting around while your kid plays. The fact that we needed a word to sort of sanitize this normal practice just shows what judgmental times we’re living in. If the phrase “Free-Range Parenting” allowed moms […]
Forgive the long quote coming up, but it is instructive. (And crazy!) The President of Hamilton College, David Wippman, and his colleague, Cornell American Studies Prof. Glenn C. Altschuler, have somehow been peeking in on the discussions parents are having online about their young adults now matriculated at university. These Facebook group discussions may or […]
A dad who just read Free-Range Kids dropped a note to ask for more SPECIFIC advice. Busted! My book is about how our culture crammed fear down our throats, not granular advice on how to raise a child. So that’s why I’m turning this over to YOU! His questions are below. Note that his kids […]
The Third Annual Let Grow Independence Challenge is on! Let Grow is asking for photos and/or super short videos of your kids doing something new, on their own. First Prize winner gets a $300 gift card. Two runner-ups get $100 each. Last year’s entrants rappelled down trees, made family meals, rode bikes, mowed lawns, sold […]
If you watch Stranger Things with your kids, there’s a good chance they think the strangest things of all are not the slimy monsters without faces but the kids riding their bikes without parental supervision. I wrote about the Stranger Things phenom in the New York Post last week, asking 21st century questions like: Why […]
