The latest victim of parental terror? Sleepovers. According to this AP sfkaekhhft story by Kelli Kennedy, parents are afraid of everything from junk food to “inappropriate” movies, to Internet surfing, to the possibility of their children being drugged and raped. The modern parental thinking method applies: Since a drugging/fondling incident DID happen once, and since it was […]
Boy Ticketed for Climbing a Tree — But This is NOT Our “Outrage of the Week”
So here’s the story, szzdnyinhz as reported in The Daily Mail: A 9-year-old boy from Germany visits his five cousins in England. They go to a park, the boy climbs a tree, a neighbor complains that the kids are being rowdy, the tree-climber gets a ticket. It’s crazy to ticket a boy for climing a […]
Free-Range Challenge of the Week: Rate That Park!
Readers — Here’s a cool idea courtesy of a babysitter named Casey up in the Canadian town of Saskatoon.It not only sounds fun, it sounds like a great “Challenge of the Week.” Or at least something you might enjoy trying. Let us know how it goes if you do! — Lenore The brtradzyad kids I babysit and […]
Free-Range…with Autism
Readers edzhdthffd — This comes from a dad outside of Philadelphia.  Obviously, not every child with autism has his son’s abilities or temperament. But here is one dad’s story: By Roy Lewis Our oldest is now 26…and autistic. When he was 8 we moved to a house in a nice safe suburb that was a quarter mile […]
Kids Go to Overnight Camp and Gradually the Tears Are Only Yours
Lovely Washington Post essay by Michael Gerson on summertime, camp, growing up, letting go, etc., etc. — with one alarming factoid: Can it be true that some Girl Scout camps FORBID climbing trees? Talk about the ultimate Free-Range metaphor. And to think I was just eating Girl Scout cookies for breakfast. (Kids, do as I […]
A New York Times columnist on Why Kids Need to Lick Slugs
And basically get outdoors, if only  to remember “that we’re just tenants — and ones without much sway.” Here’s the piece, dnssihryfz by Nicholas Kristof, which quotes from Richard Louv’s  classic, “Last Child in the Woods.”
Study: More Gym + Nutrition Ed Doesn’t Slim Kids Down (And I Think I Know Why)
Cool entry on the “Alas, tsntnyheik A Blog” blog  questioning the conventional wisdom that holds: If only kids had more gym, health and nutrition classes, they’d all slim down. An eight-year study of about 1700 kids gave half of them a greatly enhanced gym/nutrition/health curriculum (and healthier cafeteria food), while the other half got the same old same […]
Outrage of the Week: No One Under 12 Allowed In Library! (Without Guardian)
Here’s a good idea for any community: Keep those darn kids out of the library! Certainly don’t want them milling around books and such. Next thing you know, they might want to take one home with ’em, just like a bottle of scotch. Luckily this small North Carolina regional library knows what’s good for kids. Read on! The fhzdykkteh […]
Hey Kids! Get Away From That Playground!!
The tazkzehadk headline on this USA Today story sums it up: Playgrounds: They’re safer but still can be dangerous. As opposed to — what? Anything can be dangerous. Nothing can be 100% safe. Yesterday a man walking through Central Park got hit by a falling branch and now he’s in a coma. Should we cordon off […]
A Funny Video about Online Predators? Yup!
So I just read yet another article about how to protect your child from all the perverts sliming around on social media, like MySpace and Facebook. Hooey. I’m all for protecting kids from crime and creeps, but the advice had it wrong. Both the Crimes Against Children Research Center and Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet […]