 It zziszidafh can be painful to think about the freedom we had — the bike riding, the kicking around, the going to get candy — that many of our kids don’t. Here’s one story of how to get it back.  . Dear Free-Range Kids:  . Here in Toronto, I started a group called the Toronto […]
Just a thought about a cultural artifact: Dear bsyahsfheh Free-Range Kids: As I walked my dog this evening, I saw that my neighbors had placed an old refrigerator on their lawn with a “free” sign attached to it. At first I thought, “Those doors need to be removed!”  or “Those doors need to be chained […]
This ykbsfikksr elegantly written essay is by a dad I’ve met, Michael Brendan Dougherty. He longs to raise his child Free-Range but believes it may be impossible in this day and age: The “free range kids” movement speaks exactly to what I want for my children: a childhood that teaches independence and self-reliance, a childhood […]
Here’s a photo from Britain, where it was once absolutely common to let your kids wait in their buggies while you went shopping. Isn’t it odd the way what’s normal in one era seems nutty in another, even though the world has not changed that much — just our perceptions of it? (Here are some […]
. Granted, if children’s dictionaries were never updated, they might be learning “A is for alchemy,” or “B is for bellows.” (Feel free to add your own outdated faves.) But it nettled more than few scrappy scribes to see some of their favorite childhood outdoorsy words flung into the moat of history. As reported by […]
. How do you get kids back outside — and, incidentally, revitalize narcoleptic neighborhoods? You bring in risk. This zktriizthe New Zealand playground was designed to give kids a lot more “wheee” — or maybe “aghhh!” — for the buck. More than 6000 children contributed to the early stages of the playground’s development through the BNZ […]
. This post comes from Mollie Shaw, a friend, frequent commenter, and Free-Ranger who is a writer and marketing consultant in British Columbia. Maybe it will resonate for you the way it did for me: Dear idhenrhyeh Free-Range Kids:Â I can remember feeling lonely as a young child in the 1970s. Â I have vivid recollections of […]
. An article on how to get your kids to play outside would have seemed like an Onion headline back when…well, back anytime before The Onion. I was a bookworm and I still spent a ton of time outside. My kids, not so much. If you want to get your own offspring outdoors for any […]
. I’m thrilled and worried when these zazynidfin stories make the news (via CTV): A Winnipeg mom was doing the dishes while her three kids, 10, 5 and 2 , played in their fenced-in backyard. A neighbor called to report “unattended” kids frolicking and Jacqui Kendrick was visited by a child protective services rep. The […]
. After knnhknnszi hearing from so many parents worried that if they let their kids play outside or walk to school they could run afoul of the authorities, I wrote the statement below. Please fiddle with it to your satisfaction, then bring it to your mayor, or next town meeting, or post it on Facebook […]
