We keep gently reminding (okay, sometimes hectoring) parents to step back to allow kids to step up. But what if a kid doesn’t WANT to step up…or even get off the couch? Here’s a note from a reader: Advice Needed! Dear Let Grow: My son loves his independence. His older sister, not so much. In| Free-Range Kids
A North Georgia mother is facing criminal charges because her 10-year-old walked alone. That’s absurd.| ajc
The worry that our kids will die the second they step outside feels innate, but it has been cultivated by a society peddling fear. One prime example? The new ad for the Life360 tracking app. (Video at bottom of post. Screengrab above.) It features a mom singing a Disney-sweet song to her daughter who looks| Free-Range Kids
My thoughts on the Brittany Patterson case, which I was the first to report. (I’ve been having trouble with my FRK blog distribution lately. Sorry for the delay in getting you this!) Brittany Patterson had to take one of her four children to a medical appointment, and her youngest son, 10-year-old Soren, was going to| Free-Range Kids
We no longer live in an era of footbinding, writes my Let Grow Co-Founder Peter Gray, the psychologist who studies the importance of mixed-age, unsupervised play. But for about a thousand years, he notes in a recent Substack post, girls in China would have their feet broken and bound to stop them from growing. This was| Free-Range Kids
A childcare worker in Texas dropped a line with a story — and a request: Dear Let Grow: You helped me a few years ago when the state wanted me to get rid of my rope swing, which the kids in my childcare program love. I also run an after-school care program at my local| Free-Range Kids