Free-Range Kids - How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow
How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow| Free-Range Kids
How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow| Free-Range Kids
This story of a 5-year-old who wandered away from home is going viral today for a wonderful reason: The cops did not arrest the parents! In Jacksonville, Florida, a 5-year-old named William managed to leave his family’s home and fully fenced-in yard one recent morning and walk over to the local Chick-fil-A. Alone! Whereupon the [...] The post Boy Walks to Chick-fil-A on His Own and Cops Spring Into Action appeared first on Free-Range Kids.| Free-Range Kids
Why You Should Spend Less Time with Your Kids. That’s the title of my TED Talk that just came out — and here it is! It went up yesterday and has 197,000 views today. THANK YOU, TED!!! In the talk, I try to explain the terrible lie that has been driving kids and parents crazy| Free-Range Kids
I am so psyched to repost this Substack piece by my friend and fellow Let Grow Board Member, Samantha Boardman. Samantha is a Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University and author of a book I love and recommend to pretty much everyone, “Everyday Vitality: Turning Stress into Strength.” It is about how ruminating isn’t helpful, [...] The post Quit Making “Back to School” Jitters into Yet Another Mental Health Crisis appeared first on Free-Range Kids.| Free-Range Kids
Sometimes I write something I just gotta share, even if it is off-topic. Like today! ITEM: (Reuters) – Mattel has teamed up with OpenAI to develop toys and games with artificial intelligence. The company…plans to “bring the magic of AI to age-appropriate play experiences.” BARBIE: Hello, my new best friend. I’m Barbie. What‘s YOUR name? AVA: [...] The post Hello, Child! I’m Your New Best Friend, A.I. Barbie appeared first on Free-Range Kids.| Free-Range Kids
Are kids on their phones all the time because that’s what they love the most? An explosive new Harris Poll finds that actually, what kids 8-12 REALLY want to do is hang out together in real life – with no adults hovering, and no screens. They go online because that’s the only place they can| Free-Range Kids
Am I insulted? Miffed? Mad that I am called a “rambunctious” provocateur compared to my friend and Let Grow co-founder Jonathan Haidt’s gravitas? I AM THRILLED! Who wouldn’t love their ideas repackaged and recommended by one of the world’s leading brainiacs…er…public intellectuals? Here’s the juicy paragraph from a New Yorker article by Mollie Fischer that| Free-Range Kids
Oh how I love this essay on child surveillance by Elizabeth Leigh Hunter. As she notes: The Alpha Generation is the most surveilled group of people on the planet. That merits more than a “Well, I barely ever look at it” shrug, which is how most people think about tracking apps and monitors. Elizabeth is a [...] The post “I Barely Ever Look at It” Doesn’t Change the fact That Tracking Our Kids Changes Childhood appeared first on Free-Range Kids.| Free-Range Kids
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
You may have heard me talk (endlessly) about how much kids need some time on their own. And how parents – depending on their neighborhood, the age of their kids, yada yada yada – should try to steel themselves and let their kids walk to school, play outside, run an errand, also yada yada yada. [...] The post When Mall Rats are Banned from the Mall appeared first on Free-Range Kids.| Free-Range Kids
If you’re over 35, you probably remember playing outside till the streetlights came on. But today, a lot of parents worry that if they let their kids play the old-fashioned way – spontaneously, unsupervised, with whoever’s available in the neighborhood — their children will be bullied by kids older than them. Here are some ways [...] The post Six Truths about Bullies and Bullying appeared first on Free-Range Kids.| Free-Range Kids
What happens when you get a bunch of kids together and set them free to have fun? Death! Examining death, that is – a dead rodent. That’s what I heard from Beshalie Donaldson. She came to my attention when she commented on a Facebook post by another mom, Sara P, who’d started a Let Grow| Free-Range Kids
UPDATE: The parents WERE allowed to attend the funeral after all. But they are still facing charges. What’s more, they have not been able to afford a tombstone for their son’s grave, so a friend started a fundraiser to help them. The link is here. Unspeakable Cruelty A mom and dad who let their kids,| Free-Range Kids
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
Are daily photos from overnight camp a big issue? Probably not the biggest. But they are part of a culture where parents have increasingly come to expect the ability to watch their kids at all times, even from afar — or at least have been trained to expect this by organizations eager to provide surveillance-as-a-service.| Free-Range Kids
You may recall the tragedy that happened just about 10 years ago when a toddler got away from his mom at the Cincinnati Zoo and somehow fell into the gorilla enclosure. Fearing the gorilla could harm the child and knowing that tranquilizers do not take effect immediately, the zoo made the difficult decision to kill| Free-Range Kids
By now you have probably see this great video, below. Not yet? Well, you’re in for a heartwarming couple of minutes: Utah mom Stephanie Read read The Anxious Generation, got to the chapters I helped out with (the ones for parents and schools), and took them to heart. As she told Instagram: “At the end| Free-Range Kids
The human condition is not one of calm seas and sated hearts. That’s why so many religions work so hard to get us there. The latest is the “Know Everything Your Child is doing/saying/hearing/reading/eating/trying/licking and Peace Will Be Yours.” Um…right. So here’s the wise note from a mom who remains anonymous – and a little| Free-Range Kids
TIDES TURNING AT LAST? Just a few months after Georgia mom Brittany Patterson was arrested for not knowing that her son, then 10, had walked to the store on his own, her state has passed a Reasonable Childhood Independence law. It now goes to the governor for signing. The bill clarifies that “neglect” is only when you put| Free-Range Kids
I present to you Mike Strambler, a psychologist and Associate Professor at the Yale School of Medicine and author of the Substack “As Is.” As insightful as Mike is, his tween-age son is right there with him. When I met Mike at a party several months ago, we got to talking about kids, confidence and| Free-Range Kids
It is right to respect nature. But is it right to insist on a “hands off” policy, as if each leaf is a Vermeer? A mom dropped us a note to say: At my son’s pre-k, he and another boy were picking leaves off of an overgrown bush while adults were talking. The boys were| Free-Range Kids
This Reddit post by “KnightErrant21” made me sit up and SALUTE! Yes, yes, yes! Maybe it’s just not that attractive to have kids when you think that every second, every dime, and every thought must be directly devoted to their development and safety! I contacted the Reddit writer and asked if I could please reprint| Free-Range Kids
If you can’t stand my rants, skip this, for rant I must. Why? Because Parents Magazine’s “5 Ways to Support Your Child’s Preschool Curriculum” is not just annoying, it is WRONG! So is the whole idea it’s pushing: Kids are dumb as dumplings and don’t learn anything without you, the mom (or, haha, dad), constantly, endlessly| Free-Range Kids
The age that kids start playing — walking, biking, frolicking outside — should be up to the parents. But that’s not always the case. A few years back, after the first Reasonable Childhood Independence law passed in Utah – hooray! – we received a query from a lawmaker. He said he wanted his state to pass| Free-Range Kids
Goodbye, 2024 – but first, a quickie look back at the forces that were allied against Free-Ranging last year. And then? A hairpin turn to hope! Worst first! Child Reported Walking: As, ahem, I was the very first person to report, Georgia mom Brittany Patterson was charged with “reckless conduct” when her son, 10, walked| 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
What social changes gave us “helicopter parenting” and, now, even more “intensive parenting”? This New York Times podcast from a few weeks ago, inspired by the Surgeon General’s report on parental burnout, explains all. Michael Barbaro, host of “The Daily,” interviews Claire Cain Miller, the Times reporter covering family issues (and the mom of kids 8 and 12). Cain Miller| 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
Folks — This is a topic that sometimes comes up and is indicative of our culture’s worst-first thinking: The idea that anytime anyone takes a picture in public that happens to include kids, the kids are automatically in some sort of danger. The “thought” process seems to be: Someone photographed my kid? HOW DARE THEY?| Free-Range Kids
Social media influencer Erin Loechner walked away from a million fans – literally — to live a low-tech and, dare we say it, Free-Range lifestyle. Among other things, this involved a deliberate decision, described below, NOT to track her daughter, even though the 8-year-old was going around the neighborhood, alone. Chasing Slow, Erin’s first book,| Free-Range Kids
Honest and searching. That’s how I’d describe this essay by Sybille Bruun, PhD. Sybille conducts research in cognitive science in education at Teachers College (Columbia University) and has had over a decade of experience in New York City’s public and private schools. She’s also the mom of the twin boys above, age 10 — the ones| Free-Range Kids
Sometimes a gal’s gotta rant (again), so here goes:| Free-Range Kids
A Let Grow Play Club and Its Life-Lesson-Filled Leaf Pile!| 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
