At last, the video age is upon us. Click on this if you’re wondering if you can let your kids eat raw cookie dough (one of the many parental fears I examine in “Free-Range Kids” — the book): [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8kiMKtixAo]
Author: lskenazy
Well, my fellow Free-Rangers, here goes. Since my book is coming out in just about a month, the publishers have posted my introductory chapter on a web site called Scribd (the YouTube of documents, or so they say). If you want to get an idea of what the book is like, this would certainly do the trick: http://www.scribd.com/doc/13224933/FREE-RANGE-KIDS-Intro-by-Lenore-Skenazy Off goes the book into the big, wide world. It’s sort of like seeing your kid graduate. (Not that I’d know, yet. But I can hope! And while I’m at it, I’m hoping your kids graduate some day, too.) Have a great…
Here’s a campaign it’s easy to get behind, “Tell Scholastic: Put the Book Back in Book Clubs.” It’s sponsored by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood http://www.commercialexploitation.org/, which noticed that a whole lot of the items for sale through those little Scholastic book club flyers were either NOT books, or were books that come with little doodads like jewelry or toys. Let’s call them “Happy Meal” books. Scholastic enjoys a very privileged position in childhood in that it is allowed to advertise in the schools, via those flyers. You don’t see Toys R Us handing out catalogs during reading workshop,…
Organic? Whole wheat? Whole Foods? Who cares? A lot of us. But maybe we shouldn’t. Or at least, maybe we shouldn’t burden our kids with all our nutritional correctness. When my older son (now12) was in kindergarten, he came home with a keen interest in cans. Not to build towers with, or roll down the stairs. He wanted to read the labels, because his teacher had been showing the class all about sodium, fructose and calories. So much for story time. Anyhow, those kindergarteners must’ve been mighty advanced, because I’m a grown-up and I still have a hard time figuring…
Go outside and play! Michelle gets to say that now, because as of yesterday afternoon, the Obama girls have a place to go: Their own backyard playset, not much different from a whole lot of other backyard playsets in America — except that when you’re on the swings you can wave to that guy in the Oval Office. The whole thing looks lovely and even cozy — there’s a tree house (which will probably be protected by a very bored Secret Service guy, but still, cozy) — and a tire swing and a climbing rope, climbing ladder, climbing this, climbing…
Two scenes from Mexico, where my family just spent a week’s vacation. (Skip the envy. Nice weather, yes, but my husband slipped before we left and spent the whole time on crutches. Meantime, this was the general tenor of our kids’ conversation: “I just saw a stingray.” “No you didn’t.” “I did too!” “You just think you did.” “But I did!” “See?”) Anyway, that’s not the point — thank God. The point is to contrast two scenes. The first, in town: A Mexican boy of about 8, sweeping his home. Not its floor. Its roof. With no guardrails. Scene two,…
Perhaps you will recall, readers, a few months back when I asked for your input on the cover for my upcoming book, “Free Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts With Worry.” Overwhelmingly — 10 to 1 — you voted for the girl on the wall (versus the aviator boy). But a bunch of you added, “There should be a boy on the cover, too.” Amazingly, the publishers then found a photo with a girl on the wall — trailed by a boy! All right. Maybe someone Photo-shopped the fellow in. They don’t tell authors…
Once five friends forward you the same article, it is time to share it with the rest of the world. This one was by the New York Times health writer, Jane Brody, and it stated, quite simply: Dirt good. Well, it didn’t state it quite that simply. Ms. Brody works for The Times, after all. While they’ve still got a dime in the bank (and that does seem to be their current balance), they’re willing to spring for whole sentences. So what she wrote was: Accumulating evidence strongly suggests that eating dirt is good for you. In studies of what…
Last night I helped one of my sons do the dishes, but I didn’t help the other son clear the table. Time to reserve a shrink appointment for the table-clearer sometime around 2017? Or perhaps an appointment with the parole board? Turns out: No. Neither. A brilliant study by researchers at Temple University looked at 1369 siblings between the ages of 26 and 74. The idea was to find out whether the ones who felt their parents had been harder on them than on their siblings ended up with a chip on their shoulders the size of a dishwasher. A…
Turns out children are feeling pretty good about themselves lately. Maybe a little too good. As reported on the website Connect with Kids (http://www.connectwithkids.com/), a study by researchers at San Diego State University found that high school seniors are bursting with more self esteem than a generation (or two) ago. For example, in 1975, 49% of them believed that they will be successful at their job. Today, 65% do. It’s nice to feel confident and instilling that “World, here I come!” attitude is actually a Free Range Kids goal. But (there’s always a but) instilling baseless self-congratulation is not. And…