Readers — After we questioned the wisdom of a ddffbdfybe
TV talk show psychologist who told Boston viewers to only let kids out in “short spurts” and then only once they reach age 11, the aggrieved psychologist posted a link to this blog, which I hadn’t seen before. I’ll give you just a taste:
Lenore Skenazy’s Free-Range Kids book and website spawned the fad of letting kids roam around on their own with little, if any, parental oversight. It’s stunning that this even needs to be said, but here’s just a little glimpse of what can happen to kids without adult supervision:
A 3-year-old boy in Philadelphia died after becoming entangled in a bush in the family’s backyard while playing alone. A branch somehow choked him and he wasn’t strong enough to push it away — and nobody was around to save him. But it didn’t make his mother question the freedom she still gives her other sons…
And even after her negligence cost her one child, she still blithely lets her other sons roam freely. That’s the parental mindset that gets kids killed.
A 4-year-old girl drowned in a backyard pool during a birthday party in Ohio. Dozens of party-goers had been distracted while singing Happy Birthday to a 1-year-old. She had been wearing a “float vest” earlier in the pool but — unsupervised — reentered the pool without the vest. Police said no one was inattentive or negligent.
Hmm… “no one was inattentive or negligent?” Really? The police opt for mercy on the parents in such tragedies and don’t charge them with child negligence/endangerment. The truth is that children can never be trusted alone.
It goes on and on — and on — making no distinction between actual negligence and Free-Ranging, and it was a great way to see all the ammo that must get used against us all the time. The “argument” here jumbles dangerous situations, freak accidents, natural disasters, crime, rationality, irrationality, caring parents and bona fide dangers into a bubbling stew of rage and fear, spiced with ad hominem attacks:
Do Free-Range Kids Taste Better?
The label of “free-range” for kids is a take-off on the free-range chickens and free-range cattle marketing terms. At first it seems to have a rousing and proudly independent ring to it — but ends up screeching when you consider the vast difference between raising animals and raising human children.
I’ll type this s-l-o-w-l-y for the slow learners: free-range wandering might be good for farm and ranch animals, but human children don’t graze in herds or peck feed off the ground to get fattened up for slaughter. Kids are in NO way anything like free-range animals.
Also, there are few, if any, perverted sex fiends prowling around farms and ranches hoping to kidnap, rape, and possibly kill animals. But there are countless thousands of perverted sex fiends prowling around our societies and hunting for vulnerable children.
I don’t think it makes sense to inundate this guy’s blog with comments. But it does make sense for us here to come up with empathic responses to all this fear, as well as to the hard fact that he’s right: Free-Range Kids cannot guarantee anyone’s safety. Of course, no human, idea or “parenting plan” can either. Life is just not completely controllable.
But as long as people can believe it is, they will blame and hate anyone who says we must soldier on despite the fact that we are never the total masters of our fates. Or our kids’ fates, even. – L
105 Comments
“But there are countless thousands of perverted sex fiends prowling around our societies and hunting for vulnerable children.”
Um, citation needed? Someone calling themselves an expert should know better than that.
Love you Lenore. Always follow your blog. The guy is beyond pathetic.
You ´re right. No use answering him. There is no arguing with this mindset as there is always an ever so remote possibility of something happening. Best to lock kids up and throw away the key. With this kind of thinking no wonder the US has the highest incarcation rates in the world.
I believe honestly and truly that this poor man is not quite healthy himself.The problem is that he is not alone. But there is famously no arguing with people who are off the bent. So kudos to your work which highlights where such thinking leads to. It seems to me the only way to do something.
That’s outrageous. Full Stop.
“Second, in the ‘good old days’ we were blissfully unaware of the shockingly high rate of child abuse, neglect, molestation, incest, and rape. Today we know better.”
If it happened to me when I was a kid, I’m still unaware of it. The perps must have been really really sneaky about it.
I actually think kids above the age of 5 that don’t have serious behavioral issues or learning disabilities are safer in groups outside playing stickball or softball like they used to than they are being forced to play inside other people’s houses. I think it is a lot easier to take advantage of kids inside than it is if there is a group of them outside. Not just sex, but other things too. Unfortunately, the government doesn’t see it that way, though they probably have enough cases of parents on drugs that shouldn’t be supervising the neighbor’s kids etc.. And once kids hit a relatively young age it is awkward for Mom to sit and watch the stickball game. She’s in the way, uncomfortable, and has things to do inside. In order for the stickball to come back though, parents have to actually be allowed to do the dishes or whatever while the kids play unattended outside.
“Forget the Free-Range Kids Insanity – Go RadKids!”
Ah, it took a while to get to the point, but at last we get to the real meat of the message. After countless paragraphs of griping about Lenore selling her book on a website, he reveals that to REALLY keep your kids safe, just send them to this training camp — for a small reasonable fee, of course. And then maybe — MAYBE — they can go outside alone when they’re teenagers.
Looks like this guy’s ID-10T certification has been notarized.
“Raising children safely is the primary duty of a parent. If a child doesn’t SURVIVE childhood… nothing else matters.”
If a child doesn’t have a childhood, nothing else matters.
The primary duty of a parent is to RAISE the child to be an independent, contributing member to society, not a parenting-induced anxiety disorder victim of unfounded paranoia.
@Paul
“he reveals that to REALLY keep your kids safe, just send them to this training camp”
Something like this one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vveMFEUCSbI
Hey, but at least they not unsupervised? Right?
What’s most disturbing about this perspective is the lack of any understanding of how to truly compare the two perspectives. Note that he only points out situations where children were harmed during moments where they were unsupervised.
He utterly fails to contrast that with situations where children are harmed WHILE UNDER SUPERVISION. The pedophile comment is just asinine–actual evidence shows that children are far more likely to be abused by a family member than by individuals roaming the parks.
Lenore what you push hard against, is not supervision, but that no amount of supervision will prevent all harm to children. And in addition, some supervision actually can harm children’s development.
making no distinction between actual negligence and Free-Ranging
Yes, this exactly.
The idea that an accident happened (the drowning) while at a party with a number of kids and parent around…how is that connected to anything Lenore talks about?
I’m going to hold my peace on that blog; since those opinions were not born of reason, reasonable arguments won’t change them. Those who wish to live in fear are, sadly, free to do so.
If you read this guy’s bio, it’s understandable why he sees the world in horrible terms. Bad guys are everywhere, starting with his own parents. He has a world view based soley on his personal experiences. He also vastly overstates the numbers, so I think it is he who is cherry-picking facts. I think he needs a good shrink.
I’m heading to Germany in a couple of weeks for an expo. I’ll be riding on buses every day with thousands of kids, young as 6 and 7, making their way to school. They’re everywhere. But not in safe ole America.
@Neil M
“Those who wish to live in fear are, sadly, free to do so.”
But they’re working very hard to make sure the rest of us are legally required to live in fear.
“The age of limited freedom for kids should be the mid-to-late teens depending on each individual circumstance (but NO hanging out at the mall or wandering aimlessly — see Child Kidnapping), or maybe somewhat younger if the child is especially mature, responsible, and has had ample RadKids training.”
This made me snort coffee up my nose.
Ample RadKids Training should be a band name.
What stood out to me was his use of the word “fad” as in “the fad of letting kids roam around on their own with little, if any, parental oversight.” This is not a fad! I would argue that the opposite–NOT letting your kids roam around on their own–is a fad. Did he run around unsupervised as a kid? Did his parents do so? If not, has he ever watched “Leave It to Beaver” or “read “Hardy Boys” or watched/referenced any other work that reflected social mores of their time? This overprotection is NOT a fad and it is NOT normal!!!
But that said, the only way to counter this silliness is with facts and a little critical thinking. He cites a couple of terrible instances (and know that I agree that any death of any child is indeed a tragedy) but let’s put this in the context of STATISTICS! What is the incidence of such accidents? And If one is to be cautioned against unsupervised bush-entaglement, how about driving with a child in the car? Auto accident death for children is actually statistically significant. Facts and critical thinking. Facts and critical thinking.
Does this guy have children? And does he keep a gimlet eye on them every second of every day? If he does, I feel sorry for them.
The thing is, this sort of nonsense garners more attention than acknowledging the fact that every day, millions of kids are just fine. They aren’t drowned, strangled by bushes in the backyard, torn apart by feral dogs or molested by men prowling the streets in unmarked vans. They’re just fine.
But “Millions of Kids Are Just Fine” doesn’t thrill and alarm the general public the way OMG! PEDOPHILES EVERYWHERE! BACKYARD BUSHES WILL KILL YOUR CHILDREN! AAAAAHHH! will.
And lollipop lover, if I start a band, I will call it “Ample RadKids Training”, That’s “sick”.
@JJ
“If not, has he ever watched “Leave It to Beaver” or “read “Hardy Boys” or watched/referenced any other work that reflected social mores of their time? This overprotection is NOT a fad and it is NOT normal!!!”
He (and everyone) should google the term “chronological snobbery”. Basic meaning: the prejudice that our own time is normal and good and past ages were dark ages.
I remember something similiar happening around our way when I was a kid, Similar to the 3 year old.
Except that it was a young 4 y/o who got tangled in branches he wasn’t strong enough to move. He did have the sense to call for help though. Teacher on playground duty was busy – so an older kid moved the branch for him and comforted him. Kid that rescued him? At most, an older 8 y/o.
“I’ll type this s-l-o-w-l-y for the slow learners: free-range wandering might be good for farm and ranch animals, but human children don’t graze in herds or peck feed off the ground to get fattened up for slaughter. Kids are in NO way anything like free-range animals.”
This part made me laugh, because as far as I can tell, kids left to their own devices do graze around in herds, or perhpas more aptly, they roam around the neighborhood in packs, stopping off at someone’s house whenever they get hungry. And my kids may not peck-feed, but they do eat stuff off the ground if I don’t stop them in time.
And then taking apart the “fattening up for slaughter”, he’s right, we’re not fattening our kids for slaughter, unless he’s referring to parents who are too terrified to ever let their kids outside and instead keep them in front of the tv, plying them with snacks and ensuring a lifetime of health-related issues that one day may in fact get them cut open in the form of surgery.
Friend-“Can you go to the mall tonight?”
RadKid:”NO way! I have to complete some more RadKids training and then maybe I’ll ask my mom.”
Friend:”Dude, you’re like 19 years old.”
RadKid:”I know. Mom says I may be ready soon for some limited freedom. I’m role playing encounters with adult sex fiends so I can prepare myself for the perverts at the mall.”
Also, this line came off the Radkids website: “Telling your child to be safe is hopeful at best. Training them to think, choose and react is a gift”. If this guy really thinks that free-range parents just throw their kids out the door as soon as they’re old enough to walk, he has no idea what it really is. In fact, I would say that teaching our kids to think, choose, and react is exactly what we’re advocating. My almost-five-year-old has been playing outside on his own since he was three, but that was only after determining that he was understood staying in the yard and to not go in the street and even then, I was constantly watchful through our windows to see what he would do when I wasn’t right by his side. This is free-range parenting. We advocate education and training in order to prepare our children for the eventuality that we won’t always be with them, not throwing them to the wolves.
@BL is correct about chronological snobbery. We’ve figured out that interning Japanese Americans in camps during WWII was a bad idea, as was burning old women for being witches, and forcing Native Americans off their land and killing them because they were a bunch of godless savages. We’re agreed that the Satanic Panic of the 1980s was completely stupid, but we’ve hit on a new fear that pedophiles are everywhere, stalking our children Eventually, we’ll figure out that this fear, too, was unfounded, and the sex offender registry, which does much more harm than good, will be eliminated with a sigh of, “What were we thinking?”
This blog I recognize. This author, term used very loosely, credits Lenore with creating this fad. Hmmmmmmm, how old are you Lenore, because I am sure parents were doing this centuries ago?
We don’t eat free-range animals anymore, anyhow. They’re all factory-farmed. Current obesity rates in kids raises an interesting overview on the fattening up process.
But then…free range goes beyond the conventional when thinking outside the box. First, there is the physical. But what does a free-range mind think like?
As to fads. Spin, hype, and whatever sells headlines. Hashed bashed and smashed tags….
I was a regular walking talking living breathing “fad” for my entire childhood (and had a ball, being so.)
Either we raise the bar, or drop the dumb bell on our toes.
Free range never advocated negligence or neglect.
Once upon a time it was just a firmly entrenched societal convention. Just like a natural law.
In this way, do we slowly become more un-natural.
I never heard the term while growing up. I didn’t need to. I just lived it.
Needing to re-invent it now, reflects more the true nature of our “progress” than the corruption of standards.
But following the money (as my nose loves to do) I realize that the industry of “value-adding” kids earns big bucks for lots of folks.
Once upon a time they earned their incomes other ways.
Just as commodities are constantly monitored and measured for investment enhancements, kids are now weighed and measured for optimal returns. Nothing and no-one can be free when that is done to them.
(as if somehow, the actual humanity of kids becomes a failed oversight?)
If something isn’t locked down and controlled – well then, it’s wild.
(I had a lot of wilderness in my eyes when I was 10.)
My mom used to love that.
Is that what they fear so much? The wild……..
I loved his case about the two boys on bikes who chased the car with the kidnapped girl, I guess those boys were “free ranged and prepared for slaughter” since they decided to take off after the car. Don’t think they would have made that choice on their own if they’d been told they can only play in their yard and under Mom’s supervision.
It’s the hysteria that blinds him to the hypocrasy in his own blog post, but as in most people who “believe” what they say it’s as Barney Frank said “it would be like arguing with a dining room table: I have no interest in doing it.”
My favorite part is where he talks about a child being kidnapped and killed by a stranger every 8 days. That’s 45 kids a year. There are 75 million kids under the age of 18 in the US. I don’t need to go to Vegas to gamble with those kind of odds. I’ll gamble with those odds anywhere.
That’s called a straw man, folks. The phrase “Free Range” used by Free Range Kids advocates does not mean “raise them like free range animals, the end.” It means, “Oh, here’s a cute phrase that comes from the idea of free range animals, and we’re going to use it to mean this, and this, and that other thing.”
But it’s easy to sound smart when you start by being willfully obtuse. It’s the intellectual lightweight’s favorite technique.
“A five-year-old boy, Sida Osman, went missing from his Fort Worth TX apartment complex in June 2013. His dead body was later found behind a nearby vacant house with blunt force head injuries. Police arrested a 13-year-old male suspect after witnesses reported that the boys had been seen together going into the backyard of the vacant house. Both boys were free-range kids.”
Really? They were identified as such? Did they have their FRK identification cards on them or were they just wearing their FRK t-shirts?
Quote: “A 4-year-old girl drowned in a backyard pool during a birthday party in Ohio. Dozens of party-goers had been distracted while singing Happy Birthday to a 1-year-old. She had been wearing a “float vest” earlier in the pool but — unsupervised — reentered the pool without the vest. Police said no one was inattentive or negligent.”
“Hmm… ‘no one was inattentive or negligent?’ Really? The police opt for mercy on the parents in such tragedies and don’t charge them with child negligence/endangerment. The truth is that children can never be trusted alone.”
How stupid and idiotic on this guy’s part! A child tragically drowns leaving the parents sad and grieving. So now this moron wants to pile more sadness and misery on the deceased kid’s parents by implying they should be charged with neglect? So what purpose would that serve? Tragedies can happen despite of precautions and that is what the police determined in this case!
COMMON SENSE: “I’d better keep a good eye on my young child while he’s in the pool otherwise he could tragically drown and I’d never forgive myself”.
ILLOGICAL MINDSET OF YOUR “HOLD THE PARENTS RESPONSIBLE” CROWD: “I’d better keep a good eye on my young child while he’s in the pool because if he drowns, I could get charged with a crime”.
Lenore or ANY free range parent on this forum has never suggested that young children need not be supervised and watched while swimming in a pool or a lake!
Good grief.
@Brook
“If you read this guy’s bio, it’s understandable why he sees the world in horrible terms. Bad guys are everywhere, starting with his own parents”
Yeah, and he described his own childhood as “free-range”, which seems to mean being beaten by a drunken father. Sounds more like the worst sort of helicoptering to me.
My work has made me aware over the years of dozens of men, perhaps nearing a hundred, who are real life sexual offenders who preyed on children. That knowledge makes me less enthusiastic about doing away with the registry entirely. But I have yet to see one who preyed on strangers. The victims are the perpetrators own children, his stepchildren, his girlfriend’s kids, nieces who have a close relationship with their uncle, or more rarely students. The men are able to isolate themselves with these children, groom them, and make them feel afraid to tell. Parents should be aware of the signs of abuse. They should also teach their children to be self-confident and not afraid to report inappropriate behavior or discomfort. But the idea that children are in danger at the park is ridiculous. My daughter has become more confident and self-assured since she decided to join the group of mostly boys who play games like kickball at the local park after dinner. I would argue that this makes her less likely a target of “perverted sex fiends” hunting for vulnerable children.
Seriously? Comparing a freak accident (the child who strangled in a bush!!!) to complete negligence (the child who drowned)???
I am glad the mother of the little boy didn’t let her rare tragedy affect her sensible parenting.
The parents of the 4-year-old who drowned were negligent and that has nothing to do with being “free range”…Young children must be watched around water…I’ve never heard Lenore say anything different.
I’ve seen this website before! This guy runs a business that really depends on fear to stay in business. Every “proof” he uses is either a half-truth, downright lie, or ad homimen attack!
Quote: “And even after her negligence cost her one child, she still blithely lets her other sons roam freely. That’s the parental mindset that gets kids killed”
By using HIS logic, if my child goes horseback riding and then falls off the horse and is tragically killed, I should NEVER allow my other children to get on a horse again.
Is this succumbing to fear or what?
It wasn’t “short spurts until age 11”, it was “not until age 11, and even then only in short spurts”.
“A 3-year-old boy in Philadelphia died after becoming entangled in a bush in the family’s backyard while playing alone. A branch somehow choked him and he wasn’t strong enough to push it away”
To be fair, the bush was actually Devil’s Snare and most muggles don’t know the proper way to get out of that.
Well I checked his blog as well – can anyone even FIND a place to leave comments? Looks like email is the only way to contact him.
Lenore, you are obviously on the right track if folks are this scared of you. Keep up the good fight.
My folks “free ranged” me and my brothers in the 1970s and 1980s. How come we all turned out so poorly? Oh, wait, we didn’t.
My brother’s chicken are no longer free range because they were killed by too many predators. Comparatively, my son has never been killed or eaten on his uncle’s farm.
(BTW, his chickens still have lots of roaming during the day – he’s very humane in case in anyone was concerned.)
Tamara, I came back here to ask the very same thing – IF I were to want to leave a comment, where would I do that?
Hmmmm I’m thinking he’s not so secure in his assertions if he doesn’t even have a mechanism on his blog for comments.
I snorted at two parts, “Lenore Skenazy’s Free-Range Kids book and website spawned the fad of letting kids roam around on their own with little, if any, parental oversight.” Because this wasn’t normal just a generation or two ago? I seriously can’t even imagine my grandmother driving her three kids all over town to do gymnastics, swimming, soccer, taekwondo, and not from a lack of love either.
And then also snorted again at,”Also, there are few, if any, perverted sex fiends prowling around farms and ranches hoping to kidnap, rape, and possibly kill animals.” Because first thing that came to mind for me here in Washington was this case in which I believe there is also video for, but I didn’t link to that. So yeah guess it’s not safe to let the horse roam around free in the field without supervision. */sarcasm*
Okay, I think I just threw up a little in my mouth reading that. That drowning accident he refers to has nothing to do with free range parenting. It was AN ACCIDENT!
What a raving loon.
Sir,
Let’s say I’m buying your claim that there are, “countless thousands of perverted sex fiends prowling around our societies and hunting for vulnerable children”. I challenge you to do something about the “countless millions of cars roaming our streets” which kill (not rape, or kidnap, or just scare a little) hundreds of children every year. According to this article http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/04/cdc-too-many-kids-die-unbuckled/5204127/ (see, smart internet posters use these things called “cites” to highlight their “facts”) the CDC found that over 9,000 children under the age of 12 were killed in automobile accidents between 2002 and 2011. Two out of every three of those deaths were of children who were buckled in a “safely” restrained.
Sir, that’s over 6,000 well supervised and ostensibly protected children DEAD because of the rampant car menace. Where are your articles about banning children from private modes of vehicular transportation? Where are you articles stating that no child should ever be placed in a car until they’re 13, and only then in short spurts? Where are your claims of parental negligence for every mother who ever buckled their kid into a safety seat and merged onto the freeway?
We’re waiting.
I’d suggest making sure you filter your link to that creep’s web site through http://www.donotlink.com/ — otherwise she is benefiting from any traffic she gets when people like me go to see just how whackadoodle she is (spoiler: she is really, really whackadoodle).
Her site does not allow comments either.
Her entire post is rather sickening. The other articles (telling people to be sure to go armed when they are camping and assume every hiker you meet is a serial killer) are so irresponsible it is astonishing that a Ph.D. would write them…but I guess there is a lot of money to be made, or attention to be had, by talking up bogeymen. Sheesh.
“I’ve never been a law enforcement officer nor do I have a degree in criminology or criminal justice. What I do have that sets me apart from the run-of-the-mill experts is a lifetime of experience starting as a child victim of domestic violence, an adolescent target of pedophiles, a juvenile delinquent criminal, eventually a crime prevention advocate, and finally a faculty member of police training centers teaching crime prevention strategies to veteran law enforcement officers. My bio is my C.V.”
Allow me to be the first to tell you to stfu then.
Y’know, I ran across this blog a year or so ago, read it, thought it idiotic… and didn’t even think of mentioning it to you. Probably because I thought it was just silly factless account.
The belief that a parent must control everything is surely a result of _____ what? Certain negative events and resulting beliefs?
But deep down we know we can’t control everything, and so the irrational fear of being out-of-control, fear of The Great Unknown, The Great What-If, leads to what we see in our society today.
Most people’s religious faith in a creator gives them room to breathe and trust. None of us had a say in whether we were born or not. We had no part in choosing our parents or our lot in life. That was out of our control.
All we can do is our Best, and that Best is different for each of us because we each come from a different set of circumstances and experiences.
Personally, I think Free Range Parents are more willing to accept the fact that bad things happen, no matter what. We tend to believe that the best way to love our children is to prepare them for life, teach them how to be on their own. Helicopter parents don’t understand that certain important lessons must be learned from independent experience away from parents. And the big issue is age. Free Range parents know their kids have abilities to learn and reason and make safe decisions as most parents throughout history have known. Helicopter parents rarely trust their kids to have intelligence. How sad.
Just did a little reading over there, this guy is an absolute nightmare. He makes your typical worst first thinker seem pale by comparison and honestly anyone who listens to him is just as ignorant.
Sorry gang, but I brought this to Lenore’s attention.
After her tv interview, I challenged Dr. Ruskin to back up her claims. She refered to Lenore as having a cult like following, and referred me to this site for proof.
“The age of limited freedom for kids should be the mid-to-late teens depending on each individual circumstance (but NO hanging out at the mall or wandering aimlessly — see Child Kidnapping), or maybe somewhat younger if the child is especially mature, responsible, and has had ample RadKids training.”
Mid-to-late teens…so they can drive themselves to the mall, but they can’t hang out there?
The irony…he is so completely missing the point. sigh.
Holy f**k. There are no words. Cannot even express my nausea.
My question: At what age does it become acceptable for one parent to bully and ridicule another?
Maybe instead of “Free Range Kids” it should be Called “Non-Overprotected, Non-Coddled, Trusted, Healthy, Independent, Smart Kids Being Permitted to Grow Up And Learn Independence At A Developmentally-Appropriate Age By Responsible Loving Parents”?
Perhaps it would clarify things for certain people?
“And even after her negligence cost her one child, she still blithely lets her other sons roam freely.”
It sickens me that nowadays mothers are blamed for EVERYTHING that happens to their children, even freak, completely unforeseeable random accidents. Not every terrible, tragic thing that happens is someone’s FAULT!
Taking another look at the site, which I had to do on an empty stomach. I found something very curious.
The site advocates allowing freedoms from mid to late teens. Yet, the site also recommends using babysitters from the Red Cross Babysitting Program. Don’t they teach 12 yr olds to be babysitters?
Uh, the guy who wrote the blog is NUTS. As if his tirade against Lenore isn’t proof in itself, if you go to his blog and click the Bio link, you can see full well where this guy is coming from. The guy clearly is very disturbed, and he is projecting that on to Lenore, and these news stories, in his writing. One of the primary rules of the Internet: Don’t feed the trolls. This guy is clearly very angry, afraid, and trolling for attention.
Pools and the water are seriously dangerous and people of all ages should be supervised or have a buddy and be mature enough to handle the responsibility of keeping an eye on theirs. It is nothing like a freak branch choking accident.
Otherwise it reads like a chain letter.
Do not keep this letter. It must leave your hands within 96 hours after you receive it. Joe Ellito received $450,000 and lost it because he broke the chain. While in the Phillipines, General Welch lost his wife four days after he received this letter. He failed to circulate the prayer. However, before his death, he received $775,000. Please send 20 copies and see what happens to you on the fourth day.
So I went and actually read the blog…another thing he thinks parents should prevent: Injuries from falling out of bed
What?
We should now SLEEP with our children? And how many children are SERIOUSLY injured by falling out of bed? Or maybe he thinks children should never have any type of injury, large or small, at all.
What??? Just what?
Lenore, you didn’t even mention that brilliant title! “Free-Range Kids Nonsense” – SO completely accurate! :’-)
Did anyone notice that all examples (except one) are of children ages 5 and under, while we usually discuss kids ages 6/7 and up?
His blog reminds me of the episode of King of the Hill where Hank accidently lets his homeowners insurance lapse and it won’t be reinstated until the next business day, so he spends all weekend preventing anything from happening out of fear it might harm his home, thus tormenting his family and neighbors.
Except the writer is not a cartoon, it’s not just a weekend–its his entire life, and it’s not just his home–it’s every aspect of his life.
His blood pressure and heart rate must be off the charts.
“The age of limited freedom for kids should be the mid-to-late teens depending on each individual circumstance (but NO hanging out at the mall or wandering aimlessly — see Child Kidnapping),”
Let me see if I have this right. The “teens” are 13-19. Which would make an approximate breakdown of: early teens – 13-14; mid teens – 15-16; late teens 17-19.
So under his beliefs a late teen, aka a LEGAL ADULT, should only have limited freedom. A person who can drive a car, vote, join the military, get married, be given the death penalty, enter a legally binding contract and do just about everything else a US citizen is legally allowed to do CAN’T HANG OUT AT THE MALL? And our (meaning parents) stopping them from wandering aimlessly is somehow not kidnapping?
Adding a little to what Stacy said “I have yet to see one who preyed on strangers.” and what K2 said “I think it is a lot easier to take advantage of kids inside than it is if there is a group of them outside.”
The person who molested me was an uncle who used to babysit me. Thankfully my uncle wasn’t babysitting me when he decided to abuse me. So I was free to run from him. I when to the park and even though it was empty that day it turned the tables in my favor because people like him don’t want witnesses. I worry for the kids under unnecessary adult control.
But that isn’t even close to the main reason I’m preparing my daughter to be a free range kid. The main reason is that we should worry more about the mental health and rights of the children in this country, than the chickens destined for our plates. And because I had a friend who was helicoptered, who’s life was governed by her parents fears, who wasn’t allowed out until past age 11 and even then only in short spurts. She suffered more than I did, she still suffers. When I told about my uncle I was reminded that I was strong and smart that I had taken care of myself, and the pain subsided. It is better to grow up being told you are strong and smart and have done well under adverse circumstance. Rather than being told that you are week and ignorant, and incapable of facing the world.
>”But there are countless thousands of perverted sex fiends >prowling around our societies and hunting for vulnerable >children.”
>Um, citation needed? Someone calling themselves an expert >should know better than that.
Easy – she didn’t count them. Done.
I was done when I read the word ‘fad.’ Yes, raising kids as was done for all of human history until the last 10 years or so is a fad. Idiot.
As for the pool – nothing to do with free-range. She has no idea what the parenting philosophy was.
She also made no effort to collect tear-jerking but statistically meaningless stories about helicoptered kids dying.
Finally, the statement that there is no one waiting to assault and kill animals is absurd. She probably ate an animal today.
>”Second, in the ‘good old days’ we were blissfully unaware of >the shockingly high rate of child abuse, neglect, molestation, >incest, and rape. Today we know better.”
>If it happened to me when I was a kid, I’m still unaware of >it. The perps must have been really really sneaky about it.
I know you’re being sarcastic, but most fear-mongers actually do believe you can be molested without knowing it. For instance, someone may once have taken a picture of you without permission, then masturbated over it.
I had an interesting conversation with my therapist this morning touching on this subject. We were talking about “garbage in, garbage out” and the ways in which what we feed our brain actually alters our brain chemistry. She worries, as do I, that our addiction to the media is causing a nationwide epidemic of anxiety as people feed themselves a non-stop diet of death, destruction, and chaos. So I guess the corollary to the free-range philosophy is also to turn off the dang TV, stop the newspaper, and be super careful about what you believe online! Because this guy has clearly become utterly deluded by “facts” that just aren’t.
Dangers are all over.
Does this person recommend injecting poisons into babies as the vaccine big pharma recommend?
What is safe and what is a reasonable risk?
For me as an adult, I would rather live in risky freedom than be a slave to fear. And how can I deny that to my children without being a hypocrite?
I was really, REALLY hoping that his ramblings was satire and tongue-in-cheek, but this guy actually believes his own BS which is actually scary. You would think that someone like John Walsh ghost wrote that blog the way it reads. It stops short of referring to everyone as a undetected child rapist, molester, kidnapper which is absolutely punch bowl territory.
This man’s warped ideology surrounding unwarranted fear is equally dangerous as it is scary.
All aboard the fear wagon! Next stop, Insanityville!
I promise to go back & finish reading both your & his columns, but I need to point this out.
He is NOT A PSYCHOLOGIST, talk show or not. From his own blog, and I quote: “I’ve never been a law enforcement officer nor do I have a degree in criminology or criminal justice. What I do have that sets me apart from the run-of-the-mill experts is a lifetime of experience starting as a child victim of domestic violence, an adolescent target of pedophiles, a juvenile delinquent criminal, eventually a crime prevention advocate, and finally a faculty member of police training centers teaching crime prevention strategies to veteran law enforcement officers. My bio is my C.V.”
As a professional psychologist who cares deeply about free-range kids & raising mine as one, please do not mis-identify this guy as a psychologist. This is basically just one guy’s opinion who seems to get others to listen to it.
More comments when I have the chance to read the rest of this stuff. Thanks.
This guy is the “Jesus Camp” equivalent of helicopter parenting fanaticism. He sounds like a sect or cult leader instructing his version of safe parenting. “Don’t it MY way, or your kid will die.” Too bad he wasn’t recycled with Marshall Applewhite.
To quote another popular blog when this sort of thing happens, “Christ, what an asshole”.
$10 says he has never read your book. If he hasn’t, shame on him. If he did, then he’s the s-l-o-w learner.
Leah, I wonder about the same thing but more literally. Could we be seeing more paranoid behavior because of widespread deficiencies of b12, d, and magnesium?
You know, I read an opinion piece at CNN the other day written by a mother who was concerned because she really didn’t want her daughters to see the movie “50 Shades of Grey” when it comes out because she was worried about the unhealthy messages it sends. “Not for my kids!” she stated. Except, her kids are 23 and 26 years old. So apparently, not only is letting children play like children dangerous, but treating adults like adults is also to be frowned upon. There is no longer an upper age limit to helicopter parenting.
Wow, what a snotty jackass! Why are you even giving this person the time of day?
Susan,
Lenore did not refer to this idiot as a psychologist. It was the TV Quack of a psychologist, that posted the link in response to me.
Well…frightening. That individual is surely damaged. He also has the misconception that “Free Range” (that is, “Normal” ) parents just throw their sprogs out the door with no instruction.
Now, a class of self-defense, street-smarts training, etc may be a good idea for some folks. Saying that “YOUR KIDS WILL F***ING DIE UNLESS THEY TAKE THIS CLASS AND ARE LOCKED UP UNTIL THEY ARE 47!!!” is the sign of a disturbed person.
Something just occurred to me.
FRK are a pedophile’s dream?
Kids who
-Are taught how to safely interact with adults
-Know how to walk away from an unsafe situation
-Will ask for help if they need it
are a pedophile’s dream? Sounds like a pedophile’s nightmare to me!
Nicole,
When you mention the woman who wants to control what movies her mid-20’s kids watch, you remind me of a something I see with many of my clients. I work with a lot of clients (women mostly) for things like weight, stress, fears, etc and quite often they are still treating their grown kids (in their 20’s and 30’s even) like children, and even more than that like helicoptered children. One of the things I work with is helping them to let go and set healthy boundaries and stop doing everything for their adult kids. Often once they do that, whatever symptoms they came to me for will go away too. It suggests that helicopter parenting causes problems not just for the children but also for the parents, leading to issues with anxiety, depression, weight gain, phobias and other issues.
My cousin’s little boy choked to death on a marshmallow. Right in front of them. We are not in charge.
Wow. All that foaming at the mouth must really mess up his keyboard. That’s the only excuse I can think of for his poor writing style.
As for the content, I think meds are in order here.
Hmm, this guy is one sick puppy…..
My dad’s dad was a pretty damaged bloke too, and passed on, among other things, his fears about perverts hanging out in public toilets to him and on through to us. In fairness to him, he’d up and down the garden path, and in and out of some pretty sick parts of the globe (trenches, psych wards, the bowels of steamships, South Africa in the ’20’s, yada, yada….). Funnily enough, though, in spite of his odd obsessions and strange ideas, he still let his son roam freely, and my dad let us do the same. We just got the benefits of some pretty weird ideas….(my personal favourite being the admonition not to fall asleep in manual wool balers, very important for kids in cow country, LOL!)
This bloke, though, seems entirely unable to move on from a sick past. Is it, as someone says above, a money-making ploy? Grandad is probably somewhere kicking himself….he could have made lots of money, somehow, out of the pervs in toilets thing.
I’ve never found helicoptered 12-year-olds any harder to separate from their parents than free-rangers, and the free-rangers are more assertive at dealing with the situation.
I thought I was out of sputtering outrage and disbelief at the clueless, blind ignorance of others today (it has been one of those days), but it turns out I had some left. So nice of the world to remind me that there are seemingly endless streams of people willing to live their lives based on fear and stupidity, and more than eager to drag the rest of us down into the darkness with them.
Awesome.
“Um, citation needed? Someone calling themselves an expert should know better than that.”
ah, but if you’re a self proclaimed expert you don’t need that, your status as an expert means you’re always right…
“If it happened to me when I was a kid, I’m still unaware of it. The perps must have been really really sneaky about it.”
no, no, no, just no. You’re just in denial, your memories are suppressed, and only hypnotic stimulation can reveal the abuse that really happened to you by your father, your swimming teacher, your PE instructor, and every other man you ever had contact with as a child.
“If a child doesn’t have a childhood, nothing else matters.”
according to those same experts children are just adults in a small body, but at the same time are so fragile that they can’t handle or comprehend anything so need those experts to tell the world what those children are experiencing.
“To be fair, the bush was actually Devil’s Snare and most muggles don’t know the proper way to get out of that.”
and any smart parent would design his/her back yard without plants that form a danger to their children.
I know mine selected plants from varieties that weren’t carrying toxic fruit for example.
And they pretty much allowed us to roam free, long as we stayed within earshot of the house so we could be called back.
In all age groups, a large portion of injuries and injuries leading to death are in the home and surrounds. Many of these happen to older people but every family contends with the injured child. Sadly children drowning in home pools are still higher than anyone would like and in Australia there are strong fencing regulations and tv promotions of safety. Primary in that promotion is the education of children over 5 to the safety issues that can seriously effect children under 5. It may be that a pattern of isolated social living can be an aspect of unnoticed injury such as the two examples above.
Free-range as I understand it is the being aware, resourceful, and independent in a known environment, including the risks in that environment. In Australia it is almost cultural to send children to swimming lessons between 3-5 years and even earlier is advocated by experts. In rural areas, education about poisonous snakes, crocodiles, jelly fish, is usual. There is a necessary awareness needed by parents as the 3 year old can be given to playing with the brown snake that wanders through a house block. But I don’t think anyone would use it as an excuse not to let the child play outdoors. We live in a world that can’t be controlled but that we can make relatively safe for each other. Child raising is a gradual process from complete dependence to educating the child as a confident community ‘asset’. I can see that from 11 – 15 years the ‘child’ can reach independent maturity in the community ie doesn’t need parents except in conversation and planning in life. If we project from this potential back to the young child it is possible to see how we might implement this training of independence process. Maybe, if we did this, we might also see more clearly how to be as adults in life, ourselves, not scared of our shadows esp the shadows in our mind. Not even scared of death and loss, nor grief or any other strong emotions that come to us as we met the world. Sure that we are supportive of anyone who needs comfort and support, and confident that when we do, they are there.
Actually, where I live there have been three abductions of little girls by an unknown pervert in the last six months. The predator makes friends with them and takes them away for a few hours, then showers them to eliminate any traces and abandons them (alive, thank God) a few miles from where he took them.
Everyone is on the watch, of course, and the Police are on maximum alert.
What makes me love this city is that all warnings that have been issued are in no way preventing children from playing or roaming the streets. They just make a point of telling our kids to stay together and watch out for each other.
I find it grotesquely ignorant that someone would claim you spawned the “fad” of allowing freedom to children, when it has been considered proper parenting for most of the known history of the world. Constant supervision is the fad.
Quote: “I don’t think it makes sense to inundate this guy’s blog with comments”
I clicked on the link but after all the verbiage nonsense this guy was spewing, I did not see a blog or a way to respond to him. Has anyone here found a way to respond to this guy?
More proof that people can be booksmart, but common sense stupid. For one thing, it’s not a “fad”. Unless you want to call something that, up until this generation, previous generations for thousands of years have been doing. No, the “fad” is the fearful, illogical thinking of people today. Due to another fad, social media, and the internet. Some people are just that fearful, that it overrides all common sense in them.
He can spout off all those examples. But the truth of it, is that those incidences are still by far rare. I’ll go back to my common example of cars. Hundreds of children die or get injured in auto collisions every year. That’s far more than them being kidnapped or killed by strangers, or even dying in their back yard. YET, using this “psychologists” on reasoning, no one talks about putting an end to putting children in cars? People still pick choose what to be afraid of, and what to speak up for, based on THEIR own conveniences.
Until all these ignorant people can be consistent in their own reasoning, their extreme views have no merit, or credibility. They are just fearful. And those fears manipulate their reasoning. No one can argue with common sense and logic. No more than they can argue that sun comes up in the day, and disappears at night.
Is this guy for real? Thousands of perverts roaming the streets, just waiting for a kid alone? Please. The real dangerous perverts that I am concerned about for my daughters are the ones wearing polo shirts and khakis and offering them free beers at a frat party.
You could not have made a better case for your approach, Lenore. This guy embodies the paranoia that pervades parenting today.
Let Her Eat Dirt
http://www.lethereatdirt.com
A dad’s take on raising tough, adventurous girls
This is just me, but…
“The truth is that children can never be trusted alone.”
Does that mean we have to wait 18 years before we can have another kid? For that matter, if we’re practicing to have another kid, while not leaving this one alone, isn’t THAT child abuse?
Wonder what these people really expect when they say things like that…
Interesting thing never once mentioned in the guy’s rambling bio: children of his own. I’d be willing to bet he doesn’t have any. If he did he’d know that it is impossible to watch even a single child every minute of every day. At some point you need to bathe or make dinner or buy another gallon of hand-sanitizer so Junior doesn’t get the sniffles.
His suggestions for children also sound very much like hyper-vigilance, a fairly common symptom of PTSD. I can understand why he might have PTSD if even half of his bio is true, but it’s not a remotely healthy way to live. Even in its more mild manifestations it can result in ADHD-like symptoms. Not exactly conducive to a well-adjusted, happy child.
It all began with what Thomas Szasz called the “therapeutic state,” and now it is run amuck. The mental health industrial complex is the key promoter of the pedophile scare, the war on drugs, and the ADHD fraud. When Americans bought into the medicalization of behavior, they left their critical thought and their liberty behind. Things can only get worse.
I know I’m two posts behind with this comment, but I wanted to say that I think this is *incredibly* good news.
One of my fears is always that the other side has the only microphone in town. That you, Lenore, are a quiet voice in the wilderness and no one but a few acolytes hears you. If I’m wrong–if your message is being heard, and spreading–then *of course* you’re going to meet with vitriolic attacks. I hope there are many more to come.
And yes, I know that’s easy for me to say. No one is attacking me. But I’m more than happy to add my voice to your own and put myself out there in any way I can to support your cause, and if anyone hears me enough to attack me too, so much the better. I’m a teacher in a public school, and a father of four, and I believe in free range parenting and free range schools. Do you hear me, world? I SAID, DO YOU HEAR ME? I SUPPORT LENORE SKENAZY!
Kristen Howerton of the Rage Against The Minivan blog recently wrote a post on why she isn’t a free-range mom. It equated FRK to neglect and lazy uninvolved parents. Most of the commenters called her out on the fact that she clearly had no idea what you really advocate and that she obviously had not read the book she was bashing.
“…helicopter parenting causes problems not just for the children but also for the parents, leading to issues with anxiety, depression, weight gain, phobias and other issues.”
Amen to that. Just watch the episodes of Lenore’s wonderful TV show to see proof of that!
To see people get a new lease on life after Lenore showed them that their kids were not in danger of imminent death every second of the day… wow.
In contrast to this horrible parenting advise, I found this list to be helpful and printworthy:
http://www.wendymogel.com/articles/item/overparenting_anonymous/
In contrast to this horrible parenting advise, this list is amazing and printworthy:
http://www.wendymogel.com/articles/item/overparenting_anonymous/
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Why are you trying to kill my kids Lenore. I read Dr. Ruskin and it reminds me of one danger that I never thought about before. FREE-RANGING KIDS COULD EAT STUFF OFF THE GROUND! Just like free-ranging albums. It’s a proven FACT that kids never pick stuff up off the ground and put it in their mouth when there is parental supervision.
This clown is laboring under a mathematically illiterate understanding of risk, but that’s no surprise, as he’s a psychologist. There are two things you need to know about psychologists. First, most of them couldn’t handle the math of an actual hard science to save their lives. Second, they run an industry whose philosophy (and coincidentally, business model) requires EVERYONE to be under some degree of professional supervision. A recent president of the APA asserted that the entire population are properly their patients.
He’s also likely to be against anything that fosters personal autonomy or responsibility, because psychology’s central tenet is the characterization of the choices one makes as things happening TO one.
Well we all know that these days psychology has been reduced to a profession of ambulance chasing and victim creation in order to provide a steady supply of clients needing lifelong ‘therapy’. Most of those whom I have met who practice psychology or psychiatry are themselves woefully in need of some form of therapy that is outside of their awareness. Such is the case here. This woman might have abuse issues of her own that she should be dealing with rather than projecting them on the parents everywhere. She likely is in need of massive therapy herself.