Tomorrow I will testify in a trial.
Case: Mom let son, 7, play in park (where mom's friend was teaching yoga) while she bought a Thanksgiving turkey. Mom will be put on Child Abuse Registry if we lose.
And if we do, so does everyone.
Follow
Lenore Skenazy
@FreeRangeKids
Founder, Free-Range Kids. President, Let Grow. Book: amzn.to/3DM2Wrv
Let Grow Project/Experience: bit.ly/IndepTherapy
Lenore Skenazy’s posts
Mom has 8 yo walk 1/2 mile home. Cops called. One asks: "Would you do this again?"
"I said, 'I don't know,'" recalls Wallace. "That's when the cop replied, 'Okay, I'm going to have to arrest you.'"
He proceeded to handcuff her in front of the kids.
Still STUNNED by how our culture has managed to "dangerize" things as simple & safe as a 9-y.o. walking a quarter mile home in the 'burbs.
Here's today's ethics qu about it in . Grandma wants to HIRE A CHAPERONE for the .25 mile. Thoughts?
nytimes.com/2023/01/11/sty
ABSURD AND INFANTILIZING
American Academy of Pediatrics Tells Parents Not To Let Kids Under 10 Walk to School or Anyplace Else Without an Adult
HOW COME???
CRIME is down.
OBESITY is up.
ANXIETY is mounting.
Antidote: A walk to school.
bit.ly/2JeSDjB
DEPRAVED
Sheriff's dept. planned shooter drill, but didn't tell school it was fake. Kids and teachers thought they were going to DIE.
"Captain Francis said that the unannounced Code Red drill was necessary."
Yeah? Kids vomited, passed out in fear.
letgrow.org/this-must-end-
An amazing decision by Judge Amanda Yip, who ruled on whether a mom was guilty for letting her son, age 8, play outside and come home on his own from the park, when he was severely injured by a car.
Was the mom guilty for not being with him?
letgrow.org/boy-8-runs-int
SO IT BEGINS:
Ithaca, NY, declares itself America's first FREE-RANGE KIDS TOWN!
Inspired by Utah's Free-Range law, proclamation declares Ithaca kids are WELCOME out and about. It's not "negligent" to let kids play. GO !
letgrow.org/ithaca-ny-decl
#Cornell #FreePlay
When people say, "I'd like to let my kid have some old-fashioned, bike around town fun this summer, but it's not like the old days," hand them this Washington Post piece:
"There's Never Been a Safer Time to be a Kid in America"
washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2
#LetThem
Happy Halloween! A reminder:
1 - Your kids can trick or treat on their own. Crime is back to 1963 levels.
2- No child has been poisoned by a stranger's candy.
3 - Sex crimes against kids do not go up on Halloween.
This message brought to you by reality.
#LetGrowOrg
Germany is adding MORE RISK to its playgrounds. And guess who requested this?
INSURANCE COMPANIES!
They want kids to grow up "risk competent."
Ironically, "safety" culture is stunting kids' risk assessing abilities.
theguardian.com/world/2021/oct
Riding the 7 train met a young woman from Nepal needing directions--and work.
Ho Hum. Any skills?
She & husband are the FASTEST COUPLE TO CLIMB MT EVEREST in 2019. Seasoned mountaineer/sherpa. Looking for steady work NYC!
Ideas? DM or email Lskenazy at yahoo .com
PS I LOVE NY!
Wait -- now for some reason I can't see out of MY glasses. They're...all fogged up.
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Walked by my local elementary school. Stopped to watch the kids playing at recess. So much joy. Teacher told me I, on public sidewalk on other side of fence, no phone or photo taking, am not allowed to stand and watch the kids. She is calling security now.
Someone called the Hapeville, GA, cops because a boy was going door to door asking if anyone needed lawn services.
SERIOUSLY? You call the cops on a can-do kid?
His goal was to make $ to buy a Play Station.
You'll appreciate what happened next:
Remember the Georgia mom who was handcuffed and arrested for letting her 14-year-old babysit? She's finally in the clear!
Kudos:
reason.com/2023/04/05/mom via
This comment re: NYC's teen whip cream ban sorta sums up our culture:
"Fifty years ago the owner's manual for an automobile came with instructions on how to adjust the valves in the engine. Today's manual warns you not to drink the contents of the battery."
Confusing. Walmart is going to remove Magazine from its checkout lines, in part as a response to the #MeToo movement, says . But Me Too is about harassment, not sex, and certainly not women enjoying sex. Everything is being thrown into the panic blender.
The article I wrote with , "The Fragile Generation" nominated for L.A. Press Club award. It explains how taking all old-fashioned play, risk, and conflict out of kids' lives to make them feel "safe" backfires:
reason.com/archives/2017/
This man has paid his debt, he has been offense-free for 20 years. His son is very ill and wants his dad to be with him in the hospital. Is no one who ever committed a sex offense allowed to be repentent, reformed, and readmitted into humanity?
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Father on sex offender registry escorted out of hospital while trying to visit his seriously ill son reason.com/blog/2018/04/0
Meanwhile, in America, the American Academy of Pediatrics says no child should cross the street alone till age 10.
Excrutiating, important new study:
Suicides among 12-to-18-y.o.s are highest during school months, lowest in summer. Areas where school starts in Aug have increase in teen suicides in August. Where school starts in Sept, the increase is in Sept.
Hooray for these cops!
A neighbor called the cops to report a boy (11) selling hot chocolate in front of his house, outside of Pittsburgh. The officers arrived--and bought hot chocolate! The neighbor had worried because it was cold.
H/T
Jessie Thompson's kids, ages 9, 10 and 11, would like to walk home together. No dice. If she doesn't pick them up, the principal insists they take the bus.
But the walk is shorter and, during Covid, safer than the bus.
Why can't parents decide?
If we agree there's a youth mental health crisis, can we also agree that "More therapists!" is not the only solution?
I worry our leaders automatically gravitate to middle-age solutions -- yoga, therapy, mindfulness -- even when they're trying to help KIDS.
🧵1/4
Is it wrong that this does my heart good?
A boiling hot day and kids figuring out how to get into the pool* and enjoy themselves?
And do you have to say "breaking in" (twice!) like it was a burglary?
*(And why was a huge, inviting pool CLOSED?)
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Several children were caught breaking into one of the many Baltimore City pools that remain closed with their gates chained. The break-in was caught on Monday. Footage details the children breaking in, setting up "camp", and entering the water along with a scooter.
0:54
Why I love America:
Philly cheesesteak samosas!
Same place sells Indian food, falafel, fried chicken, and Halal tacos. Opened 3 weeks ago. Brave!#ZamZamNYC. 72-27 37th Ave., #JacksonHeights, Queens.
Mom Who Let Her Kids, 7 and 3, Walk to Bakery Down the Block Gets Visit from Child Protective Services, Is Told Not To Do That Again Till They are 12.
Now she's fighting back:
letgrow.org/mom-lets-her-k
Please don't share or "like" those FB posts saying, "Watch out at the mall because...traffickers!"
Head of the Crimes Against Children Research Center told me he has seen ZERO CASES of children being snatched from their parents in public places and trafficked.
ZERO.
Just spoke with another mom being investigated for letting her kid wait briefly in the car. She has cried and cried.
Kids waiting briefly in the car are not in any kind of statistically likely danger. Why are their parents treated like child abusers?
THIS MUST END.
Shouldn't the American Academy of Pediatrics be ENCOURAGING kids to walk to school, hop on bikes, etc? Esp when alternative is staying home on devices or being driven?
Yet it tells parents NO CHILD SHOULD CROSS THE STREET ON OWN TIL AGE 10.
See page 6:
How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations: bit.ly/2kRIWPB
Pass This In Your Town or State!
THE "LET GROW" RESOLUTION:
"Our kids have the right to some unsupervised time and we have the right to give it to them without getting arrested."
- Let Grow bit.ly/2BNp8RU
German insurance companies want RISKIER PLAYGROUNDS!
Kids "who improved their motor skills in playgrounds at an early age were less likely to suffer accidents as they got older."
There is RISK to a "NO RISK" society!
reason.com/2021/11/01/ger via
A 7th grade teacher told me that last week a mom stopped by the school to drop off a bottle of water for her son.
Why?
"He texted me he was thirsty."
"But there are drinking fountains!"
"He doesn't like them."
Keep phones--and excess "assistance"--out of schools.
WHAT???
New York's highest court says ACCUSATIONS can be considered for sex offender registration purposes even when the defendant was ACQUITTED!
I.e., "You were acquitted of rape, but I'm going to put you on the registry for life anyway."
reason.com/blog/2018/04/3
Child Protective Services unleashed on mom who let her 8-y.o. walk the dog. Bureaucrat defends interrogating mom, kids, family members and pediatrician: "We want to investigate, because you just never know."
Really? How many abuse cases found this way?
reason.com/blog/2018/08/2
You can probably relate:
A mom who had another 3 hrs of work told her hungry son, 11, she couldn't make dinner. She felt guilty. Figured he'd eat cereal.
Instead he made delicious tacos for both of them.
Kids can solve problems when we let them.
letgrow.org/i-was-too-busy
"Parents are surrounded by a culture that is obsessed with the fear that something bad will happen to children. We are admonished never to take our eyes off our kids, watch their every move, make sure that that pimple isn’t cancer."
Me on show:
Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but chocolate milk made life worth living when I was in school.
When we allow parents to be arrested for letting their kids wait in the car 5 minutes -- statistically EXTREMELY SAFE -- we allow law enforcement to operate on feelings, not facts. That's not making kids safer. It is making a police state possible-r.
bit.ly/2NQlxIS
Thrilled to have my first piece on the NYTimes oped page on the evils of spreading stranger danger. And now THIS FACT about all those Facebook posts that say, "My child was almost sex trafficked from Target yesterday!" is in the paper of record:
nytimes.com/2018/08/23/opi
Yes, kids REALLY USED TO PLAY LIKE THIS.
Amazing, poignant footage of a 1983 bike-tag game in some nameless subdivision.
If we gave our kids some of this same free time, trust and independence, would they be less anxious? I believe so:
letgrow.org/kids-playing-1
Massive response to "child kidnapping." Helicopters scrambled, police go door to door, cops make drivers open trunks to find a little girl last seen walking off with a man...
...who turned out to be her dad. Taking her home from an afternoon at the mall.
letgrow.org/helicopters-ta
WHAT EXPERTS ARE SAYING a kid must be 12 before they are "LEFT ALONE"?
A generation ago, 12-y.o.s were THE BABYSITTERS!
WE CANNOT KEEP UNDERMINING KIDS' confidence, development and FREEDOM by acting as if 12 is the new 2!
Join !
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People wonder why @LetGrowOrg is working to make state neglect laws more independence-friendly. Here's why! 1 state's child protection guidelines:
"Experts believe a child should be at least 12 before he is left alone..."
Join us!
letgrow.org/program/policy
This grief stricken mom deserves sympathy, not jail! She was on an Uber shift. Her son, 2, was home w his sisters. Oldest is 12. Son's dad was on his way over to watch kids. Got delayed. Before he arrived, son fell out window & died. Mom faces 10 to 30 yrs. #PovertyIsNotNeglect
The DEA is warning parents that drug cartels will target their kids with "rainbow fentanyl," but there's little evidence for it.
Stranger-danger is our go-to framing for a whole lotta panics:
reason.com/2022/09/28/rai via
"Many 12-year-olds today are not permitted the independence that 4-year-olds were permitted until just a few decades ago." - Peter Gray on how ready 4-year-olds are for the world. Yet, our culture stunts them by acting like they're babies.
Michigan Parents Let 6-year-old Walk to Store, Two Cop Cars Show Up
"The cops told me, ‘She’s not old enough,’ and I remember thinking, ‘That’s your personal belief! You don’t know my kid at all!’ But then I thought, ‘I need to tone myself down.’”
letgrow.org/cops-stop-6-ye
Child Protective Services shouldn't bother moms who let their kids walk home from school! (Sez me.)
#LetGrowOrg
reason.com/2020/11/24/sou via
My first piece on the Op-ed page!
Spreading "stranger-danger" never leads to anything good, and new technology only makes it worse.
.
.
Studies show "mothers spent twice as much time engaging with their children in 2012 as they did in 1965."
That's crazy!!!
Great piece raging at a culture (ours!) that nearly MANDATES helicopter parenting, by .
The Tragedy Behind the College Admissions Scandal
"We live in a culture that has made childhood into a landscape barren of almost everything except college prep."
letgrow.org/the-tragedy-be
Mom lets son, 6, browse the Children's Room of suburban CT library for 6 mins while she gets him a snack across the street.
Librarian throws the book at her for leaving a child unattended.
Is 6 minutes "unattended"? What if she went to the bathroom?
Toddler wanders from mom at park. Passerby calls 911. Caseworker comes to do a "well child" check. Mom doesn't hear her. Caseworker calls for backup.
3 cops enter, GUNS DRAWN.
MOM HOGTIED. Carried out "like a pig on a stick."
Attn:
An old-fashioned, roam-the-neighborhood childhood evaporated NOT because the world got less less safe, but because the world got less trusting.
Discuss.
FREE RANGE KIDS BILL PASSES BOTH HOUSES IN UTAH UNANIMOUSLY!
Awaits Governor's signature.
Soon parents need not fear arrest for letting their kids walk or play outside!
letgrow.org/free-range-kid
The great Dave Barry on the "known facts" of the pandemic to this point. From his Year in Review:
Re: Hating on people, including :
Giving people the benefit of the doubt is not only a better way to live, it's usually right. Most people aren't horrid. You can dislike a tweet without pouncing on the tweeter. Who wants to be judged this harshly? None of us.
Police investigate student for drawing a...
square root sign. Doing his math problems.
Because it looked scary.
NO! Do NOT arrest moms for letting their kids wait in the car a short while. Kids do not die in the few minutes it takes to run an errand. Do not demand hyper helicopter parenting as the baseline for not getting arrested!!!
indexjournal.com
O.
M.
G,
Listening to just the 1st of 6-part podcast "Sold a Story" & am literally feeling sick. My kids were "taught" to read this way, too.
One still hates reading.
Kudos to &
features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/
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Our podcast, Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong, is available wherever you get your podcasts.
features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/
5 trends:
24/7 news
Litigious society
Expert always warning
Maketplace makes $ off worried parents
Illusion of control, so if anything goes wrong, assumption is: bad parents. Makes us extra cautious.
is working to renormalize childhood independence.
SO HAPPY THIS TRUTH IS IN PRINT!
"Parents: Kids CAN be left alone for a few minutes"
Me, in Sunday's NY Post
#LetGrow #JonHaidt
nypost.com/2023/05/06/par via
🧵1/3
With Anxiety on the Rise, Some Children Try ‘Exposure Therapy’
This is an encouraging article: nytimes.com/2022/11/21/hea
I'm also v excited by work giving anxious kids INDEPENDENCE instead of EXPOSURE. Link to his work is in next thread:
What do Utah parents have that the rest of us don't?
A law that says they're not negligent if they let their kids walk or play outside.
It passed both houses there unanimously and just awaits the governor's signature.
#LetGrowOrg
How did I not know this? What a perspective-granting fact, from at the :
"Children face more risk from car rides than Covid."
I'm not being snarky or sarcastic. It's a comparison I had not heard made and it's helpful.
nytimes.com/2022/01/04/bri
Somehow rest of the world's kids walk to school at 7.
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WSJ | The American Academy of Pediatrics advises parents to wait until age 10 to allow children to walk to school, or anywhere else, without an adult....clarion call for us all to foster a #WalkingWorld @FreeRangeKids #LetGrow letgrow.org @WSJ twitter.com/wsj/status/100
Worrisome: "28% of people 18-24 said they believed that winking is a form of sexual harassment." bit.ly/2io06AA
What is play?
Researchers showed kids pictures, asking, "Does this show play or NOT play?
Usually, if there was an adult in the pic, even if the kids were smiling, they said: That's not play.
Peter Gray's eye-opening essay:
Attn:
. at Hunter College commencement. "Joy is underrated." It can be hard to celebrate yourself, she says, so do it for others -- the ones who encouraged you.
So great!!!
Penn State's student Outing Club, which has gone hiking in state parks over the course of its 98-year-existence, will no longer be allowed to host outdoor events.
"Too risky," says college. Why, students go where there's no cell phone coverage!
reason.com/blog/2018/04/2
TEXAS BECOMES THIRD STATE TO PASS "FREE-RANGE KIDS" LAW!
On "Take Our children to the Park & Leave Them There Day"--the holiday once scorned as crazy, because who lets children play outside?
1/10th of America, that's who!
10% of USA is now FREE-RANGE!
Megan's Law gave us the public Sex Offender Registry. But research shows it isn't making kids safer. In fact: Most crimes against kids are by people NOT on the registry, and most registrants don't re-offend.
Time to get rid of it.
#EndTheRegistry
bit.ly/2LKt67h
Missed this?
A "parenting expert" says: "Children should not be left alone when playing outside."
That, my friends, is how a culture changes. We start seeing freedom only through the lens of risk. No upside. No actual statistical odds.
Only danger.
letgrow.org/what-does-a-ch
Replying to
They miss a FREE, immediate, easily accessible "therapy" all kids used to get:
FREE PLAY.
All ages mixing! No electronic devices! Balls, chalk, jump rope -- TRANSFORMATION! (Especially if you throw in some big cardboard boxes.)
🧵2/4
This remains the article that has thrilled me most so far this year: Treating kids who have a diagnosis of anxiety with WHICH DRUG?
INDEPENDENCE! Worked better than drugs & FASTER than cog behavioral therapy. This is BIG NEWS:
profectusmag.com/treating-child
Even if you think it's a terrible idea to take kids to a drag show, it is a WORSE idea to open a Child Protective Services investigation on the families who do.
My piece, .
When lets his 9-y.o. walk to school alone for the first time, he is re-normalizing childhood independence.
Many have come to believe that being terrified every second our kids are out of sight is innate.
It may fee that way. But it is not.
letgrow.org/jonathan-haidt
Did you run errands as a kid?
Here's what happened when a kid ran one, solo, recently.
It changed a whole community:
letgrow.org/a-kid-by-himse
Remember when parents were investigated for things like letting their kids walk the dog or play outside? Now those fears can be seen for what they were: Madness in a world so safe we had to hallucinate danger.
When things get better, let's rejoice & trust kids with some freedom.
Sigh.
I must just accept the fact I am not a "notable person or brand."
The fact I submitted a Wikipedia entry on me, have a book BY me that is the NAME of this Twitter feed, & joined Twitter 12 yrs ago?
Not impressing the verification team, even on my 2nd attempt.
How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations: bit.ly/2kRIWPB
HOW TO DEBBIE DOWNER EVERY ASPECT OF KIDS' LIVES.
Halloween advice:
"When children are exposed to so much candy, caregivers need to provide guidance, for their dental health and for their food choices, in general."
Guidance! Choices! Adult assistance! ALL. THE. TIME.
Mom Charged with Falsely Accusing Man of Trying to Kidnap Her Child at Mall
After reading all those Facebook posts by moms who say, "My child was almost sex-trafficked from Ikea!" maybe you start to believe it's ubiquitous or long for the glory:
letgrow.org/mom-charged-wi
Is it possible that as things get safer, we become more obsessed with safety -- more terrified of ever tinier or less likely risks?
I mean, I do think we're seeing that. But...why is that?
Chime in. I think about this all the time!
Fearful for our kids' futures, we don't want them wasting time. We want them LEARNING. So we put them in adult-run activities to hurry them toward success.
BUT!
You you did not spend all YOUR free time being "taught."
You played. Did stuff just for fun.
That IS the fast track!
This is a travesty.
"They dated since he was 17. He turned 18 and now faces 15 years behind bars."
And when he gets out he will be on the Sex Offender Registry, too.
miamiherald.com/news/local/com
#NARSOL #EndTheRegistry
A new report finds that "most children benefit from some degree of independence by the time they are 5–6 years old."
State laws should reflect this! Parents who let their kids walk/play outside are making a REASONABLE decision!
#LetGrow!
reason.com/2023/05/17/chi via
What do kids need to help stave off depression?
JAMA study says: MORE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY.
But!!! KEY POINT:
"The effect was greater when the physical activity was UNSUPERVISED than when it was fully or partially supervised.
freerangekids.com/what-kids-need
GIF
read image description
ALT
A loaf of bread, a container of milk and a HEAPING ORDER OF INDEPENDENCE that has EVAPORATED FROM MODERN CHILDHOOD!!!
Times have changed since this #SesameStreet classic.
1:12
James and the Giant Peach Cut into Tiny Pieces So as Not to Cause a Choking Hazard.
Your turn: Hit me with some safety-ized kiddie book titles
WHY ARE KIDS SO ANXIOUS & LONELY?
"When you play is you're sculpting parts of the cortex that are involved in socially nuanced behavior."
FREE PLAY IS KEY TO MENTAL HEALTH.
And yet we keep taking it away to give kids more classtime, testing & homework.
newsweek.com/2023/07/28/do-
"I raised 2 successful CEOs and a doctor. Here's the 'unpopular' parenting rule I always used on my kids"
Mom of YouTube and 23andMe CEOs says kids need some unsupervised time!
. study of how little we let kids do:
*In 1971, 80% of 3rd graders walked to school. By 1990: 9% .
*1970s kids used sharp knives & stoves alone by 4th/5th grade. '90s kids: middle school.
is making it NORMAL to TRUST KIDS AGAIN.
How can the American Academy of Pediatrics say that kids aren't ready to walk alone till about age 10?
Kids around the world (and U.S. kids till recently) start at 5, 6, 7, 8.
Endorsing overprotection & under-estimation doesn't make kids safer. It makes them sedentary.
The "800,000 children go missing every year!" stat makes people think that that's how many are kidnapped.
No. That is how many wander off, run away, stay late at a friend's house and forget to call home...
Kidnappings are .01% of this.
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Calling @FreeRangeKids, another over the top proposal fueled by fear not facts. thecrimereport.org/2020/09/14/are
1 yr since this game-changer burst onto scene: "The Coddling of the American Mind." theatln.tc/2bpDED7
Bill Maher & love The Reasonable Childhood Independence law!
It says "neglect" is when you put your kids in serious danger--not ANYTIME you take your eyes off them.
Let Grow helped 4 states pass it.
Is your state next?
Visit & support Letgrow.org!
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