Crazed School Bans Parents from Sports Day

What happens when the fear of the incredibly rare crime of child kidnapping becomes so all-consuming that it overshadows any other considerations? Including common sense? Or even Googling? You get something like this: A school in England that holds a multi-school sports day every June – the highlight of the year, where kids compete and [...]

Outrage of the Week: Teacher Lets Kids Climb Hill, Cops Come Calling

Hi Readers — Here’s the latest outrage. Lia’s nature-oriented nursery school/kindergarten might not be for everyone, but it certainly is for some kids. Or at least it was.  — Lenore By Lia Grippo My name is Lia Grippo.  I am an early childhood educator with 20 years of experience.  For the past 11 years, a large [...]

Deciding to Let Your Grade Schooler Walk to School

Just got this encouraging post, from a mom who is going to let her grade school daughter walk to school this fall. How did the mom  get comfortable with this idea? Simple! She thought about her ACTUAL NEIGHBORHOOD — not the neighborhoods we see on crime shows and the TV news, crawling with creeps. The one [...]

Do Kids Really Need a Movie in the Back Seat?

Nice post about, yes, old-fashioned childhood on a blog called “Eco Bling.” My favorite paragraph: Ask yourselves this summer: Do kids really need to watch a full length film in the backseat of a car!? How will they ever learn how many chapters of any given Beverly Cleary book or MAD magazine they can get [...]

Why Is Australia Scaring Parents For No Reason?

Great 2007 article about a $22 million campaign by the Australian government alerting parents to the ostensible dangers their kids face on line. An intrepid Sydney Morning Herald reporter, Michael Duffy, tried to find out what dangers, exactly, kids were being saved from. Well…there was that ONE arrest of a guy, he found. And another 55 charges [...]

Memo to Kids at Camp: Don’t Call Me! — Love, Mom

Hi Readers — Here’s a seasonal little post from Judy Gruen, the award-winning author of three humor books, including The Women’s Daily Irony Supplement. She has also just won an award for her humor columns on Aish.com from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Read more of her work on judygruen.com.  By JUDY GRUEN In most ways [...]

Why Free-Range Matters In the Long Run

Readers: Here’s a lovely essay from Chris Byrne, editor of the on-line magazine, TimetoPlayMag.com. Enjoy! BY CHRISTOPHER BYRNE I grew up before the concept of “Free Range Kids.” No, not when the earth’s crust had cooled just enough to support single-cell life forms. It was in the 1960s and ‘70s, thank you very much. My [...]

What Should We Add to This Site?

Hi Readers! In the next few weeks, we hope to expand the Free-Range Kids site to provide more. More what? Well, that’s what we’d like to know. For sure we want to come up with a way for Free-Range parents to find each other, so we’re working on that. We also want to provide some [...]

Outrage of the Week: Mom Arrested for Letting Kids Go to the Mall

Readers: This article makes me so angry, I’d love us all to start thinking what we can do to change a society where danger-hallucinating authorities persecute and prosecute those of us still sane. Suggestions welcome. This piece originally appeared in Brain, Child. By Bridget Kevane On Saturday, June 16, 2007, I was charged with endangering [...]

CAUTION: Sand Presents Uneven Surface!

Enjoy this. Lots of great signs warning of the obvious gathered by a group called The Manifesto Club and reprinted in England’s Daily Mail. These signs remind us that Britian is in some ways more advanced than the U.S. when it comes to worrying about non-worrisome things. Remember: It is  England that requires anyone who wants to work with children — [...]