The Prison of Fearful Parenting

Hi Readers — This comment, inspired by the previous post, gets to the heart of the matter for me: Connecting. Free-Range Kids is about giving kids freedom, of course, but delve a little deeper and it is about trust: Trusting our kids, our neighbors, ourselves. And the more we trust and connect, the more safe [...]

OUTRAGE OF THE WEEK: Mom Ticketed for Letting Son, 14, Watch Brother, 3, for 30 Mins

Hi Readers — Just as we were rejoicing about sanity across the sea (see below, regarding Britain’s re-evaluation of its excessive background checks), comes this story, from The Express: A MOTHER who left her son of 14 to mind his three-year-old brother while she went to the shops was given a police caution for “cruelty” [...]

SANITY! England Recovers from Background Check Mania!

Hi Readers! This story is almost too exciting in its implications. England had been requiring background checks for anyone who had any contact with kids once week. (And the original proposal over there would have covered folks having any contact with kids once a MONTH. Sheesh!) The assumption, of course, was that predators are everywhere. [...]

Cancel Recess If Some Kids Are Shivering?

Hi Readers — As a gal who is ALWAYS shivering, and wears a million layers, and did not particularly love recess back in my Chicago youth — but who has come to wholeheartedly endorse outdoor time now — I feel bad for the kids in this county: Dear Free-Range Kids: Question for you about outdoor/indoor recess [...]

Outrage of the Day: Boy Suspended for Nerf Gun

Hi Readers — Onto more toothsome matters tomorrow. But in the meantime, for your tearing-your-hair-out pleasure, we bring you this story of Zero Tolerance. What I love about it is the genius reasoning on the part of the principal, Candice Reese: “It’s not too harsh of a punishment and we want to make sure all [...]

Children’s Bible Missing a Certain Key Point

Hi Readers: While we’re on the subject of whitewashing the classics for kids’ delicate sensibilities, here’s the one that takes the cake: Dear Free-Range Kids: My kids have a children’s bible which says “and Jesus went away.” Kind of destroys one of the central tenets of Christianity. Yikes! For God so loved the world that [...]

Exploding Truck Falling into Grand Canyon River Accidents: Preventable?

Ah, can I get a job at The Onion? I want to be on this panel!

The (Updated, Safer!) Cat in the Hat

Hi Readers — A recent note from the frontlines of overprotection: Dear Free-Range Kids: I spent a few years as an assistant teacher working with kindergarteners and the amount of mollycoddling the school did was ridiculous. We couldn’t read “The Cat and the Hat” without interrupting the story to mention how no real mother would [...]

The Boom in Baby Snatching (Hysteria)

Hi Readers! You’ll recall that a few posts back I was ranting about the CNN video clip on how to keep your baby safe from being kidnapped. Well, I ended up writing a whole column about the issue for my syndicate, Creators. So here’s the CNN article — “How to Guard Against Baby Snatchers.” And [...]

The Challenger and Risk, 25 Years Later

Hi Readers! It’s been a quarter century since the Challenger blew up. Below is part of an interview by the Houston Chronicle’s “Science Guy,” Eric Berger, with Gerald Griffin, who led three lunar landings, was “pivotal” in the Apollo 13 recovery and left his job as director of the Johnson Space Center just a few [...]