Free-Range Kids How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow

Free-Range Kids, Second Edition is a packed with practical advice to help parents and educators coach their children to independence and self-sufficiency. The book debunks dangerous myths and advocates for ration care with the Free-Range Parenting Commandments. Skenazy directs readers  to see the difference between letting their kids walk to school and letting them walk through a firing range in a society that often sees those two things as synonymous. Using research studies, humor, and tried-and-true parenting advice, Skenazy will help parents relax, listen to their kids, and navigate parenting in a world with anxiety-inducing headlines and constant reruns of Law & Order. This new edition includes updated pop-culture references throughout, eliminates outdated information, includes new information about free-range parenting online, and provides strategies for implementing free-range style teaching in classrooms. 

Lenore Skenazy (New York, NY), a journalist by trade, spent 14 years at the New York Daily News as a reporter-turned-opinion columnist, and two more at The New York Sun. In 2008, after her column "Why I Let My 9 Year Old Ride the Subway Alone" landed her on several national talk shows from The Today Show to Dr. Phil, Lenore founded the book and blog Free-Range Kids. In addition to her own reality TV show, World's Worst Mom, Lenore has lectured internationally from Microsoft to DreamWorks to the Sydney Opera House, and has been profiled everywhere from The New York Times to The New Yorker. She also founded the nonprofit organization Let Grow with the goal of turning agreement into action, making it easy and normal to give kids the same kid of freedom older generations had growing up. Lenore received her B.A. from Yale and her master’s degree from Columbia.

Foreword xi

Introduction to the Introduction xv

The Actual Introduction Already xvii

1 Know When to Worry 1

Play Dates and Axe Murderers: How to Tell The Difference

2 Turn off the News 11

Go Easy On The Law and Order, Too

3 Avoid Experts 23

Who Knew You Were Doing Everything Wrong? . . . .

Them!

4 Boycott Baby Knee Pads 35

And the Rest of the Kiddie Safety-Industrial Complex

5 Don’t Think Like a Lawyer 47

Some Risks Are Worth It

6 Ignore the Blamers 57

They Don’t Know Your Kid Like You Do

7 Eat Chocolate 69

Give Halloween Back to the Trick-or-Treaters

8 Study History 81

Your Ten-Year-Old Would Have Been Forging Horseshoes

(or at Least Delivering Papers)

9 Be Worldly 95

Why Other Countries Are Laughing at Zee Scaredy-Cat

Americans

10 Get Braver 107

Quit Trying to Control Everything. It Doesn’t Work

Anyway.

11 Relax 121

Not Every Little Thing You Do Has That Much Impact

On Your Child’s Development

12 Fail! 133

Easy! Educational! Fun!

13 Lock Them Out 145

Make Them Play—Or Else!

14 Listen to Your Kids 157

They Don’t Want to Be Treated Like Babies

(Unless They Are Still Crawling, Etc.)

15 Take the Long View 167

Wasting Time Is Not a Waste Of Time

16 Trust Strangers 179

Even the Folks Who Put the Faces on the Milk Cartons

Aren’t Too Worried

17 De-Fang Anxiety 191

Independence Is the New Prozac

18 Embrace (Some) Tech 207

We All Scream for iScreens

Calling All Educators 223

Conclusion 243

Acknowledgments 249

Sources 251

About the Author 263

Resources and Connecting 265

The Free-Range Kids Card 267

Index 269