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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
Learn to raise independent, can-do kids with a new edition of the book that started a movement
In the newly revised and expanded Second Edition of Free-Range Kids, New York columnist-turned-movement leader Lenore Skenazy delivers a compelling and entertaining look at how we got so worried about everything our kids do, see, eat, read, wear, watch and lick -- and how to bid a whole lot of that anxiety goodbye. With real-world examples, advice, and a gimlet-eyed look at the way our culture forces fear down our throats, Skenazy describes how parents and educators can step back so kids step up. Positive change is faster, easier and a lot more fun than you’d believe. This is the book that has helped millions of American parents feel brave and optimistic again – and the same goes for their kids.
Using research, humor, and feisty common sense, the book shows:
- How parents can reject the media message, “Your child is in horrible danger!”
- How schools can give students more independence -- and what happens when they do. (Hint: Teachers love it.)
- How everyone can relax and successfully navigate a judge-y world filled with way too many warnings, scolds and brand new fears
Perfect for parents and guardians of children of all ages, Free-Range Kids will also earn a place in the libraries of K-12 educators who want their students to blossom with newfound confidence and cheer.
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Seitenzahl: 435
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Introduction to the Introduction
The Actual Introduction Already
Commandment 1: Know When to Worry
Commandment 2: Turn off the News
Commandment 3: Avoid Experts
Commandment 4: Boycott Baby Knee Pads
Commandment 5: Don't Think Like a Lawyer
Commandment 6: Ignore the Blamers
Commandment 7: Eat Chocolate
Commandment 8: Study History
Commandment 9: Be Worldly
Commandment 10: Get Braver
Commandment 11: Relax
Commandment 12: Fail!
Commandment 13: Lock Them Out
Commandment 14: Listen to Your Kids
Commandment 15: Take the Long View
Commandment 16: Trust Strangers
Commandment 17: De-Fang Anxiety
Commandment 18: Embrace (Some) Tech
Calling All Educators
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Sources
Introduction
Commandment 1: Know When to Worry
Commandment 2: Turn off the News
Commandment 3: Avoid Experts
Commandment 4: Boycott Baby Knee Pads
Commandment 5: Don't Think Like a Lawyer
Commandment 6: Ignore the Blamers
Commandment 7: Eat Chocolate
Commandment 8: Study History
Commandment 9: Be Worldly
Commandment 10: Get Braver
Commandment 11: Relax
Commandment 12: Fail!
Commandment 13: Lock Them Out
Commandment 14: Listen to Your Kids
Commandment 15: Take the Long View
Commandment 16: Trust Strangers
Commandment 17: De-Fang Anxiety
Commandment 18: Embrace (Some) Tech
Calling All Educators
Conclusion
About the Author
Resources and Connecting
Follow Lenore
Speaking Engagements
Legislation and Advocacy
School Programs
Discussion Guides
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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“Lenore and I bonded over crows and kids. This book is only about one of those, but it's still great. Hopefully she'll get around to a book on crows someday.”
—Dax Shepard, host, Armchair Expert
“A bubbly but potent corrective for the irrational fears that drive so many parents crazy.”
—Dr. Robert Needlman, co-author, Dr Spock's Baby and Child Care, 9th Edition
“This book transformed the way I think about childhood, parenthood, freedom, and fear.”
—Kim Brooks, author, Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear
“Weirdly, I love this book! To begin with, it's laugh-out-loud funny. Plus, Lenore and I share a big belief: Kids can do so much more than our fearful culture thinks they can.”
—Amy Chua , Yale law professor, author, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and Political Tribes
“Free-Range Kids is the best kind of manifesto: smart, funny, rigorous, sane, impassioned, and bristling with common sense. If you're a parent, or planning to become one, read this book. You have nothing to lose—apart from your anxiety.”
—Carl Honoré , author, In Praise of Slowness, and 30 Days to Slow
“It still amazes me it took an activist like Skenazy to decriminalize activities I took for granted as a kid. I felt lucky to discover Skenazy while my kids were still young. I hope subsequent generations will benefit from her work.”
—Bethany Ball , author, What to Do About the Solomons and The Pessimists.
“Free-Range Kids makes the perfect baby shower gift.”
—Nancy McDermott , author, The Problem with Parenting
“Moral insight without moralizing—how rare is that?”
—Amity Shlaes , author, The Forgotten Man
“Lenore Skenazy is a national hero.”
—Mary Roach , author, Fuzz, Stiff, and Bonk
“Read this book—Mommy said you could.”
—Penn Jillette, Penn & Teller
FREE-RANGE KIDS
How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow
Lenore Skenazy
SECOND EDITION
Copyright © 2021 John Wiley & Sons. All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is Available:
ISBN 9781119782148 (paperback), 9781119782155 (ePDF), 9781119782162 (epub)
Cover Design and Image: Wiley
Kids Type: © CSA-Archive/Getty Images
Scribble: © Vectorig/Getty Images
SECOND EDITION
In memory of Genevieve MacDougall
All kids should have a Ms. Mac in their life
Foreword
I am a ten-year-old girl growing up in New York City. At my school, once you're in fifth grade, with permission from your parents, you're allowed to self-dismiss, meaning we leave the building after school without a grownup.
My best friend, Isabel, and I had been looking forward to this for years, planning out different routes and hunting for all the delis and ice cream shops we could stop at along the way. We tried to memorize all of the landmarks just in case we got lost. And when the time came, we did get lost, but it was actually kind of fun to figure out our way back.
My grade has around 150 kids, but on the first day we were allowed to self-dismiss, Isabel and I were the only ones from our class of 30 kids who had their mom's permission. By the end of the year, it looked like only a couple dozen of the whole fifth grade were self-dismissing. Everyone else had to wait for their parents or a babysitter. A babysitter at 10 years old! No thanks. Not when I could be with my best friend getting Nutella-flavored frozen yogurt with mochi topping.
That experience of wandering through the streets of my neighborhood really paid off, because now, almost a year later, during Covid quarantine, Isabel and I are meeting up in the park with our roller skates. We look around and notice that we're the only kids our age who are on our own. More than ever, it's really nice to get out of the house without having my mom breathing down my neck. Besides, she'd never approve of the candy that Isabel and I buy with the quarters we steal from the fountain!
Francesca Haidt, Summer 2020
When we asked our daughter to say how Lenore Skenazy had changed her childhood, she wrote the story above. The first edition of this book, Free-Range Kids, made Francesca's childhood better, as it has for hundreds of thousands of children. It makes childhood better because it makes parents and schools better.
All children need a “secure base”—a loving adult they can go to when they need protection or comforting—but they don't learn much when they're safe on base. The best thing loving parents can do for their children is to give them the freedom and confidence to go out, go out again, maybe a little farther this time, maybe trying something new next time. If the parent tags along or directs the child, there will be little learning and scant growth.
Until the 1980s, American children had the time and the freedom to engage in unsupervised free play and exploration. But for a variety of reasons covered in this book, by the 1990s, American parents had developed a collective paranoia about what would happen to their children if they were ever to be unguarded by an adult, even for a moment. Safety became a sacred value, carried to absurd levels that gave Skenazy ample material for comedy (she is really funny). But the massive society-wide deprivation of childhood freedom is no laughing matter. It appears to be one of the major reasons that rates of adolescent anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide have risen for those born in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Skenazy is on a mission to help parents and schools give kids the freedom they need to develop into healthy, capable, autonomous adults. This updated edition of Free-Range Kids will show you how to do it.
It can be challenging. You have to trust your child, trust Skenazy, and trust other people in your community. The first several times that our older child Max walked the half mile to school alone in fifth grade, we were anxious. Would cars see him? Would he watch out for cyclists going the wrong way in the bike lane? But he thrived on the independence and showed such good sense that we quickly lost our fear.
Three years later, at age 13, he texted us from the U.S. Open, asking if he could stay for the late night match, which meant he'd have to take the subway home after midnight. We hesitated, but said yes. He returned at 2 a.m. buzzing about the amazing tennis he'd seen that day, and how one of the subway lines he needed was closed for repairs, so he hailed a cab for the last leg (which he'd never done on his own). It was a day of adventure, after which he was visibly more confident.
It's nerve-wracking to let go, and we are two people who are reluctant to cede control. But the payoff is huge: you see your kids gaining competence, a sense of place and direction, and the ability to speak and plan for themselves.
We are so grateful to Skenazy for writing this book and showing us how to let go, and let grow.
Jonathan Haidt (co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind) and Jayne Riew
New York City
Introduction to the Introduction
This, my friends, is Edition 2 of Free-Range Kids, which first came out in 2009. Yes, that means that now my moppets are 20-ish and irrelevant and the other day, one of them actually mentioned hair loss. So let's talk about your moppets—still plenty hairy—and your role in raising or teaching them.
As a parent or educator, you are up against a culture obsessed with what I call “Worst-First Thinking”—thinking up the very worst-case scenario first, and proceeding as if it is likely to happen.
So the book you hold here will, I hope, help you to see-‘n-seethe. (Just like the See-'n-Say toy—but for an older crowd.) See how the culture is driving us nuts with worry, and seethe away. But then I hope you'll unwind a teeny bit, too.
This second edition should help. It's revised and updated, and while it skips Covid—because I really hope it'll be in the rearview mirror by the time you're reading this—it is plump with new chapters on tech, anxiety, the upside of downtime, and a chapter especially for educators. Consider it new and improved. “Now with extra sanity!”
Not that Edition 1 was such a slouch. That book inspired a reality TV show, “World's Worst Mom” (cancelled after one season, but still. Now it's on YouTube). “Free-Range Kids” made its way into textbooks, and onto The Simpsons. The book took me around the country, giving talks and meeting the Free-Range-curious. It inspired schools from New York to California to start promoting independence and free play as confidence/competence builders. And in 2018, Utah passed the country's first “Free-Range Parenting” law declaring it is not neglect to let your kids walk to school, play outside, etc. Imagine that. Now other states are drafting similar bills.
About three years ago, Free-Range Kids also inspired four activists concerned about childhood resilience—Daniel Shuchman, Peter Gray, Jonathan Haidt, and me—to found Let Grow, a non-profit promoting childhood independence.
Unfortunately, the phrase “Free-Range Kids” also inspired a bunch of annoyingly popular videos of people claiming they are “Free-Range Parents,” when actually they are never-weaning, no-bedtime, anti-sugar oddballs more afraid of a Pop-Tart than of letting their kids play in traffic.
At its worst, then, Free-Range Parenting has been mistaken—deliberately or not—for cavalier bordering on crazy. But at its best, “Free-Range” became a rallying cry for all of us eager to believe in our kids, our communities, and our own instincts again.
So enjoy Edition 2, and good luck to you and your kids. Tousle them while ye may.
The Actual Introduction Already
“You can't be too safe!”
That's pretty much the mantra for childrearing these days. A mantra that has brought us everything from baby knee pads (to protect kids from that daredevil activity called “crawling”) to trunk-or-treat (the parking lot alternative to trick or treating) to the Cub Scout troop leader who demonstrated how to whittle with a knife, then handed each boy a stick—and a potato peeler.
That's the motto of today's Scouts, I guess: Be prepared … for adults who have lost their minds. Isn't the entire point of joining Scouts to get a knife? Trying to whittle with a potato peeler is like trying to shave with a spatula. But, “You can't be too safe!”
Or can you?
The whole idea behind Free-Range Kids is that we all want the very best for our kids. We want them to be safe, happy, and eager to take on the world. But lately, how we think we should go about this has changed. For instance, I read a parenting magazine article that gave this tip: Whenever you're taking your toddler to someone else's house, always carry a couple of shoelaces with you. Why? (One friend ventured, “So you can hang yourself?” No!)
The answer is—truly—so you can TIE SHUT THE PERSON'S CABINETS. Yes, the folks at the magazine actually expect you to go around babyproofing the world.
That's not too much to ask, is it?
Free-Range Kids believes the opposite: The best way to keep your kids safe is to worldproof your baby. Or at least, worldproof your growing children. That way, they're safe even when we're not right there next to them, going crazy trying to turn the world into one giant womb.
Anyway, my point is that society has spent the last generation or two trying to convince parents that our job is to make life into one big smoothie for our kids: no lumps, no bumps, just sweet perfection (and some hidden spinach). The goal is to raise kids who go from colic to college without ever experiencing any frustration at all. Smoothie-mode begins at birth and explains the rash (so to speak) of baby wipe warmers. You've seen them, right? They do exist, dispensing wipes as warm as the washcloths in a Japanese restaurant. The question is: Do we really WANT to raise kids so addicted to ease that they are traumatized by a room-temperature wipe? Isn't that a little extreme in the “My baby should never suffer!” department? Don't we all want kids who can roll with the punches, or at least some less-than-five-star diaper changes?
Of course we do!
The funny thing is that while none of us want to see our kids suffer, seeing them rise to a challenge is one of parenting's greatest highs—and childhood's too. Like, we all want them to learn how to ride a bike, right? It's a thrill when they do! Cell phones wait their whole lives to record that moment (and then the battery dies). But to get to that point we have to let go of the handlebars and watch our sweethearts take a few spills. (Or we have to make our partner do this while we stay inside, eating cookies and reading books on good parenting. But still: someone has to let go of that bike.) We do our kids no favor if we hold the handlebars forever.
I'm pretty sure you can see the metaphor here: Helping kids? Good. Doing everything for kids, whether they be our students or our progeny? Bad. It's even a bad idea in terms of safety! Because, strangely enough: kids who aren't allowed a little freedom turn out to be less safe.
That's not just Free-Range me that says this. It's also the safety experts who have found that the confident kids—the ones who have been allowed out into the world, where they develop street smarts and an air of “I can take care of myself!”—are the safest.
Luckily, this is a book all about how to give kids a little more of that superpower, independence. And by the way, educators: independent kids are readier to think, learn, and do.
Now you'd assume that this would be a rather non-controversial idea. You don't see a lot of parenting books titled, Home Till They're 30! or The Gloomiest Kid on the Block. And yet, it is not always so easy to give our kids new freedoms, even when we think they're ready for them, because sometimes society disapproves. Sometimes the person who shares your shower disapproves. Sometimes the lady next to you on the Today Show disapproves and you get the feeling the host maybe does, too. At least, that's what happened to me.
See, a little more than a decade ago, I let my nine-year-old son Izzy ride the subway here in New York, where we live, alone. I didn't do it because I was brave or reckless or angling for a book contract. (But look!) I did it because I know my son the way you know your kids. He'd been asking me and my husband to take him someplace new and let him find his own way home by subway. After we talked about it, we decided he seemed ready. So we gave the boy a map, a MetroCard, some money, and let him go. Then, being a newspaper columnist, I wrote a piece about it for The New York Sun. Big deal, right?
Well, that night, someone from the Today Show called me at home. Did I really let my son take the subway by himself, she asked?
Yes.
Just abandoned him in the middle of the city and told him to find his way home?
Well, abandoned is kind of a strong word but … yes, I did leave him at Bloomingdale's.
In this day and age?
No, in Ladies’ Handbags.
Oh, she loved that. Would I be willing to come on the air and talk about it?
Sure, why not?
I had no idea what was about to hit me.
A day later, there across from me sat host Ann Curry looking outrageously pretty—and slightly alarmed—because her next guest just might be criminally insane. By way of introduction she turned to the camera and asked, “Is she an enlightened mom or a really bad one?”
The shot widened to reveal me and Izzy. And then some other lady perched next to us on that famous couch who, I soon learned, was there to TEACH US A LESSON.
I quickly told the story about Izzy's ride. How this was something he'd been asking my husband and me to let him do, and how I think it makes sense to listen to your kids when they're ready for a new responsibility.
I know riding the subway solo might sound like a bigger responsibility than, say, feeding Goldie the goldfish, but here in New York, families are on the subway all the time. It's extremely, even statistically safe. Whatever subterranean terror you see Will Smith battling in the movies goes home when the filming stops (probably to New Jersey). Our city's murder rate is lower than it was in the 1960s and, by the way, it's probably down where you live, too. Nationally, the violent crime rate has plummeted by more than 70% since it peaked in the early 1990s, so crime-wise our kids are actually SAFER than we were, growing up. (Yes. Safer. And not just because all the kids are locked up inside, either. ALL crime is down—ignoring the Covid blip—even against adults.)
So while I did feel a little twinge letting Izzy go, it was that same twinge you feel when you leave your child in kindergarten that first day. You want it to be a great experience. And in this case, it was.
About one hour, one subway, and one bus ride after we parted, Izzy was back at home, proud as a peacock (who takes public transportation). I only wrote about his little adventure because when I told the other fourth-grade moms about it, they said they were going to wait till their kids were a little older—thirty-eight, thirty-nine, ….
So, back to The Today Show. After Izzy tells Ann how easy the whole thing was, Ann smiles and turns to the other lady who is a “Parenting Expert”—a term I have grown to loathe because this breed seems to exist only to tell us parents what we are doing wrong.
The expert is not smiling. She looks like I just asked her to smell my socks. She is appalled by what I did and says I could have given my son the exact same experience of independence in a much “safer” way—if only I had followed him, or insisted he ride with a group of friends.
“Well, how is that the ‘exact same experience’ if it's different?” I demanded. “Besides, he was safe! That's why I let him go, you fear-mongering hypocrite, preaching independence while warning against it! And why do TV shows automatically put you guys on, anyway? Isn't it because of professional second-guessers like you that us parents have stopped trusting our guts?”
Well, I didn't get all of that out, exactly. I did get out a very cogent, “Gee, um … ” but anyway, it didn't even matter, because as soon as we left the set, the phone rang. It was MSNBC. Could I be there in an hour? Yep. Then came Fox News. Could I come that afternoon? And MSNBC again. If I came today would I promise to come on again over the weekend? And suddenly, weirdly, I found myself at that place you always hear about: The center of a media storm. It was kind of fun but kind of terrifying, too, because everyone was weighing in on my parenting skills. Reporters queried from China, Israel, Australia, Malta. (Malta! An island! Who's stalking the kids there? Captain Hook?) TV stations across Canada threw together specials. Radio shows across America ate it up, as did parenting groups and PTAs. Newspapers, blogs, magazines from The Economist to Funny Times—even the BBC had me on.
The media dubbed me “America's Worst Mom.” (Go ahead—Google it.) But that's not what I am.
I really think I'm someone like you: a parent who is afraid of some things (bears, cars) and less afraid of others (subways, strangers). But mostly I'm afraid that I, too, have been swept up in the impossible obsession of our era: total safety and control of our children every second of every day. The idea that we should provide it, and actually could provide it. It's as if we don't believe in fate anymore, or good luck or bad luck. No, it's all up to us.
Simply by questioning the belief that our kids are in constant danger from germs, jerks, sports, injuries, sports-injuries, stress, sunburn, salmonella, skinned shins, flashers, frustration, failure, baby snatchers, bugs, bullies, men, and the perils of a non-organic grape, I became, to my shock, the face of a new movement: the one dedicated to fighting the other big movement of our time, helicopter parenting.
Which is not to say I haven't done a lot of that myself! My God—I'm part helicopter on my mom's side. I've hired tutors for my kids and, this being New York City, shrinks, too. I brought in a football coach to run a simple birthday party, and what really fun, carefree door prize did I give out? Protective mouth guards. Woo-hoo! Plus I made my kids spend one summer doing math sheets every day after camp, and another summer writing an essay a day. That's when they were eight and ten. People think I am anti-helicopter parenting. Nope. I am anti- a culture that is creating helicopter parents.
So the weekend after The Today Show interview, I launched the Free-Range Kids blog to trial-balloon the notion that maybe it's time to start giving our children back some independence. Hundreds, then thousands, then eventually hundreds of thousands of people started reading it, which led to this book, and that's how the Free-Range Kids movement took hold. Parents were thrilled to hear they can take a step back, relax, and EVERYONE wins, especially the kids. After we train our young wards to wash their hands, look both ways, and never go off with strangers—the age-old lessons our parents taught us—we can actually give them some of the same freedom we had. Go forth and frolic, kids. Ride your bike! And take out the garbage, too.
These are not radical acts. Chores, games, and getting the heck out of the house were all a hallowed part of childhood until just recently, and together they help develop the very traits we want to see in our kids: confidence, responsibility, good cheer.
In fact, all the latest research shows that play itself turns out to be the most important development booster of all. If it were a class, there would be waiting lists to get in. When kids are allowed the time and space to do something just because it interests them—even if it does not interest US—they end up developing the very initiative and self-esteem we've been trying to Botox into them with praise for every doodle and trophies for 22nd place. (If your kids don't have any of these yet, they will.)
Free-Range Kids reminds parents of what they already know in their heart of hearts. That when a girl makes her own tree house out of two old planks she's more ecstatic than she'd be with a four-bedroom Colonial (especially if she had to clean it). That the boy who loses for three seasons at hockey and then wins in Season Four has learned more—and matured more—than any kid who was told, “We're all winners!” every single time. And that when any of our kids get lost and scared but then scrappily find their way back, they come home three inches taller. And really hungry.
Kids are desperate to master the world, and we have always expected them to do just that. Until a generation or two ago (and to this day in less-wealthy countries), children had to pull their own weight as soon as they could. They planted seeds, fetched water. During the Civil War, they cut off their hair to make money for Marmee. (Or at least Jo did in Little Women and that's good enough for me.)
But today, in our understandable desire to ease their way and keep them safe, we've been pushed to do everything FOR our kids. Consider the fact that in some school districts, the Parent Teacher Associations have come up with a clever new way to raise money. They auction off the drop-off space directly in front of the school entrance. The sweet spot where kids have to walk the shortest distance between car and class.
Now consider the fact that if this spot were in front of a dentist's office, or mall, it would be labeled, “HANDICAPPED PARKING.”
In other words, for fear of kidnapping, cold, or just asking too much of their kids, loving parents are vying for the chance to TREAT THEIR CHILDREN LIKE INVALIDS.
What we forget is that all these “safety” choices are not without dangers of their own. I don't like to play the fear card, so let me just list them really quickly: depressiondiabetesobesityaxietyrickets. We're talking problems that can crop up when kids don't get any time to run around, explore, or just do something for fun without us turning it into an adult-led Enriching Activity.
That's not really how we want to raise our kids, is it? It's time to believe in them again!
So in this book you'll find a skeptical look at the hovering advice we've been given, an equally skeptical look at the devices designed to help us do that hovering, and all sorts of support and facts and (God willing) fun boiled down into The Ten Free-Range Commandments.
Well, at least that was the idea. But then it turned out there were a whole bunch of other issues I wanted to get to, from how to ignore media hysteria to how to stop worrying about every little parenting decision, to how to get a kid to put down the device more powerful than the giant computers that put a man on the moon (or did they???) and go have fun with a stick. Pretty soon, there were Eighteen Commandments. Let's just say Moses had a tougher editor.
How do kids grow when we can loosen our grip and Free-Range? Let me tell you two stories.
My friends’ daughter Carrie is a special needs kid. She goes to a special school, special camp, special therapists. But one day, out of the blue, she asked her mother if she could go get a slice of pizza on her own, not far from their apartment in Manhattan.
Her shocked mother said, “Uh … OK, but why not get the pizza and bring it home to eat?” “No!” said Carrie, sixteen at the time. “Other people eat at the pizza place, and I want to, too!”
So, bless her, my friend said OK, and Carrie went off by herself a block or two away. When she returned, her mother was waiting for her outside, but couldn't even see her coming. She'd been so worried, she'd run out of the house forgetting her glasses. Then Carrie zoomed into view, glowing, grinning, and gave her mom a hug.
“What made you want to do this?” her mother asked.
Carrie had seen her friend Izzy on TV, talking about his subway ride.
“I thought if he could do it, I could do it too.” Darn tootin’.
Story 2: More recently I visited an elementary school where all the kids had been doing The Let Grow Project, a homework assignment where they have to go home and do something new, on their own, without a parent. Usually the kids bike, bake, run an errand … things most of us did without a second thought.
The delighted principal told me she could see The Project's impact almost immediately. For instance, she said, the kids weren't sticking out their feet as much.
I had no idea what she was talking about. “You mean, they're not tripping each other anymore?”
No, she said. “They're not sticking their feet out for their teacher to tie their shoes.”
Go Free-Range and I can't promise immediate happiness, responsibility, pizza-buying, or shoe-tying. But I can say that the fears so rampant in our society aren't in line with reality anymore, and when we start to realize that, our kids reap the benefit. Free-Range is a way to fight the real-world consequences of imaginary or insanely inflated dangers. Do that and we can give our kids a different kind of childhood.
They say the first step toward change is realizing that you really want to change, at least a little bit, so kudos to you for picking up this book. A bigger kudos to you for reading it. (Picking up a book only gets you so far.) All children deserve parents who love them, teach them, trust them, and then … let go of the handlebars.
Commandment 1Know When to WorryPlay Dates and Axe Murderers: How to Tell The Difference
It was one of those chaotic parenting moments. The ones when you have to make a decision—fast.
Isabelle, the twelve-year-old daughter of my friends Jeff and Sue had just been in the middle school play. She was going with the cast to the local Friendly's for ice cream, along with several dozen kids and parents. Clearly this was the suburban equivalent of the Vanity Fair Oscar party, which is why Isabelle's little sister, ten-year-old Kaitlin, begged to go along, too.
My friends said yes, even though they'd promised to look after Kaitlin's friend, another ten-year-old. Let's call her Baby M.
This gets a tiny bit confusing, but bear with me. My friend Sue had to peel off, so Jeff dropped all three girls off at Friendly's, gave them money for ice cream, and told them he'd come back to pick them up in half an hour.
So now, instead of going straight to Kaitlin's house as planned, ten-year-old Baby M was at an ice cream shop with her friend, her friend's older sister, and another fifty or sixty riotously happy schoolchildren she knew. Being a responsible girl, she called her mom to tell her where she was.
“WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT?” screamed Baby M's mom. “You're WHERE? By YOURSELF?” She slammed down the phone and called Sue and Jeff to yell, “How dare you do this to my child!”
Now look, I'm a mom too, and when plans change, I'd like to get a call. But there's a difference between being mildly annoyed and hair-standing-straight-up hysterical. The crazed mom barely had time to hang up the phone before she ran out to her car and sped over to Friendly's. She scooped up her kid—yes, leaving little Kaitlin friendless (at Friendly's!)—but not before declaring to the world, or at least to a whole lot of ice cream eaters: “This is NOT how I'm raising my daughter!”
No indeed! She's raising her to be a hothouse, mama-tied, danger-hallucinating joy extinguisher—just like she is. (Which, by the way, is why I've changed everyone's name in this story. I don't want to make a crazed mom crazier.)
Days went by, and this mom refused to answer any of Jeff and Sue's apologetic emails. Why would she? To her mind, they had done the moral equivalent of dragging her daughter into a forest filled with wolves, snakes, and unshaven guys lurching around with a jug of moonshine in one hand and a pickax in the other.
Baby M's mom thinks her daughter is just very lucky that nothing bad happened to her that scary, scary night. She also thinks that, as a mom, she was doing the only rational, caring thing: making sure her ten-year-old was supervised every second, every place, every day by a pre-approved adult.
How dare anyone subject her daughter to that unscheduled ice cream shop experience? Mama didn't approve of it beforehand, she was not consulted, she didn't check the menu for appropriate foods, she didn't know who the girl might talk to—and it's quite possible that while there, her daughter might have had to go to the bathroom. God knows what would have happened to her there! (Cue the unshaven lurchers.)
Anyway, my point—and maybe I'm starting to sound as unhinged as that mom—is this: a lot of parents today are really bad at assessing risk. They see no difference between letting their children walk to school and letting them walk through a firing range. When they picture their kids riding their bikes to a birthday party, they see them dodging Mack trucks with brake problems. To let their children play unsupervised in a park at age eight or ten or even thirteen seems about as responsible as throwing them in the shark tank at Sea World with their pockets full of meatballs.
Any risk is seen as too much risk. A crazy, not-to-be-taken, see-you-on-the-local-news risk. And the only thing these parents don't seem to realize is that the greatest risk of all just might be trying to raise a child who never encounters any risks.
Not that I'm a fan of taking crazy risks. I hate them! They make no sense. Riding a bike without a helmet strikes me as about as sensible as riding a roller coaster rated MP for “Missing Planks.” My love for seatbelts borders on the obsessive. And car seats? One of those saved my life when I was two and our car somersaulted off the highway. That was before car seats were even required, so I come from solid, safety-loving stock. Safety is good. But if we try to prevent every possible danger or difficulty in our child's everyday life, that child never gets a chance to grow up.
Or eat ice cream for half an hour without a chaperone.
Now, if “The Incident at Friendly's” were unusual, this book would end right here. It would be about one overworried mom, and who cares about that?
But unfortunately, Mama M is not alone in her fears. Millions of moms and almost (but not quite) as many dads now see the world as so fraught with danger that they can't possibly let their children explore it.
Sometimes they regret having to rein their kids in, but rein them in they do. A woman who wrote to me from quiet, suburban Atlanta won't let her daughter go to the mailbox by herself. That's right. The mailbox. In her mind, there's just “too much that could happen” between the door and the curb.
Another dad informed his daughter that he was going to follow her school field trip to make sure nothing happened to her. Why? Could he stop the bus from plunging off the road?
Then there was the New Jersey radio talk show host who interviewed me after the now infamous incident of my letting Izzy ride the subway by himself. How could I do such a crazy thing, the host demanded. He believes in safety. He loves his son. That's why he won't let his boy, age eight, play basketball in his own driveway. Too many creeps out there!
Yes, there are many creeps in this world of ours. Some of them even have bombastic radio shows and speak in italics. But some of them are creeps of the classic kind: predators and murderers and guys who feel compelled to show kids what's under their raincoat. Creeps are a sad fact of life. The fact that many parents seem unable to process, however, is that
THERE AREN'T ANY MORE CREEPS NOW THAN WHEN WE WERE KIDS.
Hard to believe, but that's what the statistics show. Over at the Crimes Against Children Research Center, they track these things (as you might guess from their name). David Finkelhor, the founder of the center and a professor at the University of New Hampshire, says that violent crime in America has been falling since it peaked in the early 1990s. That includes sex crimes against kids. He adds that although perhaps the streets were somewhat safer in the 1950s, children today are statistically as safe from violent crime as their parents and grandparents were.
So when parents say, “I'd love to let my kids have the same kind of childhood I had, but times have changed,” they're not making a rational argument.
Times have not changed, danger-wise. Especially not where childhood abductions are concerned. Those crimes are so very rare that the rates do not go up or down by much in any given year. Throw in the fact that now almost everyone is carrying a cell phone and can immediately call the police if they see a kid climbing into a van filled with balloons, a clown, and automatic weapons, and times are, if anything, safer.
The problem is that we parents feel that childhood is more dangerous for our kids than it was for us, and over the course of this book, we'll look at where those fears come from and which ones are utterly baseless and why they're so hard to shake. But if you (like, sometimes, me) only read a chapter or two and then “forget” to read the rest of a book, or “accidentally” leave it on the bus, or perhaps you've reached that point on Kindle where it says, “FREE SAMPLE TIME IS OVER, BUB. TIME TO ACTUALLY PAY FOR THE BOOK,” let me just state before it's too late that we have it all wrong. Our kids are more competent than we believe, and they're a whole lot safer, too. We are extremely worried today about exceedingly unlikely disasters—or, as the experts put it, “negative outcomes.” (Like death would be a “negative outcome” of gum surgery.)
Dr. F. Sessions Cole, a professor of pediatrics at Washington University and former chief medical officer at St. Louis Children's Hospital, one of the Midwest's biggest, put it this way: “The problem is that the public assumes that any risk to any individual is 100 percent risk to them.”
What he means is that if people hear about one child who died from falling out of a crib, they immediately assume that their child is at risk for that same thing. When one child gets a rare infection, they think it's likely that theirs could, too. When they hear about one child abducted from a parking lot, they assume their child could well be next, even though, in reality, those chances are so slim that actual, factual statisticians have a word for them: de minimis. Risks so small that they are virtually equivalent to none. I'm not saying that the abducted children are equivalent to none. No! I'm saying that the risk is so small, it's almost impossible to guard against. Just like it's almost impossible to guard against the possibility of being hit by an asteroid.
And yet rattled parents, besieged by media and each other, feel they must take all possible precautions to avoid all these extremely rare possibilities. “But if you live your life that way,” said Dr. Cole, “as best I can tell, you can never even go to the bathroom, because there could be something that sucks you into the toilet.”
Dr. Cole isn't being flip. Well, not totally. He's the classic white-haired, avuncular doctor—he should have his own TV show, he's so perfect for the part of himself—and over the course of his career he's seen more and more parents coming in distraught about more and more outlandish possibilities. Even after he has reassured these parents that their child is fine, they demand MRIs and other tests to “prove” it. Or, just to be safe, they decide to restrict their children's diets, even after he tells them he seriously doubts this will have any effect on their health.
This eagerness to restrict things is not limited to food. Think of how, thanks to fear, we restrict so many other aspects of our children's lives. They're not allowed to walk alone (cars!), explore (perverts!), or play in the park (those perverts again) or in the woods (ticks!) or in trees (gravity!) or in water (drowning!) or in dirt (dirt). It's not your imagination: childhood really has changed. Fifty years ago, the majority of U.S. children walked or biked to school. Today, about one in ten do. Meantime, 70% of today's moms say they played outside as kids. But only 31% of their kids do. The children have been sucked off America's lawns like yard trimmings.
Where did all this fear come from? Take your pick: The fact that we're all working so hard that we don't know our neighbors. The fact that the marketplace is brimming with products to keep our kids “safe” from things we never used to worry about—like shopping cart liners to protect kids from germs.
Then there's the way our brains cling to scary thoughts (kid taken from a bus stop) but not mundane ones (all the kids who get on and off the bus without getting taken). That's just basic psychology. Meanwhile, “helpful” websites list the dangers of every possible activity from running barefoot (fungus!) to flying kites. “Choose a sunny day when there's no chance of lightning,” one kite article actually suggested. So I guess we shouldn't choose a day when trees are flying by the window and there's a funnel-shaped cloud coming up the driveway? Thank you so much, oh wise tip-giver!
Fear, fear, fear. We're always expected to be thinking about fear. Schools hold pre–field trip assemblies explaining exactly how close the children will be to a hospital. At least, my kids’ school did. Come home and the TV tells us about “the killer under your sink!” (Turns out you shouldn't drink Drano.) And “the monster who could be your neighbor!” (but probably isn't). And “the hidden danger in your drink!” (A lemon. It has bacteria on it. Big deal. So does everything else.) Everyone is exhorting us to watch out, take care, and plan for doomy doom doom. Which puts a damper on things, to say the least.
A doctor wrote to me early on to say:
We live in beautiful Ardsley, New York. I pay 20K in taxes a year to provide a safe environment and good education for my children. You would have thought I committed a crime when I let my 8-year-old daughter ride her bike by herself approximately two city blocks to a friend's house. My wife let it be known how vehemently she disagreed with me. In addition, all the parents in the neighborhood also thought I was crazy. Indeed, of course I would have grieved had “something” happened. But should I let that immobilize my children? I lost my mother to a drunk driver at the age of 46, and my sister to cancer at age 24. In addition, I am an emergency medicine physician who sees tragedy every day. Therefore, I know, more than most, the pain of tragedy and longshots. I could let this paralyze me, but I don't. I choose, to the best of my ability, to allow my children the same freedoms that I had as a child growing up, when I was taking the train by the 7th grade, and riding my bike by myself by the age of 9. I choose to give my children freedom.
What a cool guy, embracing life with his eyes wide open. Good luck to him, and good luck to you, dear reader, as you seem to be on the same journey. And then good luck convincing your friends and spouse to join you.
You're going to need it.
REAL WORLD
What's Wrong with Our Society?
The First Thing I Did Was Disconnect the Cable
A Free-Ranger writes:
I'm a mom of a 13-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl and I'm ashamed of how paranoid I am. The news keeps you in constant fear of your child being abducted and raped and eaten, etc. I was a kid who took two buses to get to my Catholic School as early as age 7. And I did it all by myself. My friends and I wandered all over the city, and as long as we were home by dark, we could do whatever we wanted. Without cell phones! Now, here I am, with a teenager, and I get an upset tummy when I watch him walk with his friends to junior high each day. What's wrong with our society? What's wrong with me? Here I am, a formerly fearless adult who went everywhere I wanted as a kid, and I'm too paranoid to let my teenager walk to the store. I'm ashamed that I've allowed society to shape me into a worrier. Yes, there are predators. But they aren't everywhere and I need to get over myself. Fast. Before I raise a scaredy-cat son and paranoid daughter. We're gonna have a whole generation of skittish people if we don't give our kids some space, starting with mine. I'm gonna go kick them out of the house on this sunny afternoon and let them wander. (But they better answer their cell phones.)
