Image: Free Range Kids by Len Lantz (CC BY-NC-ND)
Synopsis: Len's Star Rating: 9 out of 10. A refreshing, counter-cultural book on promoting independence in children.
BY LEN LANTZ, MD, author of unJoy / 12.13.2023; No. 118
Disclaimer: Yes, I am a physician, but I’m not your doctor and this article does not create a doctor-patient relationship. This article is for educational purposes and should not be seen as medical advice. You should consult with your physician before you rely on this information. This post also contains affiliate links. Please click this LINK for the full disclaimer.
Star Rating – 9 out of 10
Rating guide: 1 = horrible, 5 = average and 10 = wow
Author
Lenore Skenazy
About the author
Lenore Skenazy was a columnist at The New York Sun in 2008 when she instantly became famous for her two articles titled "Here's your MetroCard, Kid” and “Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone.” She experienced a national media frenzy and backlash from parenting “experts” and helicopter parents throughout the US who labeled her as “America’s Worst Mom.” Ms. Skenazy achieved her BA in American Studies from Yale and her MA in Journalism from Columbia. She created and fostered the Free-Range Kids movement through her blog, Free-Range Kids, and a 13-episode reality show, World’s Worst Mom. In 2018, she co-founded and continues to serve as president of Let Grow, a nonprofit that promotes childhood independence.
General description
Free-Range Kids is a book on allowing children to experience gradually increasing levels of independence (without direct supervision by an adult) that is appropriate to their level of development. While the book describes the impact of her original articles on free-range parenting, most of the book covers what parents and schools can do to appropriately promote independence in kids and not feel guilty for doing so. Each chapter is titled as a commandment (there are 18 chapters/“commandments” in the book). Examples of chapter titles include “Commandment 1: Know When to Worry,” “Commandment 6: Ignore the Blamers,” and “Commandment 16: Trust Strangers.”
Unique and most important aspects
In this second edition of Free-Range Kids, Lenore Skenazy revises and expands upon her 2010 book, which had the original subtitle, How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry). While the author shares her fascinating story about the firestorm that followed her in 2008 and subsequent years, most of the information in this book covers arguments in favor of and strategies for free-range parenting. The author uses copious amounts of humor that is engaging, entertaining, and, at times, flippant. Lenore Skenazy is masterful in poking fun at common, overprotective parental reactions, which make them vulnerable to fear and unnecessary purchases, like baby knee pads.
Author Lenore Skenazy shares stories, statistics, expert opinions, and common-sense logic to support parents in ignoring the criticisms of the free-range parenting movement and the fearmongering incited by the media. In full disclosure, I was a free-range kid in my youth (well before the publication of this book). Important features of this book include:
“Real World” free-range parent experiences at the end of each chapter
“Going Free Range” exercises for parents at the end of each chapter
Confronting urban myths on stranger danger and fears of tainted Halloween candy
Describing cultural acceptance in other countries of free-range strategies that promote the independence of kids
The “Free-Range Kids Card,” which your kids can present to any adults who are inquiring why they don’t have a parent around
Best quotes
“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.”
“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.”
“‘You can’t be too safe!’ That’s pretty much the mantra for childrearing these days…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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“In fact, all the latest research shows that play itself turns out to be the most important development booster of all.”
“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: depressiondiabetesobesityanxietyrickets. We’re talking problems that 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.”
“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…Dr. F. Sessions Cole…put it this way: ‘The problem is that the public assumes that any risk to any individual is 100 percent risk to them.’”
“Put another way, the chances of any one American child being kidnapped and killed by a stranger are almost infinitesimally small: 0.00007%. Put yet another, even better way, by British author Warwick Cairns, who wrote the book How to Live Dangerously: if you actually wanted your child to be kidnapped and held overnight by a stranger, how long would you have to keep the child outside, unattended, for this to be statistically likely to happen? About seven hundred and fifty thousand years.”
“Most of the time when something bad happens to a child it is because of bad LUCK, not bad parents.”
“A survey by polling expert Tom Smith at the University of Chicago asked fourteen hundred people that very question: At what age do you think adulthood begins in the United States? The answer: twenty-six. That’s a long time to wait before you touch a sharp knife.”
“After all, a child is four hundred times more likely to die as a passenger in a car crash than to be kidnapped and murdered by a stranger.”
“In the rest of the world, most children do walk to school, and they start at age five or six or seven. Their parents do not accompany them. By age ten or sometimes even before that, kids may board a public bus to get to school, and no one looks at them askance. The other riders know that children are capable of getting around, and they don’t consider this a rogue activity.”
“Control is a figment of our imagination. Seeking it only makes us more anxious.”
Who would enjoy this book?
Readers interested in a book on promoting independence in kids and addressing the anxiety parents face in doing so are likely to enjoy Free-Range Kids.
Who would not enjoy this book?
Overprotective parents or other adults who are not open to new ideas or changing their behaviors in fostering the independence of children are unlikely to enjoy Free-Range Kids.
Conclusion
Free-Range Kids is a refreshing, counter-cultural book on promoting independence in children.