Back in May, I wrote a blog about an interview on salon.com with Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids: Giving our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry (Jossey-Bass, 2009).
I finally got my hands on a copy – and I couldn’t put it down.
I laughed out loud, read passages to my 11-year-old daughter, quoted sections to my husband, and have been recommending it to everyone I come in contact with.
Here’s one of the most reassuring passages from the book, in which Skenazy paraphrases 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 her outside, unattended, for this to be statistically likely to happen?
“About seven hundred and fifty thousand years.”
If you read just one book about parenting this year, make it this one. I loved it because Skenazy, who earned the title “worst mom in the world” for allowing her then 9-year-old son to ride the New York subway by himself, is so human, and real, and funny.
She addresses our worst fears, and then tells us, with statistics backing her up, why we should let go of many of them. We aren’t in control of our children’s lives, she reminds her readers, and by acting as if we are, we are actually doing our kids harm. Sure, we all need to take reasonable measures to keep our kids safe, but we don’t need to roll them in bubble wrap and lock them in a closet until they’re 21.
The world really isn’t a more dangerous place than it was when most of us were growing up (in fact, according to the research quoted in the book, it’s less dangerous). And in order to become independent, confident and competent, kids need more freedom than most of us are currently giving them.
Read it and let me know what you think. I’m off to lengthen the leashes around my own kids’ necks.
Posted by Anne

July 22nd, 2009 | Category: Metro Parent