Free Range Kids

I have been following Lenore Skenazy's blog, Free Range Kids, for a long time now. I've been meaning to write my opinions of her/it for AGES, but then her television show 'World's Worst Mom' came out on TLC and I figured I'd missed the boat on introducing my blogging community to her. Come to find out, her show is only showing internationally, not in America, so maybe all you lovely people out there don't know about her. In my opinion, every parent should know about her and her message!

In a nutshell, she campaigns (through her writing, public speaking, and television) to stop the growing paranoia in parenting that's happening, and to get back to letting children be children. Having read tons of her stuff and watched all of her shows, I have to say, there's not a single thing Big Chief and I have read/seen of hers that we disagree with. Not one. I LOVE this woman. So I'm sharing her with you now. Her entire blog is valuable reading, but here are some of my favorites:

Her original story - How this all got started
Anderson Cooper show (a good introduction to her and her philosophy)
A Sunday school preventing males of any age helping children
The difference between TALKING TO a stranger and WALKING AWAY WITH a stranger
Reverse Culture Shock: I can soooooo identify with this one...it's a real fear of mine!
Crime rates are actually LOWER than they have been in decades
Scaremongering is everywhere, it's up to us to apply logic and common sense

I could go on and on, but I'll let you be the judge. As Mr T approached his 7th birthday, and therefore his latest Privilege/Responsibility, Big Chief and I have been taking into consideration some Free Range ideas and remembering what we were doing at that age. To our surprise, we're not as Free Range with Mr T as we'd imagined we were, even though we live in an area and culture that nurtures independent, FUN childhoods.

So we have decided to extend his neighborhood range, and allow him to play not just on our street, but in a four-block square with very clear boundaries. He will not be allowed to ride his bike without us, but he can, for the first time, walk around the neighborhood where we can't see him. (gulp) Yes, we're a little nervous, but we have taken all kinds of things into careful consideration (his maturity level, the quietness of our streets, the community of our neighborhood, etc etc etc) and are comfortable with our decision. Well, as comfortable as any parent can be with newly-gained freedom for their children.

Ok, I'm off my soapbox now. Time to corral my free-range kids into their cages for the night.  ;-)