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?