This story inspires me every time I read it. I am of the mind to teach my children to be strong, independent types that will move away from me as their mom. But as a consultant I am constantly trying to teach parents the balance, safety vs helicopter. Lenore Skenazy has done some great research in this book that I use bitsin my groups to help parents put their fears into prospective and get better at using the instincts we were born with to parent our kids. We are better parents when we grow our kids up to love us and leave us as independent, curious, self reliant adults.

Free-Range Kids
How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)
Book by Lenore Skenazy

Two Years Ago Today…
Posted on April 1, 2010 by lskenazy

On April 1, 2008, The New York Sun ran this column of mine. Alas, the paper has since folded (so to speak). But I think we can agree this column is still doing its work. Two days after it was published I found myself on the Today Show, MSNBC, FoxNews and NPR defending myself as NOT a terrible mom. That weekend I started this blog. My Free-Range Kids book came out last year and the paperback version is coming out later this month. Quite a journey! — L.

WHY I LET MY 9-YEAR-OLD RIDE THE SUBWAY ALONE

by Lenore Skenazy

I left my 9-year-old at Bloomingdale’s (the original one) a couple weeks ago. Last seen, he was in first floor handbags as I sashayed out the door.

Bye-bye! Have fun!

And he did. He came home on the subway and bus by himself.

Was I worried? Yes, a tinge. But it didn’t strike me as that daring, either. Isn’t New York as safe now as it was in 1963? It’s not like we’re living in downtown Baghdad.

Anyway, for weeks my boy had been begging for me to please leave him somewhere, anywhere, and let him try to figure out how to get home on his own. So on that sunny Sunday I gave him a subway map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, and several quarters, just in case he had to make a call.

No, I did not give him a cell phone. Didn’t want to lose it. And no, I didn’t trail him, like a mommy private eye. I trusted him to figure out that he should take the Lexington Avenue subway down, and the 34th Street crosstown bus home. If he couldn’t do that, I trusted him to ask a stranger. And then I even trusted that stranger not to think, “Gee, I was about to catch my train home, but now I think I’ll abduct this adorable child instead.”

Long story short: My son got home, ecstatic with independence.

Long story longer, and analyzed, to boot: Half the people I’ve told this episode to now want to turn me in for child abuse. As if keeping kids under lock and key and helmet and cell phone and nanny and surveillance is the right way to rear kids. It’s not. It’s debilitating — for us and for them.

And yet —

“How would you have felt if he didn’t come home?” a New Jersey mom of four, Vicki Garfinkle, asked.

Guess what, Ms. Garfinkle: I’d have been devastated. But would that just prove that no mom should ever let her child ride the subway alone?

No. It would just be one more awful but extremely rare example of random violence, the kind that hyper parents cite as proof that every day in every way our children are more and more vulnerable.

“Carlie Brucia — I don’t know if you’re familiar with that case or not, but she was in Florida and she did a cut-through about a mile from her house … and midday, at 11 in the morning, she was abducted by a guy who violated her several times, killed her, and left her behind a church.”

That’s the story that the head of safetynet4kids.com, Katharine Francis, immediately told me when I asked her what she thought of my son getting around on his own. She runs a company that makes wallet-sized copies of a child’s photo and fingerprints, just in case.

Well of course I know the story of Carlie Brucia. That’s the problem. We all know that story — and the one about the Mormon girl in Utah and the one about the little girl in Portugal — and because we do, we all run those tapes in our heads when we think of leaving our kids on their own. We even run a tape of how we’d look on Larry King.

“I do not want to be the one on TV explaining my daughter’s disappearance,” a father, Garth Chouteau, said when we were talking about the subway issue.

These days, when a kid dies, the world — i.e., cable TV — blames the parents. It’s simple as that. And yet, Trevor Butterworth, a spokesman for the research center STATS.org, said, “The statistics show that this is an incredibly rare event, and you can’t protect people from very rare events. It would be like trying to create a shield against being struck by lightning.”

Justice Department data actually show the number of children abducted by strangers has been going down over the years. So why not let your kids get home from school by themselves?

“Parents are in the grip of anxiety and when you’re anxious, you’re totally warped,” the author of “A Nation of Wimps,” Hara Estroff Marano, said. We become so bent out of shape over something as simple as letting your children out of sight on the playground that it starts seeming on par with letting them play on the railroad tracks at night. In the rain. In dark, non-reflective coats.

The problem with this everything-is-dangerous outlook is that over-protectiveness is a danger in and of itself. A child who thinks he can’t do anything on his own eventually can’t.

Meantime, my son wants his next trip to be from Queens. In my day, I doubt that would have struck anyone as particularly brave. Now it seems like hitchhiking through Yemen.

Here’s your MetroCard, kid. Go.

Free-Range Kids
How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)
Book by Lenore Skenazy

So many of us have gotten used to the gadgets in our lives, as our children do to. TV, DVD, computer, video games, IPod, and phones. Kids can be stimulated 24 hours a day, parents play side by side with there kids. How many times a week do you turn it all off to do things. Eat together, play a game, go outside, ride your bike, plant a garden, look at bugs. Find the toys of the world that don't need plugs and listen to the natural sound.

Try some of these idea’s

• Fly paper airplanes
• Paint some pet rocks
• Have a scavenger hunt
• Plant a fruit tree in your yard
• Go on a picnic

Enjoy these activities and plan some of your own.

Spring Forward, Fall Back.
We all learned the rhyme when we were young in order to remember which way the time would change. For a day or two the time change causes a few tired day for us and for our children. Upon looking forward your kids may currently be getting up at 6 or 6:30am, after the time change they may get up even earlier resulting is a bit of a tired day and children will be more tired at bedtime.  You can do some slight changes early by beginning this week. Try adjusting bed times by a half an hour. Keep them up a bit longer, they will fall asleep quickly and seemingly sleep longer but by the time the change comes you may barely notice it. Most people adjust within the first week, and parents can take advantage of the few days before to help kids adjust with little or no notice.

Tell us your personal stories, how did these tips work for your?

Set a goal this month to play more. As parents, we sometimes forget how to play or why we need to play. As adults in busy, stressful lives we need to play so we can relax and maintain close relationships with our children, and our kids grow and develop before our eyes. Kids from toddlers to teens play as part of their job of growing up. Help them by giving them the freedom to play and setting aside your ideas of what they should be doing. Be patient and follow the lead of your children and let them take the initiative to choose what they play. Don't miss opportunities for social interactions, play with them as they would want you too. Ask your kids if you can play with them and when they say "yes", wait for direction and have bunches of fun.

Have fun in February!

I have just finished reading a book that represents some of my style of raising my children and teaching parents ideas that might work in their parenting.  Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry by Lenore Skenazy talks about how society scares us into behaving a certain way and through gossip and storytelling we are freaking ourselves out of the big bad world. But the reality is it isn't that bad and our kids are begging for freedoms to play and try and just be kids like many of us were when we were young. This book emphasizes putting more trust in you kids and their ability to be resilient and successful, along with the importance of letting kids fail and sometimes even fall.
As a parent I have often been criticized and laughed at for how I have chosen to raise my own kids in a Free Range manner. I think the most difficult for others was no baby gates on our four flights of stairs and the step stool that sits beside the kitchen counter so my kids can help with dinner. My kids are now 2 and 4 and are quick at the stairs for which the injuries have been minimal and non life threatening. My kids are noted by many for being independent and that makes me proud because that is what I hope for them. Where ever possible I do insert lessons as such into my parenting consultant business. To many parents worry their kids aren't going to cut it and are shoved into activity after activity. Please parents don't miss your child's childhood because your too busy watching them at the side of the field or waiting from them in the car while they are at tutoring group. Your kids most want your to play with them in a cardboard box, so go have some fun with them.

When a preschooler is biting it may be his need to get attention, exert control over the situation, as a form of self defence or a way of expressing anger or frustration. When biting is common this is an indication of a behaviour problem. Frequent biting after a child for preschoolers, may indicate such behaviour problems, because by that time many children have the communication skills necessary to express what they need. Here are some strategies to deal with biting behaviours.

Respond immediately – get down to their level and model a feeling of hurt so the child knows that biting hurts. “Ouch, that hurts, we don’t bite our friends”.

Don’t Bite Back – biting back only shows the child in a violent way to respond to being hurt. We need to teach them appropriate responses that can be used in many situations.

Observe Context – When biting occurs repeatedly look at when it happens to deduce why. Look for a pattern, does it happen in crowds, is it when they are excited or mad, is there a lack of toys or too many toys, or perhaps they need some attention or supervision.

Teach Communication Skills – Use words to express their feelings. Consistently promote the child's use of language is helpful to reduce biting behaviours as well as other behaviours. For example, teach words and phrases like, "stop," "mine," "We don't bite our friends, we bite food" or "biting hurts”, when children are in situation that may cause them to want to bite they will have the words to express themselves.

Use Positive Language - Say "touch gently" rather than "don't bite". You can help children talk about feelings by putting them into words, like “you look mad, tell your friend you don’t like it when she takes your toy”. Rather than saying, “don’t be mean”, try, “he is angry because you took his toy”.

It may take some time to stop the behaviour so be consistent and firm so the child knows this is not acceptable behaviour but there are other ways to express your self.

If you have any other parenting questions, please feel free to email me and I may add them to my next blog entry.

Learn how to Juggle.
Juggling fascinates & amazes both young & old, kids. It's something youcan teach them later or try learning together. Watch learning video’s on theinternet, get a book from the library or just keep trying.

It will be fun!

Ten Fingers
A fingerplay

I have ten fingers    hold up both hands, fingers spread
And they all belong to me,  point to self
I can make them do things-
Would you like to see?

I can shut them up tight   make fists
I can open them wide    open hands
I can put them together   place palms together
I can make them all hide   put hands behind back

I can make them jump high   hands over head
I can make them jump low   touch floor
I can fold them up quietly   fold hands in lap
And hold them just so.

 

We have just made it through the most stressful time of year. With our regular routines disrupted and the introduction of so much change accompanied by even more new, we may find our minds spinning and are children spinning even faster. Now the New Year has arrived and we are expected to return to the way things were, but we don’t have to. As everyone else has mad New Year Resolutions families can look forward to the year to come and make some plans based on ages and stages. Plan for your ever changing children and jump ahead with goals for great family outings and activities. What a great time to plan for strengthening your family bond and do some new things together.

Try something like this:

Month	Activity	Outing/Holiday	Learning	Extra’s
January	Swimming at a new pool	Science world	Read a classic novel together
February	Have a pizza making night	Road trip to the USA	Write stories together
March	Indoor Gym at a community centre	Be a tourist and take a tour bus trip	Do Art together
April	Bee Farm in Surrey	CN Imax film	Play a new sport outside each week
May	Make some pies and share them with others	Lin Valley ecological centre activity and walk	Hiking and forestry lessons
June	Grow some food to eat in a small garden	Visit a community garden	Make up a summer book club
July	White Rock beach day	Camping overnight	Find a pen pal and write emails together or letters
August	Water park & picnic day	Concert or Movie in the Park	Swimming outdoors
September	Host a potluck dinner as a family	Day trip to Victoria	Dance together
October	Have a dress-up party with a theme	Bike riding	Make a movie together
November	Have a fondue party	aquarium	Write some letters and cards together and mail them
December	Learn to make Christmas candy together	Drive around and look at Christmas lights in others yards	Sing together

 

This is a sample that may or may not work for your family based on what your family likes or needs within ages and stages. This is an idea for your planning. When we plan ahead we have a better chance of doing things. You do not need to put pressure on yourself to do all these things, consider it a guideline for when you need an idea. The extra list is for you to add unplanned activities so you can remember all the fun things you did. Most important of all, have fun and do things together to keep your bonds strong and solid.

Mom Question:

 

My son always says “but mom….” whenever we are trying to do things together.

“but mom, I wanted to cut it”,

“but mom, I don’t want that there”,

“but mom, I wanted to do it”.

 

This is whining. One of the most commonly complained about behaviours. As parents, it is often hard to know what to do about it so that we don’t inadvertently reinforce the unwanted behaviour.

 

Preschoolers are at the height of whining as they are caught between the need for independence and the need for continued parent help and attention. Children generally whine:

• when they want something like a cookie, a toy or something you have.
• when they need something like a hug.
• when they need or want your attention.
• when they know they will get the response they want.

 

Whining comes in many forms like the “but mom…” above, other forms of whining come with high pitches and/or nasally, dragged out words.

• “Daaaaad” or “Pleeeaaaase”,
• “I don’t wanna do that”,
• “Can we please go now?”,
• “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom…”

 

Take a look at what is really happening for your child. Are they hungry, hurt, angry, sad, frustrated, over stimulated, lonely, tired or bored? As with your new babies look at the basic need first, sometimes by catching and addressing those first, the behaviour will change. This age group has little concept of time so try to attend to the requests quickly without jumping to the child’s attention every time. Children will learn to use behaviour if they learn that it works for them. Sometimes, they don’t care if it is negative or positive attention so notice how you have been responding to see what they are getting out of it.

 

Consequences change behaviours only if they’re used every time the behaviour occurs. Be unemotional when administering consequences; don’t get mad or irritated, don’t lecture or display anger. Notice when they are doing good, praise them when they use the right tone of voice and ask in the right way. Breaking a habit takes time so always be encouraging.

 

Some tips to try:

• Learn what brings on the whining and try to keep ahead of it. If your child is extra whiney at 4pm perhaps they are hungry so always have a snack at 4pm.
• Find phrases to use consistently in this situation, “when you talk in your big voice, then I will be here to listen to you”.
• Help kids find the words they may need to express themselves, “it sounds like your feeling sad”. It is frustrating when you can’t cut a straight line”. “Sometimes I feel mad when someone takes my toys away too”.
• Deal with behaviours immediately. Stop in the store and wait until the desired words are spoken.

 

Remember, the same things don’t work every time and many approaches have their limits. If the strategy you have chosen doesn’t work, you will try another. Keep in mind it can take up to a month for behaviour to change and it usually gets worse before it gets better. We have to constantly change and try to keep two steps ahead because when you think you know how it goes your kids will change.