Comments on: If I ruled the world…You’d sign your kids up for my class – Lenore Skenazy

By: Danger: Free-range parenting post ahead! « After the kids leave

Danger: Free-range parenting post ahead! « After the kids leave — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 05:02:45 +0000

[...] If I ruled the world…You’d sign your kids up for my class – Lenore Skenazy (outdoornation.org.uk) Share this:MoreLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. Posted in: Baby boomers, Parenting, Teens | Tagged: Child, Education, family, Free-Range Kids, Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry, free-range parenting, Lenore Skenazy, mental health, Parent, parenting advice, Social work [...]

By: cheryl

cheryl — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 13:21:23 +0000

You might consider offering to be an after school contact, stop in point for the neighbors kids?? Get two of them out of that after school program ad it may snowball.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 22:14:06 +0000

When I first moved into my neighborhood, I honestly didn’t think any other children lived here. I certainly never saw any. I sent my kids out anyway. At first there was only one little girl who would come out to play with them. Then there was a little boy who would come out late in the evening, after his parents got home from work and picked him up from daycare. Eventually more and more children appeared, so that now if I decide to take my 3yo to the park (the only one I still deem too young to go without me), I end up with 15 kids tagging along. It takes time, though. Be patient. In the meantime, what’s wrong with your kids playing outside with only each other?

By: Uly

Uly — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 20:30:55 +0000

One thing I’ve seen said before is that when ONE parent starts letting their kids go out on the block, they find that OTHER parents start doing likewise. Everybody is just waiting for another person to take the first step!

On my block we’re chock full of marginally supervised kids. Sadly, they’re vampires and only come out after dark.

(I’m dead serious on that, too. When the nieces are going to bed, that’s when all the neighborhood kids come out. I do NOT get it.)

By: Andrea Jones

Andrea Jones — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 19:36:31 +0000

And will someone re-apply sunscreen ever hour? But only the kind with no nanoparticles…

By: Andrea Jones

Andrea Jones — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 19:34:51 +0000

Can I tell you how BITTER I am that I can’t just send my kids outside to play in our neighborhood! I guess I could send them out, but I don’t know if there would be any other kids around. There are other kids on our block, but their parents work full-time so they are in afterschool programs. I work part-time in the morning so I can pick up my kids when school ends, but we have to GO to a park or a friend’s house to find other kids. I don’t even see kids out on the weekend!! Perhaps I can change that slowly with my kids. But, as things stand now, I am BITTER BITTER BITTER that my kids are having these fun experiences out on their own, and that they are always bugging me to help entertain them and they watch too much TV and play too much computer. (I do try to control it, but it’s hard because there’s not much else for them to do…)

By: michaela

michaela — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 17:50:30 +0000

Funny and couldn’t agree more – just came back from Europe after taking my 6 and 4 year olds here for 6 weeks (my home) and we practiced just that – outside doing stuff, exploring with me just keeping one eye on them thru the window here and there – and we all loved it !! Somehow I can’t seem to visualize this back in Atlanta without getting screamed at or looked at as an awful parent who doesn’t want to drive her kids around or follow them at the playground !

By: Rachael

Rachael — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:24:39 +0000

That’s how I grew up. My mother still fondly tells the story of my screams of rage from the creekside (at 3 in January!). When my father got to me he discovered that my boots were soaked but I was only upset when my mitten got wet.
BTW Floyd, this was just a few miles from Warsaw.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 14:42:00 +0000

Awesome, love it. (The funny this is I bet you *could* get a lot of people to sign up…especially if there are “limited slots” and it would be a “resume- enhancing experience”.)

By: Floyd Stearns

Floyd Stearns — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:44:02 +0000

Wow! I was born in 1942 and that was what it was like for my friends and me as we grew up in Warsaw,NY. So much of our time was spent outside no matter what time of year.