by KATE HUNTER
World, meet New York writer Lenore Skenazy. For the bargain price of $350, Lenore is offering to meet your kids at the park, leave them there and disappear to sip coffee in a café.
Note: That café will have no view of the park -it may be a block or two away. And not one of the kids will have a mobile phone. The kids will be free to make their own way home afterwards. She won’t help them or even find out what arrangements they might have made for themselves.
Did we mention $350?
If you haven’t heard of Ms Skenazy, you might have heard of her Free Range Kids ‘movement’ which began a few years ago when she wrote a column about her nine year old son riding the subway alone. It earned her the title of ‘America’s Worst Mom’ from some of the helicopter parenting camp but she wasn’t deterred.
In fact, she’s become quite evangalistic about how parents need to BACK OFF and let kids make decisions, fall off playground equipment and sort out their own disagreements. Not because she’s lazy, but because she firmly believes it’s good for kids to cultivate some independence and survival skills, and she wants kid’s to have a chance to ‘do what we did – play on our own’.
Skenazy realises some parents find a hands-off approach difficult, so she’s offering to do it for them. For $350.
She says on her website:
This is not only fun, it’s formative — especially when it’s a bunch of children of different ages – because play is Mother Nature’s super vitamin.
Today’s kids spend an average of more than 7 hours a day on “entertainment media,” according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study. In a typical week, only 6% of children ages 9-13 play outside on their own.
I’m with Lenore here all the way. I wouldn’t pay $350 though – I wouldn’t pay a cent. I’m okay with letting my kids play unsupervised, outside the boundaries of our home.
In fact, as I write this, my 11 year old son and five of his mates are somewhere in our suburb. They could be at the cricket nets around the corner. They could be damming the creek down the road. Although I’m not a hundred per cent sure of their exact location, I’m positive they’re having a great time, and hopeful none will come home bleeding.
Thankfully, the parents of this particular posse are comfortable with this loose rein attitude. But many aren’t, so it’s great to read someone smarter than me who says I’m doing the right thing – by doing pretty much nothing.
Skenazy quotes Harvard psychologist Susan Linn :
“…play is the foundation of intellectual exploration. It’s how children learn how to learn. Abilities essential for academic success and productivity in the workforce, such as problem solving, reasoning, and literacy, all develop through various kinds of play, as do social skills such as cooperation and sharing.”
Beware of free range children.
Being a parent, not a parenting expert, I’m not entirely sure what that means, but it’s reassuring to know I’m not a neglectful parent raising feral children.
The whole school holiday activity industry depresses me a bit. I get that many (most) parents need to work and leaving kids to their own devices for long periods isn’t a good thing, but back-to-back activities is expensive, restrictive and apparently not as good for kids as hanging out at the park.
It’s also not as much fun. But it’s hard when a growing number of kids are enrolled in holiday sports programs – there’s often no one left to play with. And there’s always the hairy eyeball you get from less loose parents gagging to dob you into A Current Affair.
It’s true no parent ever totally relaxes until their kids are within hugging distance, but it’s worth being strong – Skenazy recommends parents think about when they had most fun as a kid … “Chances are it wasn’t at Kumon.”
Do you believe kids should be left to play unsupervised? Is it something you’re comfortable doing?
Top Comments
Do you want to know what happens in 20 years? I'm married to a man who was raised this way and it's hell. He has chronic PTSD with severe dissociative features. That's what neglect, lack of boundaries and failure to do the part of parenting that involves actually raising a child will do to someone. He ended up being sexually abused. Expecting a child to exist in an adult world, with an adult process of thought and consequence is outright dangerous.
Wow this is any pedophile's dream, free range kids running around with no parent even remotely near by.
I am all for letting kids play outside, clim trees and build forts etc. But that is in a safe environment. We own a farm so naturally our kids run around on the paddocks. But they are miles away from the nearest neighbour so they are safe from people who would hurt them.
Not in the middle of NYC where there is probably a monster living every second block. This just seems like they are asking for their kids to get kidnapped. If someone told me they had let 7 year old play on the play ground alone and then make their own way home and at some stage this child went missing, I would simply say what do you expect you idiot?
Sure give your kids some space to play but at least keep one eye on them just in case.
Bit insulting to the good people of NYC, don't you think?
Check their crime rate... not really insulting
"Not in the middle of NYC where there is probably a monster living every second block. This just seems like they are asking for their kids to get kidnapped. If someone told me they had let 7 year old play on the play ground alone and then make their own way home and at some stage this child went missing, I would simply say what do you expect you idiot?"
Are you for real? How about we city slickers say that every second farm is inhabited by nutcases with sawn-off shotties with a graveyard in the top paddock?
Would that be accurate?
That probably wouldn't be accurate but my farm has dams and poisonous snakes so I would probably be a little wary of allowing my kids to play unsupervised until they are a little older.