Lenore Skenazy

Activist, Brainstormer, Connector, Idea generator, Jewish, Journalist, Parent, Social entrepreneur, Writer/Editor

Two days after Lenore Skenazy wrote the column “Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone” she found herself on The Today Show, MSNBC, FoxNews and NPR, defending herself. She got the nickname “America’s Worst Mom.” (Nice.) She went on to write the Free-Range Kids, the book that became a movement, and host the reality show "World's Worst Mom." Now she is president and co-founder with Professors Jonathan Haidt and Peter Gray of the nonprofit Let Grow, which promotes childhood independence. She has lectured everywhere from Dreamworks to Microsoft to the Bulgarian Happiness Festival (for real!) She lives in New York City with her husband and beloved computer. Plus: She used to write for Mad Magazine and Cracked. (Note: She did not “write for crack.”)

Allowing kids unsupervised time.... . Using independence as a new form of therapy for childhood anxiety.... . Getting free time and free play back into kids' lives.... . Helping folks' see our constant fear for our kids in everyday situations, like walking to school, eating a non-organic grape, or having a fight with a friend, is NEW. It FEELS innate but in fact this constant catastrophizing is culturally imposed. We must fight back!... . Helping our culture recognize the value of something as free, invisible, and vital as oxygen: Swaths of unsupervised time for kids, without coaches, grades, homework, or adult-led "enrichment." For kids (and maybe all of us?) "wasting time" is not wasted time.... . Not blaming/shaming/criminalizing parents.... . Examining what happens to the parent/child bond (and child development itself) when we track our kids. Anyone else thinking about the implications of tracking??? (I realize the horse has galloped far from the barn on this one, but it seems weird that we obsess about the impact of social media on kids yet shrug about what it means for kids to grow up tracked the way we recently only tracked work-release felons.) ... . I'm also passionate about my neighborhood -- Jackson Heights, Queens, and I love showing people around. Maybe you? Find me! I like meeting people!... . AND I'm passionate about Gerry Ohrstrom! He's around -- look for him! I urge everyone here to get to know him. He is the ultimate curious person, connector, quest-er, friend, and life transformer. A good luck charm for the world. (Except he probably doesn't believe in luck.)

Our kids are not in constant danger. . Always helping kids is hurting them. . When adults step back, kids step up. . Treating kids as fragile makes them so. . All the worry in the world doesn't prevent death, it prevents life. . Let's stop thinking we can -- and should -- control every second of our kids' lives. . Most "teachable moments" don't involve teaching. . "The child is father to the man." -- Wordsworth nailed it. We're kids before we're adults, so childhood is the oldest, deepest part of us. Let kids have some free, unstructured time for them to discover the quirky things that truly move them and they just might find that lifelong path and "passion" graduation speakers are always talking about. . We can't keep just saying, "Something bad could happen" as an excuse not to let ANYTHING happen. . And sometimes something bad happening is actually something good.

Blogging, Criminalizing Parents, Fear, Humor contests, Infantilization, Over-criminalization, Parenting, Publicity stunts, Sex Offender Panic

I let my 9-year-old ride the subway alone. Then everything changed.

Writing parodies. Baking chicken. Whistling. Starting movements. Condensing big ideas to catchy slogans.