Giving Kids Free Range

When Lenore Skenazy wrote a column last spring called "Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone," she already knew she’d touched a nerve with people who felt she was being a reckless mom. But the resulting national media frenzy surprised her, so she started a blog where parents are still weighing in on how much freedom is okay for kids.

In her columns, blog, and new book Free Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts With Worry, Skenazy points out that it’s unlikely the world has "become so much more dangerous in just one generation." She suggests that today’s parents are overprotective in part because the constant barrage of bad news sound bites and scary crime dramas have given us a warped sense of the world’s dangers. Grownup peer pressure contributes to the problem, as many parents are concerned about appearing irresponsible if they give their kids too much freedom.

But Skenazy’s not alone in questioning over-attentive parenting, as Lisa Belkin writes in The New York Times Magazine. England’s Tom Hodgkinson calls his parenting style "idle." and Carl Honoré advocates "slow" childhood, with less parental involvement in kids’ activities. Could helicopter parenting be on its way out? Belkin wonders if parents who’ve been competing to be the most involved in their kids’ lives will now "start trying to prove how nonchalant they are."

(Photo by Jose Maria Cuellar via Flickr/Creative Commons)