By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 3 minutes

Stop Turning Every Parenting Moment Into a Pop Quiz

Parents Magazine's "5 Ways to Support Your Child's Preschool Curriculum" is not just annoying; it is WRONG. So, is the whole idea it’s pushing: Kids are dumb as dumplings and...
By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 4 minutes

Is Peace of Mind for Parents Even Possible?

Here’s the wise note from a mom who remains anonymous – and a little nervous. This, she notes, is the human condition. It’s a condition that cannot be changed, even...
By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 4 minutes

What Kids Learn When We Let Them Bicker

My theory: One reason parents/teachers/adults are spending so much time hovering over kids is that they are spending so much time hovering over kids.  What I mean is: It’s a...
By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 2 minutes

Child, 5, Cooks for Whole Family (And Becomes World Famous)

Just how capable are kids? Super capable. Astoundingly capable. Unbelievably capable – when they're allowed (or required) to rise to the occasion. So, from time to time, it makes sense...
By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 3 minutes

3 Pieces of Advice for the Mom of a Scared 4th Grader

From time to time, we get asked for advice on when to let go/let grow. Often, the query involves a difference of opinion between husband and wife. But the issue...
By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 4 minutes

To Fight Anxiety, A School Unbuttons Recess and Boosts Independence

About a month ago, I visited the Strelitz Academy in Virginia Beach. Wow! Everyone in the elementary school is doing The Let Grow Experience, so there were paper trees in...
By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 4 minutes

THE 10 WORST LET GROW STORIES OF 2024 – AND 4 REASONS FOR GREAT HOPE!

It’s not the end of the year without an end-of-the-year reckoning, is it? Here is our list of the 10 worst Let Grow stories of 2024, and reasons for hope....
By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 4 minutes

How Boring Playgrounds Stifle Play

I live in New York City. It’s green enough for me. But when I saw the work of Sharon Danks, CEO/founder of Green Schoolyards  America, it became obvious that most...
By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 5 minutes

LOSING TRACK OF YOUR KIDS SHOULD NOT BE A CRIME

Brittany Patterson had to take one of her four children to a medical appointment, and her youngest son, 10-year-old Soren, was going to come with them. This was a few...
By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 3 minutes

How to Fight the Obsessive Fear of Unlikely Dangers

Inside Out 2 gave kids a way to picture anxiety. For parents, all you need is this classic Modern Love column, “A Marriage Stressed by Obsessions and Compulsions.” In it,...
By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 4 minutes

HOW HELICOPTER PARENTING GOT MORE INTENSE

You can’t find a better explanation of the rise of helicopter parenting and how, when, and why that morphed into “intensive parenting” than this New York Times podcast from about...
By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 1 minute

The 3 Halloween Myths that Refuse to Die

A few years back, a parent on our Raising Independent Kids FB Group, wrote: I can't with the Halloween scare tactics. One local urgent care center is offering to x-ray...