Articles By: Lenore Skenazy

By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 4 minutes

“I Thought My Son Isn’t Allowed to Stay Home Alone Until He is 12”

Misinformation abounds about the age kids can stay home alone -- and the laws are murky, too.
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By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 4 minutes

“Dear Highlights”: Life-Changing Advice Worried Kids Have Needed and Heeded for 75 Years

The beloved children’s magazine has always believed its young readers are capable of thinking and reasoning at an earlier age than most people give kids credit for.
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By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 1 minute

Week 2 of the Let Grow Independence Challenge: Send Us a Video of Your Can-Do Kid and Win $300!

Last week we asked for photos of your children doing new things on their own. For the second and final week of our Let Grow Independence Challenge we want to...
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By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 5 minutes

Educator Drew Perkins Gives His Daughters a Surprising — and Transformative — Homework Assignment

The Let Grow Project, a homework assignment where students choose something new to do on their own, doesn't just change the kids. After 15 years as a teacher, Drew Perkins...
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By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 3 minutes

As Childhood Overprotection Goes Up, Entrepreneurship is Going Down

The drive to make things happen begins as soon as children start to explore the world. But what happens when they don't? In today's USA Today, North Dakota State Business...
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By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 7 minutes

How Has Childhood Changed in the last 12 Years?

Kids are more micromanaged than ever -- but there's hope. I wrote  Free-Range Kids 12 years ago, after my column about letting my nine-year-old ride the subway alone became national news and I...
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By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 2 minutes

TAKE OUR POLL: Have You Ever Wanted to Let Your Kids Do Something Independently — But Didn’t, for Fear of Someone Calling 911?

An unscientific poll of 348 people on Twitter has us worried. Obviously, a poll on Twitter is nowhere near scientific, and that is even more obviously true when it's a...
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By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 3 minutes

Metaphor Alert! Trees Need Wind to Grow Strong

A life lesson learned the sad way: Trees were drooping and dying under "ideal" circumstances. Biosphere 2 is a cool, slightly kooky idea -- an artificial earth, created (says Wikipedia) "to...
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By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 1 minute

Sesame Street Classic: A Loaf of Bread, A Container of Milk…and a Little Perspective, Brought to You by Let Grow

You may or may not remember this classic Sesame Street vignette about a little girl -- maybe 5 or 6 -- going on an errand for her mother. So proud!...
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By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 3 minutes

How Dare Yahoo News Run This “Mom Issues Terrifying Warning” Story?

A mom AFRAID of being trafficked is not a mom who WAS about to be trafficked. Opened up my Yahoo News page today and there's a list of stories: Something...
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By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 4 minutes

Today’s Children Don’t Get to Play Outside Unsupervised Until They are Two Years Older Than Their Parents Were

British study finds "gradual lockdown" of childhood. A survey of almost 2000 parents of kids age 5-to-11 in Britain found that most parents aren't letting their kids play outside, unsupervised,...
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By Lenore Skenazy

Read Time: 3 minutes

When P.E. Teacher Let His Students Organize their Own Games Outside, He Was Blown Away

They learned to move and try new challenges, but that was just the beginning. Today's 19-year-olds are as sedentary as adults age 60. That was the startling discovery of Vadim...
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