Free-Range Kids, How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children
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Review
"This book is a bubbly but potent corrective for the irrational fears that drive so many parents crazy. Skenazy is witty, perceptive, persuasive, and above all, sensible."
—Robert Needlman, M.D., coauthor, Dr Spock’s Baby and Child Care, 8th Edition.
—Robert Needlman, M.D., coauthor, Dr Spock’s Baby and Child Care, 8th Edition.
"Free–Range Kids is the best kind of manifesto: smart, funny, rigorous, sane, impassioned, and bristling with common sense. If you’re a parent, or planning to become one, read this book. You have nothing to lose–apart from your anxiety."
—Carl Honoré, author, In Praise of Slowness and Under Pressure
"Lenore Skenazy is a national hero."
—Mary Roach, author, Bonk and Stiff
"Even scaredy–cat parents like myself now have a how–to manual on overcoming irrational suspicions and, finally, differentiating between an axe murderer and a play date!"
—David Harsanyi, syndicated columnist and author, Nanny State.
"Free–Range Kids makes the perfect baby shower gift."
—Nancy McDermott, parenting blogger, Spiked Online
"Moral insight without moralizing—how rare is that?"
—Amity Shlaes, author, The Forgotten Man
"Keep Free–Range Kids on your bedstand next to your bible and the TV remote, and refer to as needed during the 11 o′clock news."
—Jordan Lite, news reporter, Scientific American online
"Read this book—Mommy said you could."
—Penn Jillette, Penn & Teller
Product Description
FREE RANGE KIDS has become a national movement, sparked by the incredible response to Lenore Skenazy’s piece about allowing her 9–year–old ride the subway alone in NYC. Parent groups argued about it, bloggers, blogged, spouses became uncivil with each other, and the media jumped all over it. A lot of parents today, Skenazy says, see no difference between letting their kids walk to school and letting them walk through a firing range. Any risk is seen as too much risk. But if you try to prevent every possible danger or difficult in your child’s everyday life, that child never gets a chance to grow up. We parents have to realize that the greatest risk of all just might be trying to raise a child who never encounters choice or independence.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book is a funny, liberating mix of fact and opinion. Although it's aimed at parents, anyone who looks after children including childminders and teachers would enjoy this book and find it reassuring. The easy-read style is a relief too. After a hard day's work and putting children to bed a theoretical discussion of the issues would finish most of us!
It's chapters follow 14 commandments for creating free range kids which include titles such as "Eat chocolate", "Turn off the news" and "Ignore the blamers". It gives the reader permission to question absurd assumptions about what is safe or dangerous for children to do.
The conclusion is poignant. It likens children today to housewives of the Fifties who were expected by society to be fulfilled by keeping a home clean and tidy, looking pretty and going "bonkers with boredom". It's a fair point when you realise that many parents do confine children to their homes and gardens without letting them develop independence through letting them walk to school and other places, learning practical skills, etc.
I bought the book after reading Lenore Skenazy's blog which is warm, blunt, opinionated and witty. Amazon.com has 75 book reviews which are overwhelmingly glowing in praise. In fact there's only 1 review that speaks disapprovingly of this book. So buy a copy and feel reassured that you are not the only parent in the world that reckons it might be nice for your 9 year old child to play a game of football in the local park with his friends on his own. And for teachers everywhere who know that children don't need to be kept indoors during wet breaks, let's hand this book out to all parents who enrol their child at your school. Woo-hoo!
It's chapters follow 14 commandments for creating free range kids which include titles such as "Eat chocolate", "Turn off the news" and "Ignore the blamers". It gives the reader permission to question absurd assumptions about what is safe or dangerous for children to do.
The conclusion is poignant. It likens children today to housewives of the Fifties who were expected by society to be fulfilled by keeping a home clean and tidy, looking pretty and going "bonkers with boredom". It's a fair point when you realise that many parents do confine children to their homes and gardens without letting them develop independence through letting them walk to school and other places, learning practical skills, etc.
I bought the book after reading Lenore Skenazy's blog which is warm, blunt, opinionated and witty. Amazon.com has 75 book reviews which are overwhelmingly glowing in praise. In fact there's only 1 review that speaks disapprovingly of this book. So buy a copy and feel reassured that you are not the only parent in the world that reckons it might be nice for your 9 year old child to play a game of football in the local park with his friends on his own. And for teachers everywhere who know that children don't need to be kept indoors during wet breaks, let's hand this book out to all parents who enrol their child at your school. Woo-hoo!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
this book is written by a new yorker for americans, but i think even in the UK, we can read this book and realize too that "free range" is the way to go. The media fills us with so much fear about raising children, and this book gives witty stories, insights and cold hard statistics to help us realize that life now is much safer than when we were kids.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
115 reviews
48 of 51 people found the following review helpful
Finally a parenting book I can relate to!
6 April 2009
Format:Hardcover
I've been reading Lenore's blog for a few months now, and I enjoy it, so I mean it as a compliment when I say that her book is WAY better than her blog.
I really enjoyed the combination of light-hearted quips and anecdotes together with serious, thought-provoking information and opinions. Opinions that are backed up by real data, not the urban legends everyone likes to cite. Did you know that there are no documented cases of kids being given poisoned candy by a stranger on Halloween? I didn't. Lenore debunks lots of "known dangers," and she does it in a readable, entertaining fashion.
This is a parenting book I'm going to recommend to my friends, and one of the very few that I won't be selling to the used book store. This one will be proudly displayed on my bookshelf to be loaned out to people who need it, and re-read by me when I need a reminder not to be sucked in by the paranoid parenting that's taken over our society. Thanks, Lenore!
I really enjoyed the combination of light-hearted quips and anecdotes together with serious, thought-provoking information and opinions. Opinions that are backed up by real data, not the urban legends everyone likes to cite. Did you know that there are no documented cases of kids being given poisoned candy by a stranger on Halloween? I didn't. Lenore debunks lots of "known dangers," and she does it in a readable, entertaining fashion.
This is a parenting book I'm going to recommend to my friends, and one of the very few that I won't be selling to the used book store. This one will be proudly displayed on my bookshelf to be loaned out to people who need it, and re-read by me when I need a reminder not to be sucked in by the paranoid parenting that's taken over our society. Thanks, Lenore!
49 of 53 people found the following review helpful
Agree With the Sentiment, Not a Huge Fan of the Style
3 Sep 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
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Personally, I thought the author was cool when she let her kid ride the subway alone. It's hard for parents to let go, but we have to or we'll stunt our kids. I was a crime reporter for many years. I covered Polly Klaas -- I know first-hand out unsafe the world can be. So lock your doors, put your kids in car seats, be sensible and then move on. To try to control every aspect of your kids' world probably does steal a little of their childhood away from them.
But blogs turned into books often annoy me, because that witty-breezy-edgy voice begins to grate.
I think this is an OK book, probably one that a lot of parents need to read or will want to read. But for me, once the point was made, it was made. I'd have been happy reading this in a magazine article without dragging it out. It felt like a make-a-buck effort more than a necessary parenting tool.
But blogs turned into books often annoy me, because that witty-breezy-edgy voice begins to grate.
I think this is an OK book, probably one that a lot of parents need to read or will want to read. But for me, once the point was made, it was made. I'd have been happy reading this in a magazine article without dragging it out. It felt like a make-a-buck effort more than a necessary parenting tool.
31 of 33 people found the following review helpful
A great read for parents
10 April 2009
Format:Hardcover
This is seriously one of the best parenting books I have read. Not only do I love Lenore Skenazy's writing style - so very down to earth - her advice is right on the mark. She doesn't dictate what you have to do, but offers some very practical wisdom on what dangers are real and which are overblown.
Her ideas are well-researched (documentation in the back of the book), her examples are on-the-mark - sometimes sad and many times hilarious, and she demonstrates a real empathy for parents. We can all get overwhelmed by the abundance of advice for parents. Lenore urges us to take a step back, use our common sense, and do what's best for our own children.
Her ideas are well-researched (documentation in the back of the book), her examples are on-the-mark - sometimes sad and many times hilarious, and she demonstrates a real empathy for parents. We can all get overwhelmed by the abundance of advice for parents. Lenore urges us to take a step back, use our common sense, and do what's best for our own children.
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