Mojo Mom Podcast with Free-Range Kids

This week has been a blur in many ways, but we managed to get the podcast produced. Sheryl was on the run between class and a presentation, so she called in from her car, which reminded me of The Jeannie Tate Show. (Actually, Sheryl is the opposite of Jeannie Tate, but that video still cracks me up.) Sheryl is about to finish her Masters' degree and we're all so proud of her!

This week's podcast guest is Lenore Skenazy, a very interesting writer and the author of the Free-Range Kids book and blog. Lenore is all about giving kids independence and freedom to explore. Her book is a really interesting corrective story to all the scary stories we hear about the worst-case scenarios of child abductions and deaths, the rare and awful tragedies that make headlines. Lenore points out that we don't need to lock our kids up to keep them safe, and in fact we are not doing them any favors by doing so.

Here's this week's episode of The Mojo Mom Podcast.

Listen to the podcast now:



Amy and Sheryl are really on the go this week. Amy is recovering from last week's successful Mojo Recharge Retreat, and Sheryl has many end-of-semester balls in the air, but still finds time to call in to do the podcast!

Then Mojo Mom talks to Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids. Last year Lenore became (in)famous for her article describing letting her 9-year-old son ride home by himself on the New York Subway, and now she has continued to explore the issues of giving kids freedom and responsibility in her book and blog.

As Lenore writes, "Do you ever let your kid ride a bike to the library? Walk alone to school? Take a bus, solo? Or are you thinking about it? If so, you are raising a Free Range Kid! At Free Range, we believe in safe kids. We believe in helmets, car seats and safety belts. We do NOT believe that every time school age children go outside, they need a security detail. Most of us grew up Free Range and lived to tell the tale. Our kids deserve no less."

I really enjoyed Lenore's book. Whether or not you agree with all evderything she says, she does us a service by starting an important conversation about what we should expect our kids lives to be like. She wrote a brief investigation of the things we can do to teach our kids to stay safe.

In the other side of my own professional life, I teach whole workshops on these skills as a Kidpower instructor. If you are looking for resources on how to teach your kids to be safe and independent I recommend that you check out www.Kidpower.org as a starting point.