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Why Parents Can't Let Go: The Fear Loop with Lenore Skenazy · Campfire Guide to Parenting

• speaker-0: Right, picture this. You write one newspaper column, one, about a completely ordinary Tuesday. Your nine year old wanted to ride the subway home by himself, so you let him. And two weeks later, you're sitting under studio lights on national television, and the host isn't really interviewing you, she's confronting you in front of millions of people. You are being asked to defend the fact that your son made it home fine. The story was covered by the Today Show, Fox News, NPR, MSNBC, becoming a worldwide news feature. It was on Penn and Teller, The View, Nightline, Good Morning America, CBS News. That actually happened to the woman that I'm sitting down with today. She got a name for it, also. America's worst mom. But here's what I want to know, and what we're going to spend the next hour on. What does it cost a parent? To trust their kid and allow them to thrive. And why in this country did trusting your own child become the scandal instead of the thing that we're supposed to be teaching them to earn? This is Campfire Guide to Parenting. I'm Mike McDonald. Pull up a chair. I am so thankful today to have Lenore Scanese on the show today. She is the author of Free Range Kids. Out of that 2009 groundbreaking book, developed the Free Range Parenting Movement. The advocacy from that book eventually led to the creation of a nonprofit Let Grow and successfully influenced over a dozen U.S. states to pass free-range parenting laws protecting parental rights. I think the rights of kids too. She is not only a well accomplished writer, speaker, and advocate, but she's really a super funny person and very witty, by the way. and which I love. So please welcome today Lenore Sceneze Planned. speaker-1: The the witty Lenore Scanese. speaker-0: And I love that. And you do. You have a very witty way about you delivering a it it's and I love people who can deliver a message that is really so serious in such a way that makes you feel at ease and is witty and you use your humor quite effectively. I guess. speaker-1: Will be your listeners will be the judge. We shall see. speaker-0: Well, I I I l I I love what you I've been following you for a while. and and I think I told you this, you know, prior to the to the show starting that I feel sort of almost a kindred soul. Like I know you. I could probably sit here and for the next hour and talk about, you know, how life was, you know, when we were younger and and how we were allowed to ride down, you know, those hot metal slides that sort of went to like three hundred and fifty degrees and no one cared and we got flung for merry go round things and you know but In all seriousness, what you're bringing to the attention to parenting, to culture today, I think is so important. I feel like we're at a crossroads. I feel like the last two decades in particular have been a major shift in childhood, in how we parent. And we can't run the same old software parenting on the new hardware today. It doesn't work. and we've got to be able to look to the past for some of the things. And when I mean the past, I mean, you know. A million or so years of evolution. speaker-1: It is past. Yeah. Older than me even. speaker-0: We can't change that all in in one quick swipe. And I think the the results of that are can be pretty devastating. And so I guess what I'd love for you to do is is sort of set the stage for us. it's forty-eight hours after the column goes to print. And what was that like for you? speaker-1: Well, first of all, thanks for having me. and secondly, it's hard to remember because the the nine year old that I let ride the subway is twenty-eight. So it's been a minute, as they say. But but what was strange is that so I wrote the column why I let my nine year old ride the subway alone and and two days later, forty eight hours, I was on all these T V shows. And what was interesting is that when I was on the Today show, they send a car for you. It was very luxurious, and then the car takes you home. And I had a phone and my husband's friend called and said he'd seen me on the Today Show and I thought, good, at least somebody saw it. I really thought that was like the end of it. Like, okay, my husband's friend saw it, he liked it, the end. And so the fact that it then grew into a national conversation and eventually international and then a movement was not seen by me. You know, I don't think I'm really great at looking into the future anyhow, but I had no idea that it was going to strike such a nerve. And and of course I'm glad it did because it did sort of jump start a conversation of how did we get to the point where we're questioning moms who decide when their kids are ready to do something and the kids do it successfully and still that's not considered safer. speaker-0: You know, you mentioned right there you you're not really good at looking in the future, but I think on the contrary, I I mean I think it was really amazing. This is before smartphones, right? This is 2008. And I'm gonna say smartphones are sort of coming into existence more like 2011, 2010, that sort of thing. and so I think something in you was a brew in terms of seeing parenting during that time. And I and I guess Yeah, speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: and what I'm and what I'm really interested in is knowing what was it that you were seeing in two thousand and eight. speaker-1: Well, I I wondered that myself later on. I went back I was a newspaper columnist back then and I went and looked at some of my older columns from when my children were younger and I saw that I'd written columns before about like I let I would live in a skyscraper in New York City. I let my kids take the elevator alone. Is that crazy? when we'd go to a restaurant I'd let my kids they're boys. go to the bathroom without me, because I'm a girl. And so I let them go into the men's room and I didn't think that they would be absconded with or or raped. I just thought that they would go to the bathroom and hopefully wash their hands. No guarantee. And so what I what I w when I look back on me, I was a reporter in New York City. So all I did was wander around the city and meet person after person for story after story. And most people were so nice and so good that I think I had a very realistic view of what my kids were capable of and the the actual culture we were growing up in, which is or they were growing up in, which is, you know, kids don't, you get absconded from the bathrooms and they can take the elevators by themselves without something terrible happening. And I saw that I was out of step with a lot of other people. And I remember my neighbor back then saying that she'd been at Costco. This was something that amazed me for years. She'd been at Costco with her two little girls, like same age as kids as mine, like back then five and three or something. And some lady behind her in line said, Will you watch my kids while I go get something I forgot? Like, you know, tuna or toilet paper or whatever. And my neighbor Melissa said, Sure. And then she was telling our group of moms, but can you believe she did that? And I'm like, Yeah, I can believe it. You know, we all forget things at Costco's like completely overwhelming. And she says, No, I could have taken her baby and she would never have seen him again. And and that was really interesting to me because The impossibility of that scenario, starting from the fact that Melissa was not a kidnapper and she was in public with a million people around and cameras and her own two children, that she would somehow abscond with another person's child, and that she was not only thinking that that might happen, but that she might be the kidnapper, was so strange to me that that's how I've been out of step with the culture. I just think I'm a little rational, weirdly rational. speaker-0: Yeah, that makes me remember a time okay, so I was I was akin to wandering off as a child with my parents in tow, no doubt about it. But I remember a time when there was probably more than one, where I'd wandered off in the grocery store and the manager or some attendant there had seen me and felt the need to bring me to the front, get on the loudspeaker, I guess because back then they had these loudspeakers and describe me and ask for the I think if that happened today I mean, I'm sure my mother was mortified at the time. but even then I was I just not even walking the store. Someone saw a child alone, felt the need to describe me and what I was wearing, and asked that that bad parent to come up and claim their kid in the front, right? speaker-1: That that strikes me as not so horrible because you know, they weren't saying, What a horrible mother. They weren't saying I'm calling child protective services, they weren't saying, What are you doing in the banana section? You know, don't you realize anybody could kidnap you? They were simply saw a kid unattended and said, you know, well, Mrs. McDonald, please come to the front, you know, your son is here. If you knew your name. So what's amazing to me now is that the University of Michigan did a study of about two or three years ago asking parents about independence. And what I loved is that they found that the majority of parents, and these were parents of kids age I think like seven to eleven, wanted to give them more independence and recognize it as a vital nutrient in childhood, just like you need play and sleep and food, you need some independence. but I think fifty percent of them, even of the up to eleven year olds, wouldn't let the kids go to another aisle at the store. So so that's disturbing to me because okay, if you don't want to let your kid do it, fine. but fifty percent of them thinking it's too dangerous to be, you know, in a store with people and let your kids go get the the Cheerios is is living in a i in a miserable world. I mean, you're thinking that your kid is in constant danger and really they aren't. speaker-0: It's a really weird thing because if you ask those same parents, do you want your child to grow up to be independent? Do you want them to have a strong sense of self-esteem and self-worth? It's not difficult to draw the lines between where those kids need to be in terms of those outcomes and what they need to do when they're younger. But for some parents, for many parents, I just think that that fear is so overwhelming that that it obstructs that clarity, right? It's sort of one of the things like kid venture, right? So we we think in terms of outcomes, right? So we we say to ourselves, we sort of reverse engineer. If we want a camper to go home with a greater sense of self-esteem, or maybe it's grit, right? Or it's it's perseverance or courage. speaker-1: It's all of a piece, yeah. speaker-0: We we've gotta we we have to engineer opportunities for those kids to experience that. Otherwise, those outcomes are just not gonna happen. And And we've got to and I'm obviously an adherent when you when you run a summer camp and you're in charge of ten thousand kids, they all have parents. speaker-1: Kids? speaker-0: Yeah, we run summer camp in in in a few locations. but when you do that, it's not like my kids, right? I can send my I can I can put my kid outside and say, okay, go play and I don't want you to come in for another hour. Have fun. Bye-bye. I can't do that with everybody's camp kids, right? But we have to still build that within the contacts and the safety, right? And the structure and the framework that is summer camp, right? but it's done intentionally and I think parents have a hard time doing that. I I'm curious, do you think if you released that column today, do you think you would have the same backlash? What would have what would have been the response to that column in 2026? speaker-1: Well, I don't know, but I will tell you something that did happen today. So, yesterday I wrote a column about a mom who had gotten in touch with me who let her five year old walk in the neighborhood she lives in a gated community in Virginia. she'd been out on a bike ride with him in the morning. They'd passed the area where he always picks up goose feathers from the grass, it's near a little pond. And when they got home, she's eight months pregnant, the kid says, Can I go back? And she says, Sure, I'll make lunch while you walk over there. And so he did, he picks up the feathers, but then he gets picked up by security, which had gotten a call that there was a child unattended, which is true. And and brought the kid back and screamed at the mom for putting him in so much danger. And and it's a loving mom. She actually got her degree in like f family and child behavior studies or whatever. And and she hadn't put him in danger. She had taken her eyes off him. But this morning, and I didn't see it, it was discussed on one of the news shows, and everybody was making fun of the idea of free range kids. And and I thought, God, they're still making fun of it. It's 20 years later. And we've seen so many, so many sad impacts of this decline in childhood independence. That's what you're talking about. When so there was a really amazing study done, published in the Journal of Pediatrics two years ago. That found that over the decades, and we know about decades now, but we're not talking about just since the phones, we're not talking about just since COVID. Over the decades, as kids' independence has gone down, their anxiety has been going up. And it doesn't surprise me because, as you say, those experiences of figuring something out on your own, being a little scared, a little distressed, being triumphant because you got the feathers that you wanted and you're gonna put them in your pillow or whatever, there there is a direct correlation between dealing with the world and feeling like you're competent and that's the opposite of anxiety. The more we take that away from kids, the more anxious they're going. So to laugh at the idea of kids doing things on their own is to discount the the tragedy of all these kids being so anxious now and and those rates going off the charts. speaker-0: I couldn't agree more. I think let's go back to what you were talking about today with regards to parents. I I also see a lot of younger parents as sort of that first generation of parents that always had the phone. and now they're having kids, right? And so you and I have a world we we have we have one foot back screen. speaker-1: Right. That'd be four times. speaker-0: Yeah, before time. Thank you. and and then one foot now. And we are the last sort of generation that had split the difference between what I feel like was this huge place in in the in the timeline of history, right? I really feel like it's that fundamentally. speaker-1: Agree. speaker-0: And and we can we can we can rationalize that. We can think about what that was like then. We have we have a barometer, right? And we also don't know how to work every app, and we that's so we have kids that help us with that too, right? Right. speaker-1: It's like you used to have them as farmhands. speaker-0: They used to be farming, household tech managers. and I guess what I'm saying is I worry a lot because I feel like this new generation of parents having only lived with a screen is even more apt to not be open to having their kids go walk in the woods, take their bike to school by themselves, do all the things that You know, once again, I think evolution has required of our young children to do so that they can grow strong, so that they can th thrive and have perseverance and all those things. Our kids are anxious, you know. I've I've had this sort of unique perspective. Watch speaker-1: That's real. speaker-0: summer camp happen since nineteen ninety-four, and I looked at the kids and the parents in nineteen ninety-four, and I see the kids in two thousand twenty-six and and the parents in two thousand twenty twenty-six. And it and it does worry me, you know. I feel like, you know, in in ninety-four we had a lot of anxious, you know, fourteen and fifteen year olds. Now I feel like that same anxiety is pushed down in age, right? I feel like we we have a lot of that in the six and seven year olds that we never really felt like we sort of had. speaker-1: Wait, so I have all these questions for you. Hang on a second. First of all, why were they so anxious back in nineteen ninety four, the the fourteen year old? speaker-0: You know, I I I I I think being a teenager is always an anxious awkward time to speaker-1: Maybe that's speaker-0: begin with. I don't care what what you're doing as a parent. I think it's always a Yeah, I I I I do. And and I think that I I think that our kids have grown more anxious, not just because of technology. I mean technology is here to stay, right? but when I was a child, I had to hide under my desk because of maybe the threat of a thermonuclear war from you know post-Cold War stuff. And that was about it. And now our kids have to shelter in place, not just because of the threat of something like that, but because on TV and in social media, they're witnessing Columbine, they're witnessing Sandy Hook. They know this kind of stuff. when I was a kid and you were a kid, there were three channels. We got our news from three sources and that was it. So which means we really didn't get our news that much. It really wasn't impacting our lives that much as a child. And it's hardly it's you just can't escape it now as a kid. And I feel like anxiety has been creeping up, creeping up as media and information has been growing and growing and reaching further down and further down. Then you hit COVID, right? And then you throw this other wrench in there for everybody else. And then now we're post-COVID. Post COVID COVID didn't do anything to lessen the anxiety for our children. I think it hurt it, you know. speaker-1: So let me ask you let me ask you another question. the parents in nineteen ninety four and the parents today, give me a concrete example of what's different, aside from the fact that they have phones. speaker-0: Here's the concrete example. In 1994, when parents would drop off their kids to a bus that was going to take in at our summer camp program, parents drop off at a bus, right, as opposed to drive to camp. Okay. Okay. In nineteen ninety-four, the vast majority of the parents that would drop off the kids at the bus would drop off, check in, and leave. Okay? Okay. Now the vast majority of parents that will drop off will stay until the bus is pulled out of the parking lot and is driven down the road. That is a simple, small speaker-1: So interesting. That's a great example. Yes, yes. speaker-0: they were like they were like, bye-bye. We'll see you later. You know, get on the bus in nineteen eighty four. And now it was, you know, a lot more tears and it's harder to let go. But they're still trying to let go. speaker-1: Who's T Our kid? speaker-0: Mainly moms. But I mean I say that, but I I mean I I cry when I let my child go back to college for the you know what I mean? So I mean it's it's it's harder for parents to let go. I feel like they want to let go. Camp's a great place to see that struggle in time in in in inside a parent, right? They know they need that. They know they want that, right? But it's hard. In ninety four it was it it seemed like it was a lot easier to let go. speaker-1: Wow. All right. So I have a couple thoughts. One is about phones and one is not about phones. I'll start with the not about phones one, which is that the changes in childhood and parenting were happening before phones, as we've discussed. Children's independence was going down ever since basically cable television brought us the twenty four hour news cycle and the nineteen eighties brought us the kids on the milk cartons who were missing. And and they were missing the asterisk next to their name that said I was taken in a custodial dispute between my divorced parents as opposed to I was snatched off the street. So we really got a wildly new idea and and assumption that any time a child walked outside, they were likely to be kidnapped by a stranger and never seen again. And my a statistic I like to quote because those pictures and those stories are so powerful, is that They're extraordinarily there's they're so so rare that if you wanted your kid to be kidnapped by a stranger, how long would you have to keep them outside for this to be statistically likely to happen? Do you do you know the answer already? speaker-0: I wanna say it's seven hundred and fifty thousand years. speaker-1: Well do because that's correct. It is seven hundred and fifty thousand years. People think, you know, a couple of days, a couple of hours, sometimes it's a couple of minutes, you know, can't leave at the bus stop. but in fact it is it is extraordinarily rare. It's like i it's so anyways, the statistics don't really impact anyone, but it's just to put a flag in the sand that we're speaker-0: But let me let me pause you there. Why does that statistic not move the needle for so many people? speaker-1: Because there's still it's not zero. And and it's like nothing will ever be zero. But and I'm sometimes I try to say like, well, you know, your child is in way more danger being driven to the dentist that you will be hit by a truck or a drunk driver and and killed. That's the number one way kids die in America is as passengers, not just as kids. But but the the reason it doesn't move the needle is because there's no counter evidence To the idea that my kid is safe because I'm with them. So what Let Grow does, and what increasing numbers of therapists are starting to do now is make it easy to give kids some independence that they didn't have. And the way we do that, the way Let Grow does that is with programs for a free program for schools that's called the Let Grow Experience. And I'll explain it and then I'll talk about why it's so impactful. This is a homework assignment that a teacher or the school counselor or whoever gives kids once a month, kids K through K through 12, that says, go home and do something new on your own that you, for one reason or another, haven't done before, a little out of your comfort zone, but very attractive and intriguing to you. And and you do have to get your parents' permission, but your parents must be absent while you do it. And we give a list of ideas and depending on your age and your neighborhood and your interests, it's everything from climate tree, make breakfast, go to the store, babysit, mow your lawn, just things that are the kids are capable of and and they choose what's interesting to them. And the reason we do this through schools is because a collective I w Jonathan Haidt, who wrote The Anxious Generation, is one of my co founders of Let Grow. And he always says a collective problem needs a collective solution. And if you and I remember, you know, w walking outside or playing outside, and today's kids are not getting that, then it means that the whole culture has shifted. It's not individual, paranoid parents. So, anyways, let me finish this. So the kids go home and they do something new. They make the pancakes, they they walk the dog, they knock on the neighbor's door and come home with the proverbial cup of sugar. And by doing that, They not only feel like, hey, look what I did, you know, but the parents, I mean, all of us are most proud of our kids when they do something on their own. If I asked you a story about your, you know, when did you feel most proud of your kid? Any of your listeners, it's like maybe it's when they went off to camp, maybe it's when they surprised mom with, you know, pancakes in bed, maybe it's when they were they shared a toy when nobody was looking. Anything that a kid does by themselves makes us proud. And so When you ask why doesn't a a statistic like you would have to keep your kid outside, you know, for f since you know, before prehistory be for them to be likely to kidnap, that doesn't move parents. What moves parents is action. Actually letting go shows them, hey, I wasn't at the bus stop with them today and they weren't kidnapped. And they came home and they'd made a new friend. And they went to the store and now she's making tacos. Only action changes the way you think. Otherwise you keep going in a circle. We call it the fear loop. Yes. Action brings you over to the trust loop. I let my kid go. It was good. It was bad. She got lost. She was scared but then she came home and now she's excited to do it again. All of these things you need kids to be in reality. You need to let go of then You will breathe easier. That's the only way to get there. And that's what psychologists are starting to realize too. Giving kids more independence is working on alleviating their anxiety and their parents' anxiety. speaker-0: Yeah. It makes makes total sense. And and I almost feel like there's so many statistics like like the one you just cited about child abduction, right? Seven hundred and fifty thousand years. And you know, in the book you talk about Halloween, which I'm I'm with you a hundred percent, right? but you never hear of statistics on the other end of the spectrum. Like for example, kids that did, right? experience independence when their childhood are far more likely to excel in school, have better test scores. Demonstrate, yeah, demonstrate, you know, adapt socially much better. And I think if we had this wealth of data of the kids that were doing independent things, right? Then you could then you could also fight data with data, right? speaker-1: Well, I have some data. I have some interesting data. it's about something called primals. Excuse me. Primals are the the world outlook that a child grows up with. And there can be the primal, you know, people are pretty nice, you know, you can trust them. If you need some help, you know, turn to a stranger. And then there's the opposite kind of primal, which is like maybe called the mean world primal, where g parents teach the kids because they hope to help the kids, they're teaching the kids Don't be a patsy, everybody's out to get you, you know. don't don't fall for the other people, you know, don't be a sucker, the w the the world is evil, and watch your back. And there was a giant study done over the course of decades. And what they found, what the scientists found, and I can give you the link and people can read it if they'd like, is that both both parents, both sets of parents were extremely loving, right? They wanted the best for their kid. But the ones who grew up with the don't trust anyone, you know, watch your back primal did worse in relationships, did worse on their jobs, were in worse health, and had worse outcomes across the board than the ones who were told to trust. And the best way to teach your kids that you can trust the world is by letting them do some things without you always there. So I'd say if you want to say, you want to fight fire with fire. point to this longitudinal study that shows that what you're hoping for, this you know, a great out outcome. We all want the same thing for our kids. We want them to grow up happy, healthy, decent, kind, right, productive citizens. And the ones who are doing worse were the ones who were given no trust. speaker-0: That's great. Yeah, and and you know that makes me okay. Can somehow wrap my head around the whole scary guy down the road with the white van kind of thing. Right. speaker-1: Yes, and they can get away with anything. speaker-0: Right, exactly. And I and I guess and I can see that, right? It's not a fear of mine, but I can see how it might be a fear of of of another parent's. That's fine. But I think we've even evolved to this part where parents are afraid of boredom, right? I I think our kids, and I see this a lot, I'm so bored, I'm so bored. And so many parents I feel like try to solve for boredom. Okay. And to me, boredom has always been, I don't know. Fertile ground for creativity and opportunity. Agar. And I think when we remove boredom from the child's life, we remove this incredible chance at that kid to try to figure something out to do on their own without anybody else coming up with it. Whether that's to tear up a a cardboard box and turning it into a Millennium Falcon or or or or create a game or or whatever. I mean in in camp, we have specific times during the day. Where we create on purpose boredom. Right. Okay. Not really boredom, but we create time where, okay, it's your time. What are you gonna do? Figure this out. We might throw a a few pieces of equipment in there. It might be building blocks. It might be something else. It might be whatever. If we're on a trail, they've got to come up with something. But it gives them a chance to take boredom and turn that onto something. Are you seeing the same thing that I'm seeing? speaker-1: Yeah, I I think I would have to relabel I mean, you know, saying boredom is good is something people like to do, but what you're talking about is unstructured time. Yeah. Give kids some unstructured time and they will figure out a way to fill it. You know, maybe be you know, you could say because they're bored or f because they finally have some unstructured time and they're not in Kuman and they're not in travel soccer and they're not in the car. Yeah. And so the other let grow program that we recommend for schools and again all our stuff is free is to keep schools open for what we call a let grow play club which is exactly what you were just describing. It's you keep the school open for mixed age, no phones, loose parts, that's what you were talking about. Free play. And there are cardboard boxes and there are balls and there are chalk. And then then kids do figure out what to do. And there's always a bunch of boys who go and start playing soccer. So w and yeah, why did our soccer team lose this year? But anyways, they go play soccer. And then there's other kids who are jumping rope and other kids who are just, you know, making up a silly game. And and my favorite game that I heard of from one teacher was there were there were slats, like the the the playground had like wooden slats and there was grass growing up in between the slats. And two girls were down on their hands and knees licking the pieces of grass. And the teacher finally had as like a What's going on here? What are you guys doing? And they're said, We're lice speaker-0: Of course. Why not? speaker-1: yeah. So what I love about that is that there's no teacher on earth who would say, Okay kids, let's line up. It's time for the lice game. All right, you two, down on your knees. So so kids need that unstructured time and it is what they're longing for. We did a study, me and Jonathan Haidt last summer with the Harris poll and we asked kids how would you most like to spend some free time or some time with your friends? And they had three choices and one was what we're just talking about. you know, l loosey goosey, unsupervised, unstructured, old school time. Or in an organized activity like soccer or ballet or chess or whatever. Or online. And you could be playing video games or you could be social, you know, social media. And I don't know how many people are watching versus listening, so I won't show you my amazing chart. But number one was take take a guess. What did they most want? speaker-0: the unstructured time. speaker-1: Completely. They totally wanted that unstructured speaker-0: Look look, it's it's the same in camp. If you take Yeah, two things happen. If you take if you take a group of fifty kids to overnight camp, some of them have never been before. Maybe some of them have never even gone to a sleepover to friend's house because their parents too freaked out about that one, right? But two things happen. One, for the kids that have a phone, they go through about twenty-four to forty-eight hours of a little bit of anxiety freak out because they don't have the device anymore. They get over that real quick. Okay. And they get to do all these things like zip lining and caving and you know being on the waterfront and hiking and and that's great. But the number one thing they love to do the most is to hang out in their cabin at night, under the stars. Yes. they get to be with one another, they get to be independent, they get to choose whatever they want to talk about, and that is where that's where the magic happens at camp. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen at the team building or the rock climbing wall, right? It's fun, it's great. But where the real if you talk to kids after camp and you and and you debrief them or we do these meetups, yeah, they just want to go back to hanging out together and talk. They might share those stories of zip line, they might share those stories of, wow, the cave was really dark when we turned out all the lights. But but being in that environment where they feel free and unhindered to be able to talk to one another any way they want is by far their favorite part of camp. No doubt about it. speaker-1: So let's just pause and think about that for a second, because it's it's thrilling and it's poignant. I mean, so what we're saying, or what I'm hearing, is that kids are desperately longing for something that used to be as free as air, which is time with some other kids, without somebody else listening in, just figuring out their lives, right? Talking together and making friends and making jokes and maybe flirting. And and now they're they're grateful for it when they get a couple hours of it at camp or maybe a couple hours of it after school, but the rest of their lives are filled with something else. And i it just seems so strange to me that we want to give our kids the best of everything. I mean, that's our desperate desire for our kids. We want them to be happy, we want them to be successful, we want them to be fulfilled, we want them to have friends. And yet we've made this a scarce commodity. We've made it almost a luxury. And and it's like saying, We're gonna give you food one hour in afternoon twice a week and I hope you're fine with that. And you'll you know, you might be a little hungry the rest of the week, but trust me it's good for you. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, I no, I it it it should be foundational. And then the organized stuff should be built on that because they're satisfied with themselves, they're happy, they're confident, which makes everything else that we organize for them so much more optimal, right? And it in and it's sad in a way to me when I see kids that are so overscheduled. I and and for a lot of parents, you know, just giving their kids unstructured time to do what they want isn't catching up with the Joneses down the street who have their kid in piano. Who who who are at at tutoring three times a week and and really trying to get into an Ivy League or or better yet, the University of Texas. You know what I'm saying? I I mean, it it it's it's and that and and that piece to me doesn't have anything to do with the scary guy down the street in the white van or speaker-1: It does. Let me let me fill in the blanks here. Because we're scared of two things. We're scared of our kids being kidnapped, raped, and eaten, or falling behind. And so they they both default to the same solution, which is let's spend every second with them in some adult supervised activity so that we make sure that they're not lying lying fallow, right? They're not just wasting their time. We're giving them the violin. The the thing I would say in terms of like the kid getting into the Ivy League is, you know, we we want our kids to succeed and and the Ivy League is is one narrow path for one n kind of success. But if you want your kid to be able to solve an argument, be able to deal with a a jerk of a boss, be able to find a job, be able to have some friends, those things require that, you know, the cabin at night or the free time after school. And and so the reason Let Grow has made the Let Grow Play Club into a thing that you can sign your kid up for is because it should be at least on par with chess and soccer and coupon. Because I I I said like, why do we call it a play club? We should call it leadership and executive functioning training. Right? You know, come on kids, today we're gonna learn how to organize a game and you're gonna learn how to make a friend. Right? And then parents would sign up. And maybe make it really expensive. So then the the rich people sign up so that the poor people feel like, well, if the rich are getting it, we should sign up too. But because it's something so simple and basic, it is free play with friends and some time to do it and a place to gather, people discount it. And and that's been my my biggest problem is like How do you show people like if you took away you can't see oxygen, if you took it all away, you would feel the lack of it. Well, you can't see play, but we've taken it away. You can't see independence, but we've taken it away. These are pretty crucial and we keep substituting something else, you know, like you're breathing in helium. speaker-0: I s I I sometimes talk to parents about this who are who are sort of caught in this this cycle of of of overscheduling and and that kind of thing. I th I feel like American Americans are really good at producing and emphasizing kids that are academically smart, who are trying to score well on standardized tests and do all these kind of things. But but are we creating the child that can actually lead the boardroom? As opposed to creating a bunch of people who are really great worker bees, right? Who can can function well in specific tasks. But are we thinking, are we are we creating the entrepreneur who can think out of the box, right? Who can come up with new ways to solve challenges? because it's that's not happening in an academic classroom per se. It's happening on the playground. It's happening when our kids fail. It's happening when our kids succeed. It's happening when our kids are are trying to solve for things on their own. And I just think I don't know where along the way we didn't we didn't create this value for for independent play and unstructured play like we should have been doing. And I agree with you in that. speaker-1: I'd say we didn't create the value for it because it is free, right? I mean the things we're talking about, free play and you know, going to the store, are not activities and and it's hard to get people to sign up for something they don't have to sign up for or don't have to pay for. It's weird that we actually think that something is more valuable if we have to pay for it. And so our job is to I mean like your camps You know, can't just say come to camp and there will be free time all day. You do have to offer something that seems valuable to parents so that you can give kids what's also perhaps more valuable, which is the free time just hanging out. in terms of entrepreneurship, it just seems to me so clear that if If you're micromanaged all the time, which is like, okay, kids, open our books and now we're open our AI chatbots and now we're going to do this. And then after school you're taking a kid to a class and then what okay, kids, let's do this. It's all school. And school can teach you academics, but it can't teach you what we've just been talking about. The the desire to like, let's try it this way, or you know, I know people sell lemonade. What if we tried to sell, you know, Pepsi instead? Let's try it. I mean, you just want kids to be using their imaginations and their creativity and their grit and we keep taking those opportunities out of those lives and giving them structured activities instead. speaker-0: I'd like to stay with that for a moment. When when when when you present Let's Grow Let Grow to schools, is there much pushback? Are they coming to you for it? Are you going to other schools and trying to implement this into their curriculum? And and if you're getting pushback, is it the normal pushback that that I would think you're getting? I mean, talk to me about how school admins and teachers are accepting this program. speaker-1: Well, the schools that are doing let grow, it's not let's grow, it's actually let grow, which nobody gets right, including you, that's just the way it goes. It's okay. you know, the schools that are having me come speak, are pro let grow and they recognize that this would be a great thing for their students and that eventually the parents are going to be thanking the school too, because now the kid, you know gets on his bike after school and instead of moping around he goes and sees his friends and they wa they wander the neighborhood and the parent feels fulfilled and the parent feels less anxious too. The only pushback we get sometimes is a let grow play club you know it requires parents to sign up for free time and that is, you know, that seems counterintuitive. And so that's a little odd. But I would say that what's happening now, especially with the growth of independence therapy, which is basically let grow on steroids instead of having kids do one new thing a month, which is our program. The therapists are having kids do one new thing a night for four weeks in a row to just get them and their parents used to like, of course she can make the brownies. Of course she can walk the dog. Of course she can go to the bus stop. Of course she can, of course. And then finally the kid is just their their anxiety levels are plummeting, and so are the parents. So the fact that this is being proven in the world of therapy, I hope just means that more schools will recognize like, well, if it works in a concentrated form, you know, for kids with a diagnosis of anxiety, why wouldn't we just give this to it's like a vitamin, you know, if if you need a a an IV drip because you're so malnourished, that's one thing, but why don't we give every kid an apple? And that's that's where it's going. speaker-0: Three years from now, what do you hope that program looks like? Is that a greater integration into schools during the day? What talk to me about that? speaker-1: Yeah, well, first of all, it it barely takes any time during the day. I mean, it's a teacher hands out this homework assignment and talks about like here's some ideas that you could do and each month there's a different topic. Do something with your f for your family, do something in your community, do something with a friend, whatever. But then and then there's a quick debrief at the end. What did you do? What surprised you? We love the surprise because the surprise is I thought it was gonna be really hard, but it turned out that it was fast. Or the opposite. I thought it was gonna be easy to to paint my room. And in fact it took me three weeks and it looked really bad and I had to do it again. But either way, the surprise is where the growth is. I thought, but now I think. Now I realize I can do it. And that's what the parents realize too. So I'm hoping that that this will be in every school. so many schools have social emotional programs where they're teaching kids to sit on the rug and practice mindfulness or breathing exercises or daily affirmations. Fine. But independence and free play. Our mother nature's way of making all those social emotional skills kick in. I'm gonna compromise because you know everybody else wants to play dodgeball. I'm gonna communicate. Let's play it with three balls instead of one. That'll be more fun. I'm going to make a friend because we're dragging this big sandbag over to make a fort. All these things happen. That's why the play drive and the independence drive are in kids, right? Because Mother Nature, Darwin. You know, evolution, God, somebody programmed kids to get what they need and to do it through these these two things, play and independence. And so when schools see that that's what kids are lacking and that's why they're so hard to deal with at school, that's why they're passive, then they're all gonna start doing this. But it it it is taking a while. That's why I'm doing your podcast. I'm hoping people think about it speaker-0: We have a little saying that you can't build happy, healthy adults until you have till until you build happy, healthy kids, right? You can't skip over what foundationally our kids need. And and if you get to be an adult and you have tons of anxiety and you're unhappy, it might be because you skipped over a lot of what you're supposed to be doing when you were a kid. Just being a kid, playing in the mud, making independent decisions, skinning your knees. You know, having some independence. speaker-1: you know, and I don't wanna blame parents because first of all a lot is genetic or whatever. And it's an entire culture that has told us sign your kid up for soccer six days a week instead of letting them play in the woods with a friend. And so really the the like Grove's motto is we're making it easy, normal and legal to give kids back independence and free play. We want it to be normal that your kid comes home and gets on his bike and finds a friend and off they go. You know, y urban, rural, suburban to do something on their own. speaker-0: I wanna I don't want to I don't wan I don't want to skip over that, the legal piece. Now you've been working with states, right, to sort of pass laws. Can you talk to us about that, please? speaker-1: Sure. so most states have laws, neglect laws that are ambiguous. They're very open ended. They say parents must provide proper supervision or I don't know, good supervision, or something like that. And and that can be interpreted in many different ways. And it is up to the discretion of the caseworker or whatever. And so to to narrow that definition would help everybody. to narrow it to You know what? Neglect is when you put your kid in obvious and serious danger because you're not paying enough attention to them. That makes sense, because I don't want kids to be in obvious or serious danger. Of course. Right? But other than that, it's up to the parent to decide when they think their kid is ready to play outside, to walk to the park. And and there are parents living in poverty. There's moms who are working double shifts, whose kid comes home with a latch key and has to be home for two hours before mom gets back from McDonald's. And that's not neglect either. That's just thinking, Well, I trust my seven year old and I don't have the extra money for a babysitter, so I'm going to let her do that. And so our law says that when you're putting your kid in obvious and serious danger, that's neglect. But simply taking your eyes off them or trusting them with some independence is not and in fact that independence is a net good, right? We've just talked about how kids are, you know, losing some gumption and entrepreneurship and and their equanimity by not Having any independence. So let's shift the shift the perspective back to independence is good, not bad. And and we passed our law, we call it the reasonable childhood independence law. It has been passed in thirteen states so far, and there was just a a federal law proposed in the House of Representatives, and it's not moving any place yet, but we're hoping that it will come to the floor and get a vote. speaker-0: Yeah, that's great. That's fantastic. speaker-1: It's bipartisan, just have to say it is totally bipartisan and speaker-0: And it should be. If we can't if if there's n if there's one topic that we that Washington should be able to get around, it should be the health and well-being of our kids, right? You think. You would think. Yeah. but that's a whole other podcast right there, by the way. Okay, let's talk about actionable things. I I to the parent out there, right, who's really struggling with just giving their kid even the smallest piece of independence. What's that advice that you want to give them and and and what's what's one or two things that maybe can help them take baby steps towards realizing the joy and that independence, both for their child and for themselves? speaker-1: Okay, I mean, I think I have three ideas or three things to say to yourself. One is that independence is a gift, right? We're all talking about how this, you know, this helps kids. two is to think back on your own childhood and if there's something that you loved doing that you don't let your own kids do. I mean, our our goal is to give them the best of everything. If the best of everything was that time when you, you know, were in the treehouse with your friends or you know, after school and you you made paper dolls or whatever, think about g giving that as as like I said, a gift to your kids. And then it is really hard to be the only person letting your kid do something on their own. I in part because if you send your kid to the park and there's nobody else there to play with, they will be back in two minutes because it's so boring. So so do this with a friend. Sit at Starbucks with your buddy, drink your overpriced lattes, and let your kids go down to the other end of the of the strip mall and you know play in the woods behind the the parking lot or let them go to the dollar store and get you something that you need for for that weekend. Give them give them a five dollar this is a another person's idea but I like it. Give them a five dollar bill and have them go and get change. Right? That's like it it's so many things at once. You're you're talking to an adult, you're asking for a favor, you're looking young. So If you do it with a friend, then your kid has somebody to be with, right? Which makes it way more fun. And then also you're giving each other courage and support as you do it. And one idea I came up with that I don't I don't know if anybody's ever done it is do a what is it? I I called it like the the work date play date. Bring your laptop over to a friend's house and you guys work, you know, be keyboard warriors in the dining room while the kids play in the backyard. That's great. They won't bother you as much and you'll have You'll have somebody to to kibbets with. speaker-0: I I even feel like I see this at restaurants, parents not letting their kids order for themselves, right? And I know I don't know why that bugs me. speaker-1: It bugs a lot. It it actually comes up a lot, so it's it is an speaker-0: it but it's it's one of those small tiny things where really no fear should be involved in that one, right? speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: and it's just a chance to engage people, look people in the eye and and create social skills that you want your child supposedly to ha to have, right? It's just an easy thing to do. Mm-hmm. speaker-1: you know, here's an idea. Watch the little video that went viral on Instagram of the mom who let her son go into Chick-fil-A. Did you see this? speaker-0: No. speaker-1: it it will come up. So she's sitting in the car, growing teary-eyed, and she says, Well, you know, I I'm told I'm supposed to give my kids some independence, so I I let my son go into Chick-fil-A and I speaker-0: You told me it would work. speaker-1: can't. Actually, she read about it in The Anxious Generation, which is by my lady co-founder. And and he's in there now. and I and the speaker-0: And she's and she's and she's filming this the whole time? speaker-1: Filming herself and she's very pretty, which helps. And and then finally out he comes and he's the seven year old boy, Toehead, and he gets in the car and he says, I did it and she says, How was it? And he said, I was so scared my legs are still shivering. speaker-0: Ha ha ha. speaker-1: But I can't wait to do it again. speaker-0: That is awesome. Yeah. That's speaker-1: So that I think that inspired a lot of people. There were videos after that of parents saying, my kid went and got a slurpee and my kid one mom who said her kid with Down syndrome went and she let him order a Slurpee for himself for the first time. And so it's not just for the neurotypical and it was just It these are these are breakthrough moments and what I what they're breaking through is this fear cycle. If I let him go in, what if he can't? What if he what if he slips? What if the police call? You know, what if he hurts himself? What if he's abducted? And instead he comes out with the Chick fil A sandwiches and and then you're in a new reality. You're in reality instead of in this fearful place in your head. speaker-0: I love, I love how you led for those actionable items with remember when you were a child and recall a moment where you felt free and independent. Like that to me, that's I feel like a lot of parents have just forgotten that, right? They they've they've forgotten that, man, the first time you got your driver's license, your and and your old man said you could take the car out, and you pulled all the windows down, turned the radio up loud as could go. And that that that feeling of freedom and independence was is so palpable, even today for me. I can't speaker-1: I see you grinning. You are let the record show. speaker-0: just the yeah, the the Chevy Bonneville. I mean, you know, it's like it was yesterday. but that's a great way for you to connect. Just having that conversation with your kids. My l my kids love when I just sit around and I talk about when I was a kid and they want me to tell the stories about when I was a kid. Just doing that connects you not just to your past, but to your kid in the present, right? Yeah. I don't know. it's a challenge, you know, but it's a fight. speaker-1: But but it's not that hard, especially if you decide that there's an upside to it. If you only see risk, you know, the risk of letting him ride his car or bike or whatever, and you're not seeing the other side, which is there's no such thing as risk free. You know, by not letting them do this thing, you're risking you know, whatever, all this bad stuff we talked about. I don't like to I don't like to scare parents either way, right? Except to say that action breaks the cycle. You take the action and And things are different on the other side. And for the twenty minutes that you're biting your nails or you're sitting on your hands or you're checking your watch, it's uncomfortable. But you know, you're a parent. You gotta go through some discomfort, right? So go to the other side and everybody will be happier. speaker-0: Love that. thank you so much for that. Lenore, I I I I don't want to take up too much of your time. I really appreciate everything today. And and we do a little thing here at the campfire guide thing. I you're probably going, my god. speaker-1: here's a what's the last book you read? speaker-0: Yes. before before I before I do that, and I and I love to do that by the way, I I genuinely am impressed with with what you're doing right now. I I feel like if we thank you for taking the courage in two thousand nine to to call it like it was at the time. I know you took a lot of heat about that. but you know, history doesn't change until somebody does something like that, right? speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: And and and and it's no, it's and it's very admirable too. And thank you for your foresight too. Two thousand nine, once again, two thousand nine was pre screen time and it's and it's only I think gotten many more challenging in in many ways. And so for that and all the other things you you've you've you've done and you're doing, that would be great. A national law would be wonderful too as well. Yeah, yeah. I think that would I think that very much would help. there is there anything else that you'd like for the viewers and listeners to to know about yourself or maybe about the programs you're working on right now? speaker-1: Sure. I would just say go to let grow. because there are those free programs we talked about for schools, but there's also home versions, you know, like it's game show or something. But but there are there's a we have a four weeks to a let grow kid little guide. First week you let your kid do all sorts of things that you've been doing for them that they could probably start doing by themselves. Second week they do something in the neighborhood. I can't remember. They do something with a friend and then they organize something like a picnic or a a trip to, you know, the the mall or the beach. So it's it's very simple and it's it's just all based on the idea that once you start letting go, your kid feels more trusted and more proud, and so do you. So just go to let grow and then in terms of laws, once again at Let Grow, if you click on there's a little tab that says state laws or something like that or laws, you can see if your state has passed. a reasonable childhood independence law and there's information on how to get involved if they haven't, you know, like to write to your state senator or whatever. speaker-0: Right. And are you actively involved in sort of campaigning for trying to grow that program in more states right now? speaker-1: Well we do we're working in a couple of states where we we try to provide, you know, bipartisan you know, we we we contact the ACLU and we contact the parents' rights people and say, Would you like to get involved in this? But you know, and then we try to find them stories of parents who have been, you know, investigated or something for some crazy reason. And and then we provide, you know, we're we're there to help, right? some states pass it and we find out afterwards we we've had no you know We've had no involvement and then they say, Hey, we passed a law, we passed your law. It's like, that's great. speaker-0: Well, good luck with that. Thank you very much. And we've arrived at that time where I have ten questions. I'd like speaker-1: my god. speaker-0: they are rapid fire. They're rapid fire questions. They only require a one word answer, Lenore. So don't have to even think about it. I I'm looking for what comes from your soul here, okay? Not from that that astounding intellect that you have as well. Okay. Are you ready? speaker-1: No. One word answer. speaker-0: Here we go. You if you if you need to use two or three words, it's okay. We're not gonna penalize you for that, okay? but here we go. What is what number one, what is one toy kids used to play with that you wish you saw more today? speaker-1: Chap props. speaker-0: Okay. What's the scariest thing you've ever let your child do alone? speaker-1: come home from the subway after dark after I had let him do it during the day and then everybody expected it of me and I couldn't let myself down. I speaker-0: You had to one up yourself, right? speaker-1: I was like, huh, how said you could take the subway now what? It was very scary the first couple of times. speaker-0: One word for how you felt walking onto a T V set to get confronted. speaker-1: Nervous. speaker-0: Okay. For a parent who never lets their child out of their sight, what will that child feel when they grow older? speaker-1: gonna answer that because once again I feel like it's this culture that has told us what we can't let our kids go and so I don't wanna put more guilt on the parrot. speaker-0: Fair. Okay. Boredom, friend or enemy? speaker-1: We discussed this too. it's free time. Free time friend. speaker-0: Okay. Yeah. What do you tell a parent who wants to let their kid to be more independent but can't seem to let go? All speaker-1: Do it with a friend. speaker-0: right. One word, the scariest word in parenting right now. speaker-1: Scariest word in parenting. it's all your fault? speaker-0: Hmm. Name the emotion a kid feels when they're finally free to be independent. speaker-1: Elation. speaker-0: I love that. Fear or trust, which one spreads faster? Hmm, speaker-1: Fear. speaker-0: agreed. One word, are we getting better or worse at letting kids be kids? speaker-1: The word is, speaker-0: Okay. I like speaker-1: gosh, I can argue both ways. I I don't know. I think parents are more aware of the importance of independence, but there's so much technological surveillance of kids that we're almost always watching them. speaker-0: Okay. And I got a bonus for you, just 'cause you live in New York. Yeah. Okay. Favorite New York bagel? speaker-1: I live right near a Liberty bagel in Jackson Heights, Queens. So, so outrageously good, mushy, squishy, gigantic. Fills you up all day. Under $2, really great. speaker-0: Long lines. speaker-1: No, not bad lines. It's Queens, man. Queens is better than Manhattan. speaker-0: Fair fair enough. Lenore, thank you so much for being a part and for joining me around the campfire. It means a lot to me and I know it means a lot to those people viewing and and listening to the podcast. appreciate your time and and all my best to you and your efforts and man, let's get kids outdoors and and and let's build a better tomorrow for them. Appreciate you. speaker-1: I appreciate you too, Mike. And when you come to visit, we'll go to Liberty Bagel. speaker-0: Deal. Deal, deal, deal. Appreciate it.