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Selects: How Free Range Parenting Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Josh here and for this week's select, I
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: chose our April twenty nineteen episode on free range parenting.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This was an episode that I initially approached with some preconceptions,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and they turned out to be quite wrong. I was
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: raised with quite a bit of freedom, and I assume
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: that parents still kind of raise their kids in that manner.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: But it turns out that they don't, and even more
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: to the point, that's basically illegal these days. Fortunately, there's
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: a movement pushing back against that, and I'm all for it.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: See what you decide in this great episode of Stuff.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: You Should Know.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: there's Jerry over there, and this is Stuff you should
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Know about kids.
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: Can I CoA right off the bat here?
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I presumed you would.
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: All right, there's a couple of coas I want to issue.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: One, we are not telling anyone how to parent their children, indeed,
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: And two we realize that the whole concept of free
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: range parenting that will follow is comes from a place
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: of extreme privilege. Yes, to be able to entertain the
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: idea of free range parenting comes from a place of
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: extreme privilege.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, Can I amend that or should I wait until
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: we talk about that part to kind of amend it.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: No, you can amend it.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: So to me, free range.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Parenting, having the freedom to free range parent is what
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I saw it ties in with parenting that's already being
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: done by people who might not have a choice.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Are you saying that the.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Ability to choose whether you want a free range parent
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: or not is privileged?
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: Yes?
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, yes, agreed, I gotcha.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and again we'll get into that,
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: but we'll get into that at the end.
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: But I just want to just go ahead and.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: Lead that off because it's a lot of privilege involved
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: with being able to say, you know that you want
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: a free range parent.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Are you going to Are you going to land one
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: way or another on.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: It on whether or not I support free range parenting?
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, Emily, and I don't title it or
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: say hey, I think we should do this as a style,
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: but we, as it turns out, are sort of dabbling
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: in free range parenting a bit as much as you
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: can for a three and a half year old.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: So you're listening to your instincts.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: I've never read a parenting book, not knocking them, but
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: I've never read one. Parent by instinct, and our daughter
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: has always had a lot of room to free play
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: and explore and figure stuff out on our own and
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: fall down and get back up and all that stuff.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm reading between the lines. You guys haven't decided yet.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: All right, so ready pre range parenting.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Go Okay, So do you remember when we were kids, Chuck, Yeah,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: back when we used to hang out when we were kids,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: and we would go ride bikes together at like sunrise.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: We had no idea where we were going to go,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: but it might involve a swamp, could involve a glacier.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: There may have been like rail riding hoboes that we
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: shared lunch with. Who knows what the day was going
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: to bring, but we were up for all that and
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: may or may not have engaged in any of that
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: during that day. And then at the end of the day,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: around sunset, maybe a little later, depending on whether it
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: was summer or not, we'd ride our bikes back home,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: say see you tomorrow, go to our respective houses, and
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: then talk the night away on our soup cans that
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: were connected by a rope.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: And that was our childhood, right we turned out me.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Sure, I have talked about my childhood some growing up,
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: but you know, I grew up in the woods basically
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: on like a couple of acres of land with a
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: creek and forest. Not in a subdivision, but on a
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: street with like seven houses in the woods, right, And
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: my mother had a we had this giant iron bell,
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: probably about eighteen inches across on a mounted on a
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: big like a telephone pole.
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, kind of right beside our driveway.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: And she would at the you know, when it was
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: dinner time in the evening, she would go pull that
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: bell and you could hear it from like a mile away,
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: this the bell tolling. And that's when Scott and I
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: were like, all right, you know it's time to go
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: eat after having been out all day long with zero supervision.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: And I had a great mom, Like, she wasn't neglectful.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: This is just how it was done.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, were you a latch key kid? I know your
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: mom was a teacher, but did she stay at home
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: with you?
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  Speaker 4: She didn't go back to teaching.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: She'd quit teaching to raise kids and then started up
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: again when I was like, I feel like eighth or
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: ninth grade or something like that.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, my mom took off until I was.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Like six seven. I guess, like kinder No, maybe she's
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: still around in kindergart. I guess about first grade when
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I was when I started school and she was like, okay,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: I'm going back to nursing. And then after that point,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: I was a last key kid for like the rest
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: of my life. But I had like older sisters who
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: would be home around the time I would, and but
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I had like my own key to my house that
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: was just a couple of blocks away from my school,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: and I would walk myself or ride my bike myself,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: and then I would be home by myself if my
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: sister was and something else for a couple hours until
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: either my mom or my dad showed up. And I
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: think I turned out pretty well.
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: Too, so that I even had a house key.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Ever, well, you guys probably didn't lock your doors. If
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: your mom rang a bell on a telephone pole to
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: call you in for dinner.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: You know, I don't think we locked our door.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, But but you were.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: You had free range literally of your your house, your yard,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: the woods around you. But here's a really big caveat
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: from what I've seen, I think a lot of people
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: who are like who aren't familiar necessarily free range parenting,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: assumed that we could have done anything we wanted and
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: gotten away with it because we were we had overly
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: permissive parents. That's not the case for me, and I
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: would dare say that wasn't the case for you as well.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: That we actually had plenty of rules and structure. We
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: were just also given a lot of freedom to do
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: things within that rules and structure, including geographic freedom.
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: Right for sure.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so that is what I thought all kids
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: had up to this time. And I knew that there
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: was like such things as piano and mandarin lessons or
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Mandarin classes, that kind of stuff, like things that kids
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: were taking more and more and they were really busy
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: and stressed out, and they had like like iPhones at
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: age seven, that kind of thing. But I still thought
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: that this happened, And I was really shocked, about as
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: shocked as I've ever been in researching an episode of
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: stuff you should know to find that that is not
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: the case. That not only does has this been kind
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: of squeezed out by other activities, it's actually become criminalized
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: behavior by society at large, among the parents who are
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: raising children today. I was blown away to find this out.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I really legitimately didn't know.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and getting back to the activities, you know,
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: I played some soccer in high school, and then I did.
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: Like church sports, which there's not a lot of.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think we did like maybe one basketball
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: practice a week, so it wasn't like every day practice
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: and stuff like that. I never took lessons of any kind. Uh,
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: Like I taught myself guitar and all that stuff. So like,
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: I don't think I literally ever had a structured post
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: school activity in my life.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, did you say church sports.
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I played church softball and basketball.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Did like everybody win every game?
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: No, it was actually fiercely competitive.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, I'm just kidding.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: No, no, no, it was. It was.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: It was legit like we had a pretty good basketball
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: team in the league. Was pretty impressive too. But yeah,
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: I don't, I don't. I never signed it. I never
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: had a single class. Like the idea of my mom
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: having been like, all right, I'm going to take you
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: to your violin lesson, and then on the weekends we
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: have gymnastics and uh, whatever else.
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: People are doing these days, was just it, just it.
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: We didn't do that. She was just like, go play.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: So, so there has been and we'll talk about all
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: the reasons why, but there has been a movement away
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: from the kind of childhood we had, a very pronounced one.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: If you, if you look at you know, culture is
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: a pendulum swinging one way or another. It has swung
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: very far the opposite way to where kids' lives are
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: structured down to the minute, where they have actual calendars
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: and schedules that they have to keep up with because
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: they have so many things going on. And there has
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: come about, in reaction to that, an antithesis basically, and
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: it is nothing more than letting kids grow up the
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: way that you and I did that. And it has
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: become so novel in the face of the world. And
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: the culture that we have in raising kids in the
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: United States, now that it has its own name, it's
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: a movement. They have to go to court to defend themselves.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: It's so weird. But really, if you strip it down
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: and look at it, all they're doing is raising their
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: kids the way.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: You and I and Jerry I'm sure was raised.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean to a certain degree, but the
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: whole idea, and it's not just like I want you
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: to grow up the way I did. It's what it
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: really is is an argument that says, you know what,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: kids will grow up healthier and happier if they have
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: freedom to play and they have freedom to fail and
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: freedom to get in a playground scrap and to work
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: it out with another kid on their own and figure
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: things out for themselves. They will end up better people
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: because of this. It's not oh, I'm lazy or I
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: have nostalgia for my childhood. It's and you know, there's
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: a lot of research into this now or some research
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: that says, no, what we're doing is is trying to
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: make better future adults by not hovering over my child
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: scheduling them to death. And you know, every time they fall,
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: run over, pick themselves up and like and you know,
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: rock them to sleep, you know if they get a booboo.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Right, So I sound so judging.
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: I don't mean that.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Well, let's let's just take a second. Let's take a
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: break real quick and like collect ourselves and then we'll
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: come back and we'll really get into what free range
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: parenting is.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Well, now we're on the road driving in your truck.
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: I want to learn a thing or two from josh
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: Am Chuck.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: It's stuff you should know.
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: Should all right, thanks, shot, shot stop?
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: So, I think you demonstrated something that is has made
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: free range parenting very unpalatable to a lot of a
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: lot of parents who don't raise their kids that way.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: And then it seems to be a react, almost in
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: your face to some people, reaction or judgment of that
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: helicopter style parenting where you're always kind of around your kid.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Their entire life is very structured and supervised, including playtime,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: and that free range parenting is meant to be a
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: reaction to that, and in some ways it is a
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: reaction to that, but it also stands on its own
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: and if you step back and look at it and
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: look at free range parenting not as a reaction to
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: helicopter parenting, but as its own thing, is its own
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: philosophy for how to raise a kid, and you strip
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: away like.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: The judginess and all that stuff. It holds up to me.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: And like you said, there's been a lot of a
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: lot more study recently, but the whole thing really started
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: back in two thousand and eight by a journalist. It
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: wasn't a child psychologist. It wasn't a child development psychologist.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: It wasn't a child development, child analyst, psychologist, none of
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: those things that made that last one up, by the way,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: it was a journalist named Leonora Skenazi.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so she is a New York mom. In two
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: thousand and eight, she wrote a column for The New
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: York Sun called Why I let my nine year old
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: ride the subway alone. She was in a store one
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: day in Manhattan and her son had been badgering her
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: to be able to ride the subway and bus back
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: home by himself. And finally one day she said, all right, great,
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: let's do this. Here's a subway map, here's a subway card,
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: here's twenty bucks, here's some change for a payphone.
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: Have at it.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: The kid made it home, and she said he was
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: quote ecstatic with independence.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: What great.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And like she got a lot of blowback from
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: this from like the judgment goes both ways. I mean
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: there were people that said it was neglect and abuse
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: for her to do this and let her kid ride
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: the subway alone.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Oh oh yes, Yeah.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: If you had to divide the two sides up and
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: start weighing which one was a little judgi or you
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: would definitely your hand would be much lower holding the
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: helicopter parents side, for sure. Yeah, if you're a free
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: range kid proponent or you raise your kids following that,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: there's a whole burden, whole social burden that you have
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: in addition to the burden of raising your kids that
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: you have to put up with, for sure.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I should point out too real quick that
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: it all depends upon your kids too. I don't think
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: there are any sweeping generalizations. Sure, my daughter has always
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: been very just instinctively kind of safe and smart about stuff.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: Ye other kids in her class are just like little
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: wild banshees, And I would probably be a lot more
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: worried if she was the kind of kid who has
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: an instinct to like jump out of a tree instead
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: of like back down very slowly out of a tree.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: So right, it's all different depending on your kid.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Or a kid who like can't seem to shake being
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: totally fascinated with matches or knives.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Or something like that. Yeah, I think that was a.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Really good point, Like it's you shouldn't sweep or generalize,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: But I think that's an even larger point too, people
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: should be left to raise their children how they see fit.
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, given a.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Certain amount of.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Trust invested in the parents, that the parent isn't going
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: to harm the kid or let harm come to the
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: kid because it's their parent, right right. Okay, So this
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: whole thing started with Lenor Skins, and like you said,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: she got a lot of blowback, but she also got
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: a really positive response too, and actually parlayed the whole
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: thing from that New York Sun article into a blog
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: that she called Free Range Kids. So, from what I understand,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: she coined the term free range kids and started writing
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: about this stuff. And at first a lot of it
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: was just like it's it's good. It's on its face,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: it's obvious that this is you should raise a kid.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: You know, kids need play, they need to learn how
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: to pick themselves back up when they fall down. And
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: not only that, you're doing a disservice to your kid
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: when you pick them up after they fall down, because
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: they're not learning how to get back up themselves. And
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: over time it kind of went as people became more
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and more enamored with her philosophy or this whole free
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: range kids idea.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: More child psychologists.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Started weighing in, and the whole movement kind of took
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: the shape and they figured out that for a parent
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: to kind of see the light as they as far
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: as they were concerned, they had to first change the
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: mindset about what kind of world they were raising a
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: kid in, because if you're a free range kid parent,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: you probably don't feel as threatened by the world in
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: general as say a helicopter parent would.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: Ounce for ounce, Yeah for sure.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: I mean when parents have experimented with this, the changes
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: that they've seen in their kids has been pretty striking,
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: if anecdotal. There's this one woman, Dana Bloomberg. She's a
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: school counselor in suburban Chicago. We should also point out
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: depends on where you live as well. If you live
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: in a very safe suburb or way out in the country,
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: it's a little different than a kid like in the
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: middle of the city or something like that. But she
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: gave her kid a lot of free range starting in
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: the second grade and got some neighborhood parents involved in
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: letting their kids do it. And they said, before you
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: know it, they had this little, you know, little gang
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: of kids kind of touring around the neighborhood, are on
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: their own and she's getting all these texts from these
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: different parents saying like, what a big change has happened
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: in their own kid. One parent even said it was
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: life changing for her daughter, gave her a nuisance of confidence,
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: and that's sort of what the free range thing can
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: look like. But like you were saying, it all comes
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: down to assuaging appearance fear, the biggest fear, which is
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: my child will get abducted, or my child will get
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: there will be a sexual predator to target my child,
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: or heaven forbid, my child will get kidnapped and murdered.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Right, because you can understand and it's really tough to
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: fault somebody who doesn't want their kid wandering around by
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: themselves because they're afraid that something really bad is going
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: to happen to their kid. So kind of the first
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: step to adopting like a free range kid attitude is
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: to adjusting how you see the world. And they think
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: they think that with that, there are several things like
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: if you it's really fascinating to me. I love cultural changes,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: especially when we can point to different things, seemingly unrelated
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: things that all kind of converge and has changed the
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: world in ways you never think of that seems to
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: have happened to produce today's helicopter parents, at least, to
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: produce the level of fear, the climate of fear that
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the world is an inherently dangerous, brutal, sadistic place where
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: children have no call to be wandering around themselves. That
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: that is actually you can trace that back to a
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: convergence of things that have happened starting in like the
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: late seventies and early eighties, and in particular there was
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: some high profile child murder cases basically that all kind
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: of took place between nineteen seventy nine and nineteen eighty one,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: and those really changed a lot of parents' minds about things.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, in New York, the very sad story of six
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: year old Eton Pats disappeared and was later found out
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: to have been murdered. John Wall very famously his son Adam.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: He's the one that does all the TV shows now,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: I think he's on the Hunt on CNN now and
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: really made this his life's work. But his son Adam
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: disappeared and died in nineteen eighty one. Obviously, the Atlanta
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: child murders from seventy nine to eighty one, and this
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: all converged around the same time, Like you were talking
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: about these strange things aligning cable news coming out. CNN
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: was launched in nineteen eighty, so all of a sudden,
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: you have parents that are getting this kind of constant
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: flow of fear from the news about their children.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Right, Because so if a prior to cable news twenty
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: four hour news, if something happened to a kid somewhere
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: in some state, maybe if it were just particularly egregious
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: or outrageous or everything was kind of set up in
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: just the right way, it would capture the attent to
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: the national media and you would hear about it around
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: the country.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: But that was really really rare.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: And then second to that, the other place that you
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: would hear about child abduction's, child murders, horrific like accidents
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: that befell a child would be locally right like on
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: your local news that maybe maybe expanded to a region,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: maybe the state, but it was pretty localized. And so
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: if statistically something like that happened fairly rarely, you weren't
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: going to hear about it very often, and so in
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: your mind it was a pretty rare thing, and you
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: weren't afraid of the world in general. But what a
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: lot of commentators and a lot of well some of
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: the people I ran across in research propose is that
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: with cable news, that potential pool of horrible things that
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: befell kids to talk about expanded to the entire nation,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: not just local, not just a regional or even state,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: but the whole nation. So now all the bad things
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: happening to all the kids around the nation was potential
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: news fodder. And so when you were watching CNN, it
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: seems like every other story was about a kid who
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: had been abducted and killed, or sexually assaulted, or any
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: number of horrible things. And there's really no way to
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: put it other than that that kind of stuff keeps
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: people glued to their televisions, and so it's really in
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the best interests of news networks like CNN to feed
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: people that, because while you're glued to your television, you're
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: also glued to the ads that they show too. And
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: so from this model came a climate of fear that
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of people point to is like, this is
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: the source, and it's not just CNN. CNN gets pointed
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: to because it was the one that started it all.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: That was Ted Turner, who came up with this and
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: started the first twenty four hour cable news network. But
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: all cable news is guilty of this, and became guilty
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: of it pretty quickly because that's the model of cable news,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: and because cable news laid that foundation and showed like,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: oh you got that kind of you can really.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Make some revenue.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Nightly News tried its best to resist that kind of thing,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: but it kind of had to follow suit a little
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: bit too, so it would become more sensational from the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: eighties onward as well, not nearly anything like cable news,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: but compared to how it had been before, it was
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: much more sensationalized because it was following that cable news model.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: And all that put together created the foundation of why
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: people are just scared to death about the world because
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: we think that it's way more dangerous than it actually is,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: because the statistics are inflated by hearing about this stuff
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: all the time.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's another couple of things that contributed that
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: Skinnesy has pointed out. One, we live in what she
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: dubs an expert society. So again on cable news or
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: on social media, like everywhere you turn, there's another expert
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: coming out with a new book they're trying to sell
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: basically telling you how you're doing it wrong as a parent,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: how you should do it, and then the whole fact
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: that we live in a very litigious society. Now, so
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: what if I want a free range parent my kid
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: and they go down and get their friend out of
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: the house and they're riding bikes and one of them
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: gets hurt, Like, are their parents going to sue me
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: because my kid went and lured them into the mean streets?
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that was another thing that happened, Chuck. In
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: the seventies, the idea of negligence became really big, and
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: there's what's called like a torte revolution to where you
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: went from well you know your kid was your kid
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: didn't know the other kid's arm was gonna get broken,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: so you can't get sued for that, to no, that
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: was negligent and we're going to allow that and more
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: and more case law expanded to to make people think
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: like lawyers because of it too.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: When you were a kid, was I mean that must
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: have been a thing, because did you ever have the
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: lawsuit threat from another child?
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was such a.
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: Thing, Like, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna kick your butt
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: or whatever.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: You're like, Oh yeah, well, my dad's gonna sue you
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: for all the money you got.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: That's right, he's a dentist.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: It's so funny, man, to think back in the seventies,
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: these children threatening lawsuits.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd forgotten about that, for like ripping their shirt
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: or something. Oh yeah, any number of things could could
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: generate a lot to you.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: But in the end, Scanesy says, and this is I
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: think a pretty relevant quote. She said, all of this
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: stuff combined has convinced parents that they have to be
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: both omniscient and omnipotent because of fear, and monitor every
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: single move.
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: That your kid makes.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: So let's take a break and we're going to come
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: back and talk a little bit about the the facts
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: about whether or not your kids are really in danger
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: out on the streets. Right after this, well, now we're
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: on the road, driving in your truck.
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: Want to learn a thing or two from Josh Pam Chuck.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: It's stuff you should know.
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: Should all right, shoe stop, shine.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: All right, Chuck.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: So, like we were saying, to not be just scared
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: to death because you're letting your kids, say, walk home
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: from the park or something like that. Unsupervised, you you
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: have to go through a change of mindset, like you
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: have to stop seeing, Uh, the world is a very
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: very scary place, and sometimes statistics can be actually kind
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: of comforting. So the Free Range Kids movement has really,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: you know, made one of its foundational support polls, and
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: you think I would actually be getting better at this
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: all this time, but no, you.
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: Stumble through something like that.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Anyway, they talk a lot about statistics and crime statistics
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: related to kids in particular, and when you look at
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: them in the cold, hard light of the day, it
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem like it's a very dangerous world after all.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: Right, if you look at the numbers, the National Center
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: for Missing and Exploited Children says that just one percent
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: of the twenty seven thousand missing children cases are non
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: family abductions, and that also includes like friends and acquaintances.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: So if you're talking about literally a stranger targeting your
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: child and plucking them off a playground, it is exceedingly
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: rare that that happens.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And so one percent is non family, right.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: Right, But that also doesn't even break down like if
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: it's a friend or an acquaintance of a family or
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: something like that. So little strangers snatching your kid rarely, rarely,
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: rarely happens.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: So even that, even including like friends of the family,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: somebody who's not a direct family member but known to
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: the kid, a non stranger, that's two hundred and seventy
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: kids that that happened to in twenty seventeen out of
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty seven thousand, I think, which is that's awful
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: for those kids that they were kidnapped right there. That's
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: another thing too, is when you throw out statistics like this,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: it's really easy to be like, see, that was it,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: But you don't want to do that because to those
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy families, that's all that matters. And
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: that's really important to remember as well when we're kind
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: of tossing out these statistics too.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and not to make light of family abductions, which
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: is sure, you know ninety one percent of abductions, those
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: are horrific and traumatic as well. Yeah, we're just talking
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: about the bare bones of like the fear that if
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: I let my kid go to a park, is strangers
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: going to pluck them?
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Right right?
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: So so even that even if you look at it's
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: twenty seven thousand out of all the kids in the
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: United States in twenty seventeen, twenty seven thousand of them
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: went missing in twenty seventeen, and the vast majority of
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: them ran away.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: So if you're worried.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: That your kid is going to get plucked by a stranger,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: specifically out of a park somewhere, because you let them
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: go to the park with the free range parenting, people
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: are saying, if you look at the statistics, the chances
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: of that are so small that it's actually not worth
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: limiting your kid's freedom of movement because of that outlier possibility.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: It just doesn't It's a disproportionate response to that risk,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: is what they're saying.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: Right, If you want to talk about the worst thing
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: that you can imagine, which is a child murder, from
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: nineteen eighty to two thousand and eight, statistics about murders
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: of children under five years old, sixty three percent of
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: the time the parents are the ones who did it,
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: followed by twenty three percent, so that's eighty six percent total.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: Twenty three percent are male acquaintances like you know, mom's
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: boyfriend or something like that, right, uh seven percent, or
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: other relatives. So only three percent of all murders of
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: young children are strangers, right, So again and again dressing
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: we're addressing the fear of strangers doing something to your child,
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: not making light of these other statistics.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: And there are parents out there who are like, good,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: that's enough. That's the fact that it happens to one
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: kid makes me want to protect my child and make
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: sure that they don't do that. Okay, you're the parent,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: You're you're raising your kid in that way.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: I understand.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But again, what the what the free range kids
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: people are saying is like, like, is it really worth that?
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Like what what about that is?
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: Is?
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, is really worth that kind of a response?
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: And we'll get to we'll get to that, because you
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: could say, like, if there were no negative aspects of
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: completely ensconcing your kid and protection, then the free range
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: kids advocates didn't have anything. They could be like, Okay,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: well whatever, that's what you're doing with your kid. But
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: there's suspicions that they that actually is detrimental to the
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: development of a kid, protecting them from everything at all costs.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the big other foundational
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: platform post tenants of the free range kids thing.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: That one was for showing off.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: All right, So building on that, like you were saying, there,
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: there has to be like in order to get a
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: parent on board with a free range parenting lifestyle. It's
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: not just I want to be lazy or I want
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: to go back to my childhood. It's a parent who
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: thinks there are actual benefits to doing so right and
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: that that outweighs the risk, like you were saying, of
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: the three percent chance or the one percent or the
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: point five percent chance that something's going to happen to
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: my kid if they're on their own. There is evidence,
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: and it's growing and growing evidence that all these efforts
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: to schedule all these activities for your kid are overlooking
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: one big fundamental element of raising a healthy, well adjusted
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: child that seems to be getting lost more and more,
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: which is something called free play. The American Academy of
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Pediatrics has to report out that said that free play
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: promotes social sorry, social.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: I like it. That's the new way of saying.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: Social, emotional, cognitive, language, and self regulation skills that build
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: executive function and a pro social brain. And play is
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: fundamentally important for learning twenty first century skills like problem solving, collaboration,
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: and creativity and executive functioning.
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: Skills that are critical for adult success.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Right, And they threw that last one in to be like, well, okay,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: maybe plays good, but it's not going to help them
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: in life, and they're saying, yes, it will actually help
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: them in life, and that by keeping them from playing,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: you're basically creating a little adult from the nursery. Which
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: is interesting to be Chuck, because prior to the nineteenth century,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: when you were a kid, starting around age five or something,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: you had a job, if it wasn't around like your
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: family's farm, maybe you were helping out with the wash
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: that your mom took in who knows, But then you like,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: there was no such thing as childhood really, and then
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: we moved away from that and we developed childhood. And
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: now it seems like we're moving away from childhood now
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: and we're taking kids and they're not working on the farm.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: We're making them little CEOs and marketing directors and brand
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: managers and stuff like that. But they're they're losing their
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: childhood in that bargain, as I think what they're saying
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: and from play specifically, play helps, but it helps also
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: like just in and of itself for its own sake,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: but it also helps eventually down the road. It's an
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: investment that will pay off, I think in terms that
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: helicopter parents can understand.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's another guy named Peter Gray. He's a developmental psychologist.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: He has a book called Free to Learn and founded
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: a nonprofit I Believe with Yes Scannesey called let Grow.
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: A little play on words there.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: Yes, and he basically says that, you know, if you
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: look back through human evolution, children.
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: Their education was through play with their peers.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: And if you look at societies and cultures in the
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: world today that I mean, how would you classify these.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Cultures traditional societies.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure maybe, but they say that that children
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: of these cultures that still play and explore freely, if
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: they're left to do that, they will do so into
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: their teen years. Like that is their natural instinct is
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: to be among their peers, free playing.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Right, and so, like, I think one of the problems
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: that helicopter parents have with the idea of play is
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: that like, it's a waste of time. The kid could
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: be learning like cello or you know, doing math flash cards,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: or like creating a better foundation for a better future
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: for themselves, and that if they're not doing that, they're
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: falling behind. And so what Peter Gray and some of
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: his ilk are saying is like no.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: No, no.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Play helps develop a child in ways that no other
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: thing you could possibly come up with their supervisor get
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: them to do can because this is what we've done
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: all this time, and this is how we've built society
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: is letting little kids play and figure things out on
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: their own. And he says that if there's a parent around,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: if it's supervised, if there's a parent even within like
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: eyesight or earshotter, you know there's a parent watching, it's
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: going to be different. It has to be unsupervised, unstructured
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: play so that the kids can be left to make
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: up their own rules, can be taught by the group
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: that you know, actually, no, that's not really fair, or
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: it's not really cool to take the ball and go
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: home because you aren't winning. That's how you learn that stuff,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: and those are good things to learn. That makes you
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: a more socially well adjusted kid. Then probably learning cello
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: is going to.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: Well yeah, I mean you can try and teach your
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: kid by showing and by telling as much as you
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: can as a parent, and that is all valuable, but
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: nothing will teach a lesson to a kid, like learning
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: it through experience with their peers, right, Like I remember myself,
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: you know, when I was a kid, Like the biggest
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: lessons I learned were lessons that I learned among my
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: peer group, you know, like tough, hard lessons that a
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: lot of parents, I think try and even shield their
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: kid from because it's tough stuff sometimes. But and you know,
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: you don't want your kid to suffer traumas and things
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: like that. But and not to sound like a parent
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: from the nineteen fifties, but that stuff does help build
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: your child's character. And I mean, I guess that sounds
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: old school. What it does is it helps them learn
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: how to regulate their emotions and how to fit in
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: with their peer group, which is in turn going to
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: be eventually just society at large.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: It's funny you say that that sounds kind of fifties,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: because this whole idea of like free range kids is
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: kind of based on that philosophy of doctor Spock, who
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: was like one of the first experts, one of the
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: first child experts that America ever really paid attention to.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: And he wrote a book in nineteen forty six called
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child, And he
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: basically is saying all the stuff that free range kid's
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: parents say is like, let your kid play, let your
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: kid like learn through their own their own way of
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: like exploring the world, like, let them take risks, let
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: them be themselves. Trust your in stinks as a parent.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: And so that's what Frewen's parents seem to be kind
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: of getting back to, is like the doctor Spock school
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: of thought. Benjamin Spock, not the other.
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: Spock, not live long and Prosperouspock.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: Did he have a first name?
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: Oh? I don't know, man, I didn't watch a Star Trek.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: I didn't either.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Just lay it on a million people who are going
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: to send the email.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: We're waiting.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: There's something called the internal external Locus of Control scale.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: It's an odd name, but this has been around since
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: the nineteen sixties. It's a psychological indicator scale. And these days,
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: since the nineteen sixties, there's been a big shift in
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: the scale and how teens report themselves and their internal control.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: And today teens report very little internal control over their
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: own lives. And Gray believes and I think he's really
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: onto something here that these high levels of anxiety and
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: depression among kids these days has a lot to do
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: with that, and nethings is directly related to the decline
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: and free play over the last you know, forty or
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: fifty years, right.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Which I want to say, like, this is like one
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: psychologist's opinion. It makes a lot of sense to me,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure it does to a lot of people.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: But there's you know, this is not necessarily like like
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: gospel truth or set in Stone. It's the jury is
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: still kind of out, but there's a lot of evidence
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: out there that does seem like overprotecting your kid can
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: stunt them emotionally or developmentally, and then letting them go
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: be themselves and learn things on their own and learn
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: that they can pick themselves back up and still survive
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: and failure is not the worst thing in the world,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: can actually help them develop. This is It's just like
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: we routinely shoot holes in social psychology stuff all the time,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: and we do it gleefully. So I don't want to
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: like go the opposite way and just be like, but
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: this one's right because we agree with it. Yeah, that's
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: not necessarily the case, and I'm sure a lot of
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: people disagree with it, But I tend to kind of
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: favor that mentality, probably because that's how I was raised.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and like I said, it does sound like I'm
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: from the nineteen fifties say that failure breeds character, but
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: you know, it really does, is sort of a simplistic
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: way to say it. But when you fail, you hopefully
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: learn something and build on that, and that does build character.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: So one of the really.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: One of the things they call that is the dignity
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: of risk, where you are showing your kid, I'm I'm
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: letting you go figure this out on your own. And
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: another big misunderstanding with free range parents is that that
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: you just go from like zero to walking, you know,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: taking the subway in New York, at the flip of
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: a switch. That's not how it works. You slowly build
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: your kid up for this, you know, the big thing
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: that you write an article about. But there's you know,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: dozens or scores or possibly hundreds of little little interactions
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: that you're having to kind of make sure that your
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: kid is up for this when they're finally when you
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: decide they're finally ready to And it's not just like
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: flipping a switch. It's very kind of thoughtful and protracted
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: and planned, but not necessarily shared with the kid. That's
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: planned paying out of trust so that the kid can
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: show you, Yeah, I'm ready for this, I know what
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: to do. I'm not just going to like ball up
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: on this on the ground in the subway and start
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: crying until someone calls nine on one and the cops
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: come get me.
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: Well.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I'm sure when she sent her kid on
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: the subway home that very first time, it wasn't just
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: like all right, here's the stuff, see you later. I'm
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: sure there was a very serious talk like all right, dude,
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: I trust you. I'm letting you do this. I know
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: you know the way. We're going to give this a shot.
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: If I see you on the news in the middle
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: of Times Square like you're going to be in big trouble.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: I'm sure there was a lot of thought and talk
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: that went into that.
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: And you know what.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: I'm saying, Yeah, totally.
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: And kids get that stuff. You know, for sure.
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: Kids are smarter than people give them credit for a
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: lot of times. I think it's interesting when it comes
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: to the law because it's such a new thing in Utah.
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: Last year in twenty eighteen, it became the first state
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: to pass what was called a free range parenting law
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: where it basically was just sort of redefining what child
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: neglect was. And in Utah, I thought it was going
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: to go the other way when I was reading this,
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: but it actually went the way of sort of encouraging
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: or being behind free range parenting. The new definition a
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: parent cannot be accused of neglect just because their kid
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: is going to a store by themselves that's down the street,
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: or playing outside alone, or biking to school on their own,
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: or at home without a parent there if they're a minor,
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: which is pretty interesting.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought so too, but most free range parents
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: are like, well, we don't want to live in Utah.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: So hopefully our states will all come up with similar
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: laws that decriminalize free range parenting because in a lot
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: of states, things like latch key kids are illegal, like
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: you can have your kid taken from you if they
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: are a latch key kid under a certain age. I
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: think in Washington you have to be fourteen to be
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: left at home alone, like you could.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: Lose your kid.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: And so there's a real problem with trying free range
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: parenting because part of this helicopter parenting society is also
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: helicopter villaging. But rather than picking up the phone and
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: calling the parents whose kids you see wandering alone down
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: the street like you used to.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: Would have done.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Now people just pick up the phone and call the cops,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: and then the cops respond and they take the kid
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: to child protective services and the parent has to go
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: down and explain that they will never do this again
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: and they're very very sorry, or else child protective services
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: will take their kid from them because most states rule
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: on what's called the best interests of the child, which
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: is totally subjective, is completely not based in any actual
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: case law. Necessarily, it's just does the child protective services
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: person think that that the kid is smart enough to
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: walk from the playground to the house. No, okay, well
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: we're taking your kid, maybe permanently. And so it's really
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: risky to raise your kid this way because people will
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: call the cops if they see your kid walking down
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: the street and real trouble. Your parent ship of your
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: kid is in jeopardy at that moment, which has got
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: to be one of the worst things that could possibly
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: happen to a parent.
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is where kind of we get back
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: to the place of like this is a privilege, has
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: a lot to do with this because when it comes
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: to the law and children and child protective services, you
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: are way more likely to get a visit from child
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: protective services if you are poor, or if you're a
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: person of color or minority, like they may write an
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: article about you in the local magazine praising you if
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: you're like a white suburban parent of middle or upper
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: middle class for letting your kid free range around. But
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: in the case of like Deborah Harrel in twenty fourteen
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: in South Carolina, she wasn't like, oh, I want to
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: be a free range parent. She's like, I am a
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: working mom, and I work at McDonald's and I'm finishing
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: a shift and my nine year old daughter is playing
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: in a park nearby until I'm done. And they sent
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: her to jail for a night and took her daughter
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: for two weeks away from her.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: Yees seventeen days.
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so it is very much a case of privilege
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: to even be allowed to do this without getting a
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: visit from child protective services.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: Right, So Scanazy and some of the other free range
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: parents say, right, this is why we need laws that
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: are much more common sense and decriminalize this kind of
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: behavior and put the trust back in parents to know
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: that their kids are smart enough, or if they think
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: their kids aren't smart enough to be trusted with that
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff, they wouldn't let them do that. They
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: argue that this would benefit everybody, whether no matter you know,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: whether you're a minority or whatever socioeconomic status you have,
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: which is which is true, that's a pretty it's a
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: pretty sensible it's sensible. But I think that that kind
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: of underscores a larger problem, which is, you know, like
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: some people don't have the choice to to get childcare.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: If the school suddenly cancels class, like you just.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: Can't afford it, what are you going to do?
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: And then your your work says, well, you can't bring
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: them here, this is work.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: You know what, what can you do?
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you've raised your kid to a point where you
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: can trust them to go play, you know, next door
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: at the playground or something like that. But that doesn't
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: mean that you're not going to end up in trouble
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: with with the So it's a sticky, sticky situation that
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: we're in.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: Two it is, and you know, again, it depends on
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: your kid, It depends on where you live. Like in
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: my brother's neighborhood, if I live there. I would let
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: my kid go out and do what she wanted when
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: she was like seven. It's just so safe, and kids
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: are everywhere on their own doing stuff, very much like
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: it was when we were kids.
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: At my house, I.
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: Live next to a super scary busy street. Like I
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: would never let her out of the front of my house.
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: But even at three and a half, we let her
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: go in the backyard by herself and do stuff all
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: the time, right, I mean, just this past weekend, she
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: was out in the backyard and with the dogs, and
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: I went out. About half an hour later, she was
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: walking through the garden with a watering can, singing we
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: will rock you. And I was like, all right, everything's fine.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: But again, she's in my enclosed backyard. I wasn't sweating it.
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: I would.
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: I would never just open the front door and be like,
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: go have fun. Memorial drives right there, cars are going
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: sixty miles an hour.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: But that's the point.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: It's all context, you know, Like you would have had
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: to have worked up to that point. She would have
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: had to have shown you that she was able to
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: be trusted with that busy street. And maybe she'd be
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: sixteen before you would. But that's that's the point. It's
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: all it's context, you know.
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know again, just do the best you can.
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: It's hard.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: There are a thousand ways to do it, and everybody
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: thinks their way is the right way.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Also, just before we sign off, I want to say
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: I didn't mean to pick on kids who take cello lessons.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: Cello is, by the way, my favorite stringed instrument, which
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: means it was the one that was easiest called to mind.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: That's why I kept bringing up the cello. So all
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: of you out there learning cello, hats off to you
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: because that's my favorite string instrument.
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah what if? What if yo Ma had just been
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: free playing?
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: But I'll bet Yoyoma did free play. I'll bet he
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: did both. And if he didn't, I'll bet he regrets it.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: If you want to know more about free range kids,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: we'll just go on the internet and start reading because
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: there's a lot about it. And since I said that, Oh, also,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: there's a pretty good article on how stuff work you
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: can read too. Since I said that, it's time for
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: listener mail.
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: All right, I'm gonna call this desert flooding. Hey, guys,
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: listen to the podcast. This morning on Desert Survival. And
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: I live here in Phoenix, Arizona and have for nineteen years.
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: And the flash flood issue is real even in Metro Phoenix.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: They have a stupid motorist law here and that's capitalized
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: and end quotes. She said, and she said after and
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: during her heavy rains, a lot of washes fill with
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: running water. A lot of the washes have been paved.
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: Barriers will be put up when they flood, even if
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: the water is only a few inches deep. But there
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: is always someone who decides that their suv or truck
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: is hepty enough to get through, and their rescue is
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: always on the nightly news man because they have to
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: pay for it. They actually have to pay for the
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: cost of their rescue. Sometimes these dare devils don't fare
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: too well. Actually, lives have been lost and less than
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: a foot of moving water in a watch.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe that I've heard six inches.
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And Teresa Henberry closes by saying this, I do
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: so enjoy your podcast.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Nice, Thank you, Teresa. We do so enjoy your emails too.
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: Yes, I like the way she put that.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you want to be like Teresa and impress
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: us with your verbal or written dexterity.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: We love that kind of stuff.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: You can go to stuff youshould Know dot com and
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: you can look us up on the social links. You
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: can also send us a podcast like Teresa did to
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: stuff podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 51:03
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• 51:07
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