Free Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry

Written by Lenore Skenazy

Narrated by Susan Bennett

Lenore Skenazy called down a firestorm of controversy when she wrote a newspaper column about letting her nine-year-old ride alone on the New York City subway. In this plainspoken take on modern parenting, Skenazy offers a commonsense approach to letting kids be kids.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 28, 2009
• ISBN: 9781440760143

Reviews for Free Range Kids

[sean seggie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a great book that every parent should read or even better ever soon to be parent.

[amphipodgirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is a fun-to-read invitation to worry less and trust your kids and the world more. I was already pretty free-range, b ut it made me notice some places where I was hovering and see some places where I cxan give my kids (and me!) some more freedom.

[damienfranco · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm giving my kiddos a longer leash because of this book and I feel happier and safer about doing it.

[herdingcats_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a funny book full of serious advice about child raising. Today's parents have become overly cautious about our children fearing that they will be abducted at any moment, largely due to the media frenzy that surrounds such rare events, and we have become so over-protective that we do not allow our children the freedom to become responsible and mature on their own.Despite the increase in media coverage, there has not been an increase in child abductions since I was a kid and I was allowed to run and bike ride all over the neighborhood by myself with no cell phone - they were not invented yet - and my parents had no idea where I was and I survived. Do I let my kids do that? No way. And, according to the author of this book, I am stiffling them and harming their future and self image and independence which will lead them to a lifetime of therapy. Or maybe not. But, there is hope for me and my children! The author has filled her book with free range baby steps, brave steps and giant leaps to help us to give our children the independence that they need. This book is funny and practical and I really enjoyed it and I highly recommend it.

[sylvatica_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

RECOMMENDED to everyone who will ever have anything to do with any child ever.

[molugum_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really appreciated reading a book like this, even though my own kids are grown. I share with the author a personal parenting philosophy that kids are safer if they engage with other people, have the ability to negotiate their environment and have less fear. After all, if the world really is such a dreadful place, why even have kids? On the downside, it's a serious topic, and the constant side comments, although humorous, diminish the important research cited throughout the book, supporting her argument.

[manque_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is a much-needed antidote to the pervasive fear-mongering that assaults today's parents (at least in the U.S.A.). Skenazy uses the tried-and-true combination of biting humor and pertinent facts to skewer the biggest myths about the dangers American children face today. Did you know for example that there has never been a single recorded, verified case of a child poisoned or injured by Halloween candy? (No, the infamous razorblade-in-an-apple never happened.) Along the way, she presents a compelling case for critical thinking about the role the media plays in shaping our perceptions of the world. This last comes almost as an aside, as she seeks to explain the source of parents' irrational fears, but is a valuable lesson many would do well to heed.I would say that the parenting suggestions Skenazy presents here represent a good, healthy dose of common sense, except that such sense is all too uncommon in the American parenting landscape today.If you're a parent who worries that your child will be abducted by a stranger if you let him or her play in the front yard unattended for 15 minutes, do yourself a favor: turn off CNN, Nancy Grace, or whatever it is you've been watching and read this book.

[argyriou · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating book - Skenazy details how we've been led to believe that life is much more dangerous for kids today than it was for kids when we were those kids, and how that's affected how much or how little trust we place in our kids. A useful antidote to the scaremongers.

[karieh_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Clicking on the fifth of the five stars of the rating for this book was a no-brainer. This was a fabulous book…not only very informative but a very entertaining read. I took SO much from author Lenore Skenazy. She backs up all of her suggestions and presents her material in a very interesting a humorous way.I do need to stress the humor – because she is incredibly effective at getting the reader to take a step back from the crazy-making new world of parenting. I am the ultimate helicopter parent – even allowing my 9 and 6 year old children to cross the street to get the mail seems like a dangerous endeavor. This is me:“…a lot of parents are really bad at assessing risk. They see no difference between letting their children walk to school and letting them walk through a firing range. When they picture their kids riding their bikes to a birthday party, they seem them dodging Mack trucks with brake problems. To let their children play unsupervised in a park at age eight or ten or even thirteen seems about as responsible as throwing them in the shark tank at Sea World with their pockets full of meatballs.”She using the very successful technique of presenting a situation, describing the way parents used to deal with it and comparing to how some parents deal with it now, and then gives the facts. Using the example of letting children walk to school (which now only 10% of children do) – she points out that children are about 40 times more likely to die in a car trip home from school than a walk home from school. That by making choices (based on fear) that we think are making our children safer – are actually making them less safe. Again and again, she points out that, “Mostly, the world is safe. Mostly, people are good. To emphasize the opposite is to live in the world of tabloid TV. A world where the weirdest, worst, least likely events are given the most play. A world filled with worst case scenarios, not the world we actually live in, which is factually, statistically, and, lucky for us, one of the safest periods for children in the history of the world.”Her explanation of where this societal fear comes from is very well laid out and makes complete sense. She doesn’t blame any one person or organization in particular but points out the individual pieces of the puzzle that make up the world of exploitation and misinformation we live in now.I would recommend this to ANY parent or parent-to-be. Having these facts at hand (she even provides a sheet called “I Am a Free-Range Parent” to keep with you when other parents react negatively to choices you make for your child. (And the mere fact that this is needed, and it is, is pretty sad…)I checked this book out from the library but will be buying my own copy this weekend. I will be reading this again soon, and have recommended it to all of my friends with children.

[stephaniechase_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I remember reading Skenazy in the Daily News when I rode the F-train -- she's funny, and witty, and makes excellent points here, although the book is certainly too long and repetitive. All parents these days should realize the role television plays in instilling fear, and that statistics show the world is no less safe than it was when we were kids, disappearing from our houses after breakfast and not showing up until dinnertime.

[thornestaff · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow, wish I'd had this book when my kids were growing up. Lenore Skenazy helps parents deal with their unreasonable fears for their children - as well as their reasonable fears - and gives kids a break by allowing them to experience those things that help turn them into responsible (but not fearful) adults. A needed corrective for our fear-mongering society.

[gkleinman_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

WOW! Just WOW! Lenore Skenazy has written a modern manifesto for parents who have been convinced that helicopter parenting IS the only way to parent. Free Rang Kids is an exceptionally entertaining and enlightening read. It tackles the issue with great humor and insight. What it all boils down to is this - your view of how safe the world is has been shaped by the media you watch. When you really break things down things are no more or less safer than when you were a kid. So why has parenting changed so dramatically? It's a fascinating hypothesis and a book that gives the modern parent a LOT to think about. I think it's simply an exceptional book and one of the best I've read this year.

[sugarcreekranch · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was prepared to be unimpressed. I assumed that this book was written solely to capitalize on the current media exposure of the author’s lax parenting, extending her 15 minutes of fame (or infamy). I didn’t expect it to be particularly well written, or well researched. I didn’t expect it to change my parenting style, which is pretty middle-of-the road.Imagine my surprise when I discovered this book to be well-written, humorous, well organized, mostly supported by data, and include a full bibliography. Lenore Skenazy presents her viewpoints with a wry sense of humor, sometimes being self-deprecating but more often gently poking fun at helicopter parents. She does a good job of taking a particular topic, weighing the risks to the children and the effectiveness of parental hovering, and delivering a clear decision about the appropriate level of protectiveness. Do we need locks on our toilets? No. Do we need car sets? Yes, yes, of course.I finished this book in just a few nights’ reading. After finishing it, I still didn’t think it would impact my parenting style, as I already shared many of the author’s viewpoints. The topics that we disagreed on, we’d just have to agree to disagree. But I was amused to find myself giving my kids just a touch more freedom in the weeks after reading this book. Nice job, Ms. Skenazy!