82. 'Let Grow' and Helping Parents and Communities Foster Independence In Kids (with Co-Founder, Lenore Skenazy)

She’s been in media outlets all over the U.S. championing the ‘free range kids’ movement, and I feel honored to have the opportunity to feature Lenore Skenazy on this episode of the podcast.

Lenore shares how she became the standard bearer for this idea of helping parents foster growth in their kids by allowing them to have independent experiences. We also talk about the nonprofit she co-founded called ‘Let Grow.’ Its goal is to make it easy, normal and legal to give kids the independence they need to grow into capable, confident and happy adults. 

Lenore obviously feels so passionate about this cause and I love how it comes through in this conversation. I was enlightened and felt empowered after our interview, and I know anyone who listens will be too.

Links mentioned in the episode:
Let Grow Website
Let Grow Instagram
Let Grow Facebook
The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
Free to Learn by Peter Gray

Follow the podcast on social media:
Do Something More Instagram
Do Something More Facebook
Do Something More YouTube

Transcript

Melissa: She's been featured on many media outlets championing the Free Range Kids movement. And I feel honored to have the opportunity to feature Lenore Skenazy on this episode of the podcast. Lenore shares how she became kind of the standard bearer for this idea of helping parents foster growth in their kids by allowing them to have independent experiences.

We also talk about the nonprofit she co founded called Let Grow. Its goal is to make it easy, normal, and legal to give kids the independence they need to grow into capable, confident, and happy adults.

Lenore obviously feels so passionate about this cause and I love how it comes through in this conversation.

I was personally enlightened and I felt empowered after our interview. And I know anyone who listens will be too.

Welcome to the Do Something More podcast.

Melissa: A service oriented show where we highlight.

Melissa: The helpers who inspire us all to do something more. I'm your host, Melissa Draper. Thank you so much for being here.

Melissa: Welcome to this episode of the podcast and I am really excited about the guests I get to talk to today. Lenore Skenazy, she wrote the book Free Range Kids and started that movement and in 2017 co founded this nonprofit, Let Grow.

And today we're going to hear a little bit more of her story and also the good that they're doing with this nonprofit. Let Grow. And Let Grow basically wants to foster childhood independence.

And they believe in giving kids the independence they need to grow into capable, confident and happy adults. And I love their slogan, when we let go, we let grow. So first I want to welcome my guest, Lenore.

Welcome to the podcast.

Lenore: Well, thank you, Melissa. I was waiting to hear our slogan because we have like 17 of them. I'm like, oh, who does she really like? Okay, that's good to know.

Melissa: Right?

Lenore: When we let go, we let grow.

Melissa: Yep. It's a simple slogan and I think it's, it's great and a good, good premise behind it.

Melissa: So.

Melissa: But I would love to just start off first by you giving us a little introduction of yourself and a little bit of your story and how you got started in being passionate with this movement.

Lenore: Oh, thanks. Well, the er story is that back when our younger son, me and my husband's younger son was nine, he had asked me and Joe the husband. I never mentioned Joe.

Yay, Joe the husband, if we would take him someplace he'd never been before and let him find his own way home by subway here in New York City where we live.

And long story short is that we decided, yeah, he was ready for it. We're on the subways all the Time. They're not pretty, but they're safe for the very most part.

And this was something he felt ready to do. And so we decided, okay, let's let him do it. And so one sunny Sunday, I took Izzy up to Bloomingdale's, which is a fancy schmancy department store and a fancy schmancy neighborhood.

And I left him there because it also has its own subway stop. That's how fancy it is. And so he took the subway downtown, and then he got out of 34th street, which people know from the movie.

And then he went across town by bus. And he came into our apartment levitating with pride that he'd done something and that we trusted to do it, him to do it.

And that he was sort of grown up, you know, like a new. Like a stage, a new stage he had entered, you know, sort of a toe in adulthood. And I wrote a column because I was a newspaper columnist back then called why I Let My Nine Year Old Ride the Subway Alone.

And two days later, I was on the Today show, msnbc, Fox News, npr, defending myself, got the nickname America's Worst Mom. And I started the Free Range Kids blog that weekend to just say my side of things, which is that it's not like I was heedless.

I did this deliberately, thoughtfully and carefully. I'd say, and if I thought it was dangerous, I want to let my son do it. And I love safety. So it was a blog to sort of put me on the map, saying I'm a.

I'm a nervous mom. I'm. I just don't think kids need a security detail every time they leave the house. And then that's ignited a, you know, a conversation that's ongoing to.

To the Melissa Draper podcast.

Melissa: Yep. It's definitely been in the media. And I feel like every time I see one of these stories. There was one just last month in Georgia, I believe Mother there that.

Yeah, I see you being quoted and the things and the perspective that you have to give on that, which is good.

Lenore: Yeah, no, I'm sort of the standard bearer for what I would say is like my entire generation who all walked to school and came home and then played outside till the street lights came on.

And these stories that come up, they go viral. The Georgia story was a mom who, small town mother of four. She had to take one of her kids to the doctor, and that was her 16 year old and her 10 year old was going to come with them.

At the last minute, she has to leave. Where's the 10 year old he's not there. Well, grandpa's home so that's safe enough. Or maybe he's playing in the woods. That I believe is fine.

My mother and sister and sister all live within a couple of minutes walk of my house, so I'm going to leave. So she left and then her son ended up not telling grandpa but where he was going and simply walking to town.

Town of 370 people. And somebody saw him outside, a child alone. Everybody doesn't know if that's okay anymore. It is.

And proceeded to call the sheriff and the sheriff came and picked up the kid and that evening arrested the mom for quote, unquote reckless conduct. And the conduct being that she didn't know where her son was for that hour or two.

And I'm like, that's everyone in the world who has ever had a kid. You know, I mean maybe when they're baby, you know where they are because they can't move, but once they can move, you don't know where they are every single second.

And the best example is even the British prime minister lost track of his kid once. He was with his wife at a pub and the kid went to the bathroom and the wife left in one car and the husband, the British Prime Minister left with his entourage and the kid came out of the bathroom like, hello.

So it's just, just a normal part of life. And to pretend that the child was in so much danger or the parent was so ridiculously inept or you know, I guess criminally negligent, that it's a crime is ignoring everything.

It's ignoring regular life, regular parenting. And then it's ignoring the fact that this was not a baby abandoned at the side of the highway. This was a 10 year old making a decision.

Maybe not the best decision. You don't always have to make the best decision as a kid to walk to town because he was bored and he wanted to go get something at the Dollar General.

I mean the way I was like, because I chew on these things all the time. I was just waking up thinking like, so now the mom is supposed to track him.

That would be part of her punishment is that like if she signs this safety plan, they won't continue to prosecute her. And part of the safety plan is that she always must tell her children where she is at all times.

She must assign a safety person to the kids at all times.

Whatever a safety person is. That just sounds like a jailer. And, and then she's supposed to download a tracking app on her phone while the case Manager watches, which is so insulting.

But I realized that, like, why is this killing me? Why is this so upsetting? And I. It's because what you've done is you've criminalized independence. You literally criminalized it. This kid walked.

And from now on, his punishment is that he will never be able to do anything on his own without it being tracked. And, and that's used to be what we did with like guys with the.

Those ankle bracelets on that beeped. Right. Because they were, they were felons on work release. And okay, you know, I'm. They were out of prison, but they were still tracked.

So they knew it was better than prison, but not freedom. And to say that that's the only way you can be a child if you've created the. If you, if you've done the.

The terrible deed of being interested in something other than just sitting home watching television and you walk through the store. So why is that? Who dares say that that's a bad thing when I think that's a good thing?

And I have to say, the general public agrees with our side.

Melissa: Right, right. I've seen that as well. And I think because so many of us, as you said, identify. I'm a mom of four kids and three boys, and I completely identified with that story.

And then also, yeah, the I love with your movement, how you are standing up for both for children's right to be independent, to have those experiences, and for mothers rights to make those choices for their kids or parents rights, any parents.

Lenore: Right. And. And also to be imperfect. I mean, I don't think she wanted him to go to town without telling grandpa or telling her. Right. And before she left, when she tried to reach him to find out, like, why aren't you in the car?

I have to go. She tried reaching him by phone and his phone was dead. So it's not like things did not go perfectly that day. Guess what? We live on Earth.

Things are not going to go perfectly here. And to pretend that unless things are perfect, children are in terrible danger is a really, like, crazy dystopian way of looking at the world instead of being grateful, like, oh, he, you know, he has a loving grandparent who lives with him and his mom and his, you know, aunts are right nearby.

And he feels safe enough and he's, you know, has enough individuality and agency, as they say, to make something happen instead of celebrating all that, pretending that all of that puts him in danger is just a warped way of saying thank you to a country that is not perfect.

But pretty safe.

Melissa: Yeah, it doesn't feel quite right. And I know those stories, when people hear them, when parents hear them, can bring those feelings of fear. But with your nonprofits, I feel like you're trying to create empowerment instead of fear and to lean into the empowerment and what we can do for our children.

So I'd love to hear a little bit more about your nonprofit, how that got started, and some of your goals with what you do with it.

Lenore: Okay, great. Well, what we're trying to do is make it easy, normal, and legal for kids to be zooming around on their bikes or making pancakes for, you know, breakfast or walking to school.

Whatever a parent feels the kid is ready for. We want to celebrate that, and we want to make it happen in the easiest possible way. But we also recognize that there's sort of this new level of fear on the shoulders of parents today.

And whereas my mom would have let me walk to school without a second thought, as she did in kindergarten back in the day, now parents don't know. Is that okay?

Is it safe? Is it legal? Nobody else is doing it. I don't want to be the weirdo. I don't want to feel regret. And so it's sort of become a collective problem that American parents have become very afraid of trusting their kids in the world and even trusting their own parenting to have made their kids ready for the world.

So recognizing that this was an issue in 2017, Jonathan Haidt, who has recently written the Anxious Generation, and Daniel Schuchman, who back then had been chairman of fire for 10 years, which fights for free speech on campus, they were talking about something adjacent to this issue, which is that on campus, kids were coming to school and college and mistaking feeling uncomfortable for literally being unsafe.

I mean, so if a speaker was coming to campus and they didn't agree with their outlook or their politics or whatever they'd written, instead of thinking, wow, I'm going to read up on this, and I'm going to go and I'm going to raise my hand and I'm going to be the first person to ask a question.

Instead of doing that engaging, they were retreating. And they were saying, like, don't have that person come to campus. Cancel them, or, I need a safe space, or I need a trigger warning.

And triggers and safety have to do with physical unsafety, physical violence. But this isn't physical violence. This is called listening to people who you don't agree with.

And you want that to happen on campus. Why are you going to school if not to learn? And Think about new things and even end up being more effective arguer for your side because you've met some people who disagree with you and you've had a, you know, a constructive conversation about why you believe what you do.

And, and, and you've sort of, what is it? Steel manned your argument. So anyways, they were both realizing that trying to open the minds and make kids feel more resilient and less Fragile at age 18, 19, 20 is kind of a late stage intervention.

And they were both saying, wouldn't it be great if we raised a generation that was eager for more not only independence, but sort of engagement with the world and felt like they could handle it, even if they were disappointed, even if they were, you know, a little hurt one way or another.

And John had met me somewhere, I actually don't remember where, John Haidt. And he said, you know, I love Lenore. I love free range kids. Let's start a nonprofit with Lenora.

So they came to me and said, let's start. Let grow. And I said, okay, but we have to bring in one more founder who is a man named Peter Gray, who I would recommend for your podcast, who's a professor of psychology at Boston College who has spent his career studying kids playing and why there is a play drive in kids, why it's almost as strong as the need for food and water, and why all kids throughout history, until about 27 minutes ago played in mixed age groups.

You know, the. The Peanuts gang. You know, there's. There's Schroeder carrying his little blanket, and there's Lucy, who's older and, you know, awful, and Charlie caught in the middle. But it was always kids were always with each other, coming up with something fun to do, sometimes being mean, sometimes being nice, sometimes having a great time, sometimes being feeling left out.

And through all these interactions which happen in real time in play, like, oh, you know what? This is a boring game. Well, let's add another ball. And like, I have to go home because my brother needs me.

Well, how about we add him in? He could be the ball boy. All these decisions, what are we going to play? Who's on what team? Was the ball in or out?

All these.

These normal parts of childhood were engineered by mother nature to give us the things. The social, emotional, what do they call it? Social emotional skills to get along, you know, you got to compromise.

You got to explain what you mean. You got to get buy in.

Sometimes you have to be a little afraid. You're, you know, I don't want to be it. Nobody Wants to be it, but then you got to be it. And so then you got to rev up.

And then, then this whole executive function thing. Executive function is trying to figure out what you do first. And then if everybody's running that direction, I should run in the other direction if I'm trying to get away.

So all these skills that mother nature knew children needed to develop in order to become functioning, happy, successful human beings, she put in the, not only in play, but in the organizational moments, up to the game beginning and then trying to keep the play going.

Because a lot of times when you see kids, you have poor kids, a lot of times they're not playing, they're squabbling, they're bored. Right. One of them is left out.

And so Peter, I just feel, is the man when it comes to that. His book is called Free to Learn about how kids learn when they're really engaged and often moving and want to do something.

And it's really hard to get information into them when they're bored and sitting still and have no idea why this stuff is relevant.

So the four of us founded Let Grow. And the goal was not to be thought leaders. We were already thought leaders. Thoughts, you know how thoughts go. Thoughts go, oh, I'd like to let my kid walk to the bus stop.

That would be great. Be easier for me. But then what if something horrible happened? Oh my God, I could never forgive myself. Think of the sorrow, think of the regret, think of the blame.

No.

So, so what changes people is action, right? And so we, instead of being thought leaders, we decided to be action leaders. What are the actions that would bring independence back to kids lives so that they were doing, you know, new things on their own, boldly and with, you know, with some optimism.

And what would bring free play back into their lives? And so we came up with two ideas. And I feel dumb because there are only two ideas.

But, but they're good and they're easy and they're free. So I'm going to just present them here, if I may.

Melissa: Sounds great. And I think as parents, that's okay. We'll go for simple any day.

Lenore: Okay. Simple. Yeah. Right. And fast. So one is the, the Let Grow experience. And that's we recommend schools do it, but it could be a church, it could be a library, it could be a rec center, but in any event, it's kids getting a homework assignment that's this simple.

It says go home and do something new that you're interested in doing that you feel ready to do, but for some reason haven't done yet. Go home and do something new on your own.

You have to get your parent, with your parents permission, but without your parents.

And the reason we love it when a whole school gives this assignment is that you've made it easy and normal to give kids the independence. Everybody, you have to do it.

Your kid has to do something. Right? They're going to flunk now. You're going to have them do something and then normal is everyone's doing it. So it's this collective problem.

I don't know when to send my kid out and you don't know when to send your kid out. So we just don't. But now everybody's sending them out to do something.

And if it's an extremely dangerous neighborhood, then you're having them do something in the house that's new and exciting, like make dinner for the family or babysit or you know, learn a new skill.

But something that's real world based.

It's not just thinking about it, it's doing it. And so the reason I'm excited about this idea, which is not idea, it's actually in a thousand schools now. We got almost a million kids doing it just this year.

Is that the reward for being a parent? I'm actually going to press pause and ask you a question and then we'll see what the reward is. Melissa, think about one of your kids and like the time that you are most proud of them.

Just tell me a little story.

Melissa: Oh, when? When you see them grow and progress.

Lenore: No, I want a story.

Melissa: Oh, you want a story?

My oldest son does debate in high school and in the beginning that was really hard and frustrating for him to learn something new.

But he persevered with that pushed forward. And last year him and his partner took state.

Lenore: Oh my God.

Melissa: High school. State.

Lenore: Wow.

Melissa: And I've just been so proud of him because it's something that didn't come naturally and easy, but he loves it and he's just, he's persisted over the years and worked through that.

Lenore: So did you tell him to join the debate team?

Melissa: I might have nudged him in that direction because I could see those natural skills there. I thought he would enjoy it. But ultimately he. He's the one that put it on his class schedule.

Lenore: See, so what I'm hearing then I'm gonna ask you about your youngest kid too. But what you're telling me is that you were really proud cause your son did something hard on his own.

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Lenore: All right, how about a little kid's story for people who don't have their high school kids yet.

Melissa: Okay. My youngest is 8 and I have taught all of my kids piano.

And so he. I just started about a year ago or so teaching him piano.

And all of his siblings have played at different levels, but he naturally goes and sits there and wants to play it himself or he'll pull out outside of doing his normal practicing.

And so because I am a music lover and I'm a piano teacher, that makes me proud to see him do that every time, to see him play his piano music on his own and enjoy it on his own.

Lenore: So what you're savoring there is a kid finding something that turns them on.

Melissa: Yes.

Melissa: Yep.

Lenore: Right. You know, it sounds like the other three may be less so, but this is a kid who found something that he enjoys and is pursuing it. And once again, it's something hard.

Right. I mean, basically, kids like doing hard things. I mean, their kids doing debate or piano or it's baseball or it's finding worms. Whatever it is, you don't do it just because it's simple.

You do it because it is a challenge, because that's what's engaging.

And when we step back and let them figure out what's important to them or what they love doing, then they're blossoming. Right. And so many of the skills that we're trying to get to them, I mean, there really are like social, emotional worksheets these days.

Like, here's how to focus. I want you to hold your hand in front of you and breathe in and breathe out as you move your fingers. Right. As opposed to, you don't think your son is focusing really hard when it's about to be his turn in debate.

Right. He has to go talk in front of a judge and maybe a bunch of other peers and make his case.

Melissa: And when he, the teenager chose that all on his own to do that.

Lenore: Right, right, right. So what we're talking about here is agency, self direction, and doing stuff that is.

It's not an immediate reward. Right. I mean, it's like getting good at something so that you'll be good at it, but on the way to getting there, you're not good at it.

That's why it's called practice. Right. And as a parent, our greatest joy is seeing our kids do something without us. Right? Without us there saying, do it this way. Try that, honey, hold the bat up or you have to do this.

Come on. Because we really want to see that they are. That they're going to be okay without us, that they have some, you know, Some. Some starch and direction without us always holding them up.

And the thing that I hate about our culture is that it has taken that incredibly intense reward out of parenting because we're always with them. And when you're with your kids, you know, they see that you love them, but they don't see that you really trust them.

And we see that they're fine. But maybe they're fine because we told them, you have to pick up your clothes. You have to practice. You have to, you know, enunciate.

It's nice to see when you're not there, they're doing those things without you. And I'd say every time I've asked a parent for their proudest moment, it's never been. I was standing there and I told them to do X, and then they did it.

It's like there's no pride there. Right? He picked up his clothes.

As I said, pick up your clothes.

Melissa: That is so profound. I love that perspective on parenting.

Lenore: Right. So as with the Georgia story, I mean, the assumption there of the passerby is that there isn't a person, you know, there's not an adult with this kid. How could he possibly be safe?

And obviously, the assumption of the dumb sheriff that arrested her was like, you know, she wasn't with them, so she's bad. And my point is that kids need time with us.

And of course, they will have a lot of it. In fact, they have eight hours more of mom's time, you know, directly spent in childcare than a generation ago. But they need time away from us, because when we're with them, inevitably we will correct them or help them or make a great suggestion or make things easier.

And when we do that, whether it's, you know, a regular, everyday activity or play, we're. We're taking away the chance for them to learn how to become like us, successful, functioning adults.

So the other let grow program that we have for schools is that we suggest, and you could do it as a homeschooler, too, is that we suggest you stay open for age, mixed, no devices, free play.

And in that sense, you're giving kids back. I think of it as like a wildlife preserve for. For play. We were just talking about what you get when you're organizing your own game.

And when an adult. An adult is there, they will say, you guys are wasting your time. You know, I'll make the teams. And, you know, it starts now. And it feels like we've optimized the experience because they're not just, you know, pulling up Clumps of grass because it's so boring.

Come on. Oh my God, can't we start this game already? No, we can't. Because Jimmy always wants to go first. It's not fair. It's like, let him go first. I just want to play all that stuff that looks like frustration and is frustration is part of learning how to deal with.

With frustration and learning how to deal with Jimmy and learning how to come up with this great idea that's going to make enough people happy that you can have the game start already.

And when we skip right to the fun and get it going, we think that we've optimized, as I said, the experience. But in fact we took all the whole wheat out of bread, right?

Like look, it's squishy and it's soft and it's white bread and isn't that great? It's like, actually you missed the point.

And the reason there's this play drive in kids is that they will learn how to do all these things. So Let Grow boils down to really a couple of things.

One is schools doing the Let Grow experience. You go home, the homework assignment, do something new on your own with your parents consent, but without your parent. And the other is keep the schools open for free play.

So kids learn how to give and take and how to. And the different ages just makes it even more rich because you have four kids. You know, sometimes the older kids are jerks, but sometimes there's a little bit of empathy that they build and they don't, you know, you don't throw the ball really hard if you're a 12 year old at the 5 year old batter because there's no glory in striking out a five year old.

But if you throw it really gently and then they tap it a little bit finally, because they finally hit it and you go, it's a home run. Oh my God, I can't get to the ball.

He's running so fast. It's fun for everyone. And why do we take that out of kids lives and say only the 7 year olds can play with the 7 year olds and only the 9 year olds can play.

It's such an unrealistic, weird new kind of segregation that hasn't occurred in the history of the world until now. And we put it in play because we say that that's the only way to make it fair.

And that way nobody's bullied. It's like, have you ever watched kids just playing when they are mixed ages, when there's just some free time? It works Out.

Melissa: Yeah.

Lenore: And when it doesn't work out, that's part of it working out.

Melissa: Right. And going back to what you said about that pride you feel as a parent, as a mother, again, that's when I feel the most pride. Or that family love is when I just happen to sneak on them and they're all for doing something together that they set up and did on their own and they figured it out.

Or when we're at a family reunion. And that those are some of the most memorable moments is when you go out and see all the kids doing whatever they figured out to do, as you said, and enjoying each other naturally on their own without the adults overseeing everything.

Lenore: Right. I'm grinning because I'm thinking like that was my kids most treasured memory. They're in their 20s now, but when they would get together with the cousins, the incredibly godlike older cousin, older boy cousins, I have two boys.

It was like Disneyland and heaven mashed up with candy. It was so exciting because they got to play football and then they played it a different way and they had funny names for the plays.

And. Yeah, I mean, the other day I was talking to somebody about why free play is different from adult directed play. And she was saying that she came upon her kids and they were at a playground where there were like these slats of wood.

And through the wood was up, through the wood was growing grass.

And what were they doing? They were playing we're lice.

We are licensed sucking the, you know, whatever they suck out of, out of the hair, Mom. And it's like, okay, first of all, I'm sure they're dealing with something we've all dealt with.

But, but also, nobody, no adult would have come up with like, let's play the lice game. Right, Right. And so you just have to step back. I mean, the, one of the, one of our slogans is when adults step back, kids step up.

And so.

Melissa: Oh, I love that one too.

Lenore: Right. I mean, really, we have like, like I said a million. But so that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to make it easy and normal again. Those are the ways we do make it easy and normal.

And we also suggest, you know, say you're homeschooling. Do a play club with the homeschoolers, or keep Fridays free. We call them Free Play Friday. Just keep Friday free of even the piano lessons, mom, you know, and the, the sports teams or whatever so that you can send all the kids outside to play, play in a neighborhood.

And you'll never get all the kids. But once you get a couple kids. Peter Gray always says that it's not nature that pulls kids outside. It's not the great outdoors, it's other kids.

So if you have other kids in the neighborhood, maybe you sit out on the lawn and you'll watch them. You know, you're not going to organize their games, but you'll be there reading a book while they're playing.

Maybe that reassures the other moms, and maybe they'll take turns. But just get kids back into having some free time with each other without you, and I think you'll see a huge drop in the anxiety and depression that we know is going wild in this generation.

Peter Gray again had an article in the Journal of Pediatrics that showed over the decades, not since the iPhone, not just since COVID but decades as kids, independence and free play have gone down, their anxiety and depression have gone up.

Melissa: Well, and I love that your solutions there are simple. Those are things anyone can implement on their own. But I love the idea of doing it as a school. I think of my own kids.

When you know, everyone's doing it, then they also get excited about talking about it. And then again, there's that share of ideas. Oh, you cooked a meal? Well, I did this.

Well, I want to try cooking a meal now, because you did that or whatever it might be. And that can just continue to foster that sense of confidence in what they're doing.

Lenore: Right. And I've seen it, like, where, like, one kid made a Quidditch broom, and then they all were making Quidditch broom. And then one kid was trying to make a raft.

Actually, the raft kid, he was trying to make an amphibious vehicle out of his little tykes trike or something, and he was having trouble. And, like, each week it was like.

It was like reading, you know, a chapter book. It's like, how did it go this week? Well, this week it sank, but next week I'm trying it with balloons. Oh, how'd it go?

Oh, they pop. But next week I'm trying it with a pool noodle. So there's just. It's also a way for the school to bring in the outside world things that the kids are capable of doing and seeing the kids in another light.

And then the kids are excited about something. And school, it's a nice mashup of being excited about something in the real world at school. So there's just no downside. And as we said, it's free.

Melissa: Right. And I just want to touch quickly, too, because I noticed again, Going back to when we see these stories in the news or hearing about these things in our community and maybe those that feel empowered to do even more beyond their own home.

You have resources, it looks like, also for legislation and things like that, for those that want to champion and create change within their community. So do you want to touch on that for just a little bit?

Lenore: Oh, sure. So you're in Utah, which is the first. Yes, first state that passed what we used to call a free range parenting law. Now we call it a reasonable childhood independence law law.

And that's. Yeah. And it just says something very simple. It says that neglect is when you put your kid in obvious and serious and maybe even likely danger, as opposed to anytime you take your eyes off them.

And we did a little study. It wasn't a study. People. We must just had people write in after the law was passed in your state, which is I think 2018 or 2017, parents felt great.

You know, it's like, I can let my kid outside and not worry about it. I would say that the reason that, like this case in Georgia got so much attention is because it is rare.

I mean, it's really rare to have somebody arrested, literally handcuffed because the kid was walking outside. I mean, it's so egregious that it makes for great television and it goes around the world.

Melissa: And we all read it and go, what?

Lenore: We all read it and go, what? So the nice side of that, the bad side of that is that then people get afraid and it's like, don't be afraid. This is so weird that it is.

I mean, if it was happening all the time, it wouldn't be news.

Melissa: Right, Right, right.

Lenore: But it also does, it does grease the wheels for our law, which has since then, since Utah has passed in another seven states and it's passed in red states, blue states, purple states, everywhere from, you know, Texas and Utah to Connecticut and Illinois and Virginia, which is so purple.

And you can look at our site, if you go to letgrow.org and you click on the partisan at the top, it says state laws. You can find out whether where your state stands in terms of neglect laws and also perhaps get involved in trying to change yours.

We're working in another.

Oh, gosh, we don't even know five, six, seven states this year. I think Georgia's pretty ripe at this point. And maybe Pennsylvania and Michigan, Nebraska, Indiana.

I literally can't remember the whole list of states that we're going to hopefully flip this year. But it's a state. It's an issue that gets bipartisan support, usually bipartisan sponsors.

And in five states it passed unanimously, including Virginia, which is completely divided. So it's not a left or right thing. It's nobody wants to have their reasonable parenting decisions second guessed by the authorities and they don't want to have to worry that they might be.

So it's as simple as that.

Melissa: Right. An issue most people can agree on.

Lenore: Yeah. Isn't that nice? Yeah.

Melissa: Yeah. It's good to find one of those.

Lenore: Yeah. There you have it. The issue that everyone could agree on that and like Thanksgiving.

Melissa: That's right. Yeah. Well, Lenore, this has been a great conversation. I have admired the work that you do from afar for a long time. So I'm really grateful that you could take the time to come on the podcast.

And I feel empowered myself as a parent after these this conversation. So thank you so much and for the good work that you do.

Lenore: Well, thank you for having me on, Melissa.

Melissa: That was my interview with Lenore Skenazy, who leads this free range kids movement and is a co founder of the nonprofit Let Grow. And that was a really fun interview. I really enjoyed that.

She even turned the microphone there on me for a little bit, which I don't think has ever happened before.

Melissa: And that was kind of fun to share our ideas back and forth and enjoy that discussion.

Melissa: But I love these ideas that she shared here today for their nonprofit. Those two simple ideas that really any school, any community or any parent can implement if they're wanting to take part in this movement.

The idea of having that homework assignment activity where you do something you've never done before for a kid without their parents help, without anyone's help. And the second of encouraging age mix.

No devices, free play.

So simple. And those are things that anyone can incorporate. But along with those ideas, I just loved all of the thoughts that she shared. The idea that we can be imperfect in our parenting and kids can be imperfect in the things that they're doing, that that imperfection does not mean that they are in danger, but they are opportunities for kids to learn and to grow and to gain all those skills that we want them to gain as parents.

And I really loved how she pointed out that they need that time away from us. And most parents when we relate the proudest moments that we have seen with our children, it is not when we're there hovering over them, giving them instructions.

It is those moments when they've learned and broken free and been able to do something they love on their own. So, so many good ideas of course I will leave links to many of the things that were mentioned in the show today, including the Let Grow website and as you go there it's got several links along the top for ideas for schools, things for parents, things for state laws and legislation.

So however you feel inspired to get involved with this nonprofit, you can go to their website and see many of the good things that they are doing there. And I also want to give the friendly reminder that if you enjoyed this episode of the podcast, please share it with someone who you think would also like to listen to it.

Share it with a friend, a family member or or a neighbor. And of course you can leave a review for the podcast or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts or follow us on social media.

And I have links to all of those in the show notes as well. And of course as always this week, I hope you find a way to do something more to help lift, inspire or make a difference.