Today Hamlin welcomed the insightful, intelligent, and humorous, Lenore Skenazy to speak with parents and San Francisco community members. Lenore Skenazy is the founder of the book, blog, and movement “Free-Range Kids,” that emphasizes how to raise safe, self-reliant children.

FREE RANGE KIDS has become a national movement, sparked by the incredible response to Lenore Skenazy’s piece about allowing her 9-year-old to ride the subway alone in NYC. Parent groups argued about it, bloggers blogged, spouses became uncivil with each other, and the media jumped all over it. A lot of parents today, Skenazy says, see no difference between letting their kids walk to school and letting them walk through a firing range. Any risk is seen as too much risk. But if you try to prevent every possible danger or difficulty in your child’s everyday life, that child never gets a chance to grow up. We parents have to realize that the greatest risk of all just might be trying to raise a child who never encounters choice or independence.

Ms. Skenazy shared the following thoughts (among others):

-Contemporary culture makes us think that our kids can be perfect and sells us products with that in mind.

-It is a myth to think that we can shape our kids into whatever we want.

-“You don’t need experts to teach your kids to play.”

-We live in a society that is overly concerned about keeping our kids constantly safe.

-Kids benefit from confronting and solving their own problems.

-“Free play is SO crucial to kids.”

-When it comes to competition, it is better to “roll with the punches, rather than make everyone a winner.”

-“Constant supervision is what is driving me crazy, give kids some freedom.”

-“Mixed age play has always been the way of the world, it is the way to go.”

Below is a short video of Ms. Skenazy:

To learn more about Ms. Skenazy and Free-Range Kids, please visit: http://www.freerangekids.com/