Ep 139: Free Range Kids! How to raise safe, self-reliant children. With author and journalist, Lenore Skenazy!

Summary

This weeks podcast is with national treasure, Lenore Skenazy, who discusses the culture of fear and overprotective parenting.     She shares her personal experiences and the backlash she faced for allowing her 9-year-old son ride the subway alone in NYC. The media jumped all over it, some even called her "America's worst mom", and this experience eventually led her to write the book "Free Range Kids". 

 Lenore challenges the assumption that children are fragile and need constant supervision, advocating for independence and the development of resilience in children.   Lenore emphasizes the importance of trusting parents' intuition and tshe highlights the impact of media, litigious society, and the expert culture on parental fears.  In this conversation, Lenore Skenazy discusses the challenges of overprotective parenting and the negative impact it can have on children's development. She emphasizes the importance of allowing children to experience conflict and difficult situations in childhood to prepare them for the real world.  Lenore suggests practical steps, such as promoting collective action in schools and encouraging children to engage in independent activities, to counteract the culture of fear and foster independence in children.

Takeaways

• Overprotective parenting can hinder children's development and prevent them from learning important life skills.
• Experiencing conflict and difficult situations in childhood is valuable for preparing children to navigate the real world.
• Misconceptions about safety and fear can lead to overprotection and limit children's independence.
• Crime statistics show that the world is not more dangerous now, and it is important to challenge the perception of increased danger.
• The media plays a significant role in shaping our perception of safety and can contribute to a culture of fear.
• Promoting collective action in schools and encouraging independent activities can help counteract the culture of fear and foster independence in children.

Dr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children. Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner.

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The information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only. She does not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals. If you have a concern about your child's health, be sure to call your child's health care provider.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Hi everybody I'm Dr. Jessica Hochman, paediatrician, and mom of three. On this podcast I like to talk about various paediatric health topics, sharing my knowledge not only as a doctor but also as a parent. Ultimately, my hope is that when it comes to your children's health, you feel more confident, worry less, and enjoy your parenting experience as much as possible. Hi, everybody. I am so incredibly excited to introduce this week's guest, journalist Lenore Skenazy. Now you may have heard of her book free range kids. You also may have heard of her in 2008 when the media gave her the nickname world's worst mom, because she let her nine year old son read the New York subway alone. As you'll hear in our conversation, Lenore believes that the culture of modern day parenting is simply too over protective and that this may ultimately limit a child's ability to mature into an independent adult. The good news is that she provides practical solutions to today's tendency to helicopter parent, for example with her nonprofit legro.org As you listen to Eleanor speak with her wit and reason, hopefully you'll see why in my view, Lenore Skenazy is a national treasure. Lenore Skenazy, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. Well, thank you, Jessica. So tell me about yourself. Tell me, I want to say after that, you it's such a pleasure to be here in cyberspace with you. I haven't met before, but I bet it's gonna be fun. That's really what I think. Can I tell you after reading your book, I can tell you're very funny. Thank you. Well, I so appreciate it reading your book, because humour is one of my favourite qualities and somebody. So thank you for shining your humour throughout the pages of your book, which I'm highly recommending to anybody listening right now Do yourself a favour and get this book right away. Because the themes of your book I wish I could sing it from the rooftops so that everybody can hear and think about the messages that you convey so that people can implement it into their own lives. I think it's so important. Sing it out, singing that song. We have a song we have a theme song for let grow, which is the nonprofit that grew out of free range kids, and I will give it to you to put in the notes. It's called just go outside to I will survive. I love it. Oh, I love it. I love that song, too. So tell me about yourself. Tell me how you ended up being the face of the free range kids movement. I wrote the book. I started the bike. So what happened is years ago, when our younger son who's now 25 was nine. He had asked me in my husband to take him someplace you've never been before here in New York City where we live and let him find his own way home by the subway. Long story short, I did that I took him to Bloomingdale's. I left him there. He knew it was that day, it wasn't like you felt abandoned. It was exciting. Bloomingdale's, sits on top of a subway stop. So he went down to the subway, he took the subway to 34th Street, which is the street where miracles occur. And then he took the bus home and he came home so proud, excited, you know, sort of exuberant, that he had done something that he was ready for and that we had trusted him to do in the real world. And I was newspaper columnist back then. And so I wrote a column why I let my nine year old ride the subway alone. And two days later, I was on the Today Show MSNBC, Fox News and NPR. And so I wrote, I started a blog that weekend to say, You know what I actually love my son, I love safety. I love my other son, too, who never gets mentioned, calls himself the control group. And I just I just don't understand didn't understand now I understand more how we've come to not trust our kids to do anything on their own. Without us ever, even though most of us grew up, either walking to school or playing outside on the weekends or, you know, after school in the afternoon. And, and we cherished that and we loved it. And we're grateful for that. And it's the one thing that we can't give our own kids is independence. And it turns out that independence is really key for for kids, for their parents are busting anxiety for a sense of adventure. And just for the good of all of us, we got to step back a little bit. And so that's what I dedicated my life to how do we get parents to step back and and let the kids step up? I'm so curious when that all happened when you blogged about it, and you got a lot of media press about letting your son ride the subway. Were you surprised at the backlash that you received? Surprise is sort of a mild way of putting it. I mean, I'm a newspaper columnist, right? I must have written two or 3000 columns over the course of my life name another one. How about that one last week? Lenore, that was so interesting. So fun. What about that time you wrote about bioterrorism? What about all your columns and Barbie? Nobody cares. Just one column like exploded? So yes, I was quite surprised. That's so interesting. I mean, I just, I'm just curious, from your perspective, how did it feel when people called you? America's worst mom, I mean, part of that inspire the work that you've continued to do it? You know, maybe that's true. I haven't thought about it that way. But if you feel like you're saying something that's sort of thoughtful and reality based, and there's this Area against you. Yeah, that does that does motivate me to say, wait a minute, wait a minute. I mean, the reason I started the free range kids blog the weekend after the column was so that I could say my side of things, which is that like, you think I don't care if my kid lives or dies, you think I don't have any notion of what goes on in the subway, I live in New York City, I take the subway every day, you're writing to me from Montana, saying you would never let your kid ride the subway, I would never let my kid ride a horse. I mean, we're just in different worlds and you get to know your kid, you get to know your city. Most of us parents are making decisions, to the best of our knowledge, knowing our kids, knowing what we loved doing and what's important, and also listening to them. I mean, our older son had not asked if we would take them someplace and let him find his own way home by the subway, He's two years older and never come up. So we didn't think about it until our younger son wanted to do it and and low back as if somebody else knew my kid better than me. It's kind of nuts. It's so true. That's something that I talked about all the time with parents is that a lot of parents want to look to others for guidance on how to raise their children. But I think there's so much that parents know intuitively that I wish they would trust more, because it's true. They know their kids better than anybody else. Hands down. Right, just by virtue of that. So you're with all the time, you know, Dr. Spock went back when there weren't a million parenting experts. And there was just him basically, his his first line. And, you know, Dr. Spock's baby and childcare is trust yourself, you know, more than you think, you know, which is interesting, because it implies that there you go, Doc, I keep I keep his book right by myself. Is that the new version? Or is it an old version? That it's an old version? Okay, because the new versions are by Robert Needleman who was my college roommates boyfriend, way back when so I feel sorry, buddy one one handshake away from Dr. Spock. But anyways, the even the, even the, you know, the exhortation to trust yourself, you know, more than you think, you know, implies that back then, people were also worried, like, do I know? It's like, yeah, you actually do. So I think that a certain amount of, you know, confusion and worry are just automatic, when you're a parent, but nowadays, rather than being told, You're gonna be fine, or I trust you, or everybody's different. And so you know, all the kids are different. All the parents are different. That's the way it goes. It's like, here is the perfect recipe, follow it to the tee, by the way, you need Madagascar vanilla, you know, that was harvested at the three month peak of its perfection to make this recipe. I mean, there's so many specific things that you're supposed to do to say to your child to do for your child that are part of this complicated recipe? And it turns out, no, you don't have to do all that. I'm so fascinated to think about how this current culture of fear has manifested. Because I agree with you. It's innate in all of us to worry to some degree. But I love how you talk about how the fear has become out of proportion to the reality of what we really have to worry about with our kids. So I'm curious, why do you think and you talk about this in your book very beautifully. But why do you think this culture of fear has manifested to the degree that it has, there's a lot of strands running through the culture that have sort of amped it up. But then there's one overarching, crazy idea which I'll get to after I talk about the strands. In my book, I talk about four reasons that I think we're much more afraid for everything our kids do see where he or lick than our parents. And the first is that the media is it keeps getting more intense. You know, when I was growing up, there were, you know, three channels or something like that. And then in the 80s, along came two things. One is cable television, which meant a 24 hour news cycle, which had never been the case before. And also in the 80s. We got the kids on the milk cartons with the word missing above them, and no estrus that says, last scene being taken by noncustodial parent in a contentious divorce case, which would have made things a lot clearer, but it wasn't there. And so it started seeming like you know, between the news and the milk cartons that children were being snatched constantly. And then those, the media recognises that, you know, if you can get people to watch more, you make more money. That's all TV does. That's all the media does. It's that's what Facebook does. The more attention you get, the more money you get from advertisers. And so the scariest nightmares of parents became something that was always cycling through the media. And then when we got the internet, I can get pinged when there's a scary story, so it really just started sort of washing us in fear. And there's something called the mean world syndrome. Maybe you've heard of it. Have you heard of it? No. It's sort of explains itself and then saying, but it was invented by a guy named George something in I think, the 60s and the idea is that you know, you watch TV and all you see is the mean stuff, right? It's a mean word. hauled out there, you know, you don't turn on the news. And here, you know, 1 million children got to school safely to get again today, you know, let's hear more details. Yes, everybody was at their bus stop, and it was fine. Okay. So that's that's the world seems mean when you watch TV, and so you start becoming afraid of it. And so you stay inside, where you watch more TV and you become more and more afraid. So the mean world syndrome is just sort of the feedback loop of believing the media and not having the counterfactual information, which is reality. Media is one of the reasons that we're so much more afraid. We live in a litigious society. And somehow we've sort of imbibed that. And we start thinking like lawyers, what could be dangerous? What could be? What could we be liable for and school districts, I just got this amazing document, a four page rule list from a Maryland public school district of all the things that you're not allowed to have happen during recess. Like if there's children who are organising a game be especially vigilant because they might argue, yeah, they might imagine that or a child might be left out. Yeah, that's true. And then they have to either get better the game or become a nicer person, and then everybody want to play with him or her again, children are not allowed to skip rungs, when they climb on a you know, one of those handy things, they're supposed to use their opposing opposing digits. When climbing, it's like who I'm trying to imagine a kid just climbing with the ring finger. You know, these are things that don't even happen and you have to be aware of anything dangerous on the ground, and he tripping hazards, including, wait for it gravel, when you start I mean, like you start living in this weird world that maybe was written by lawyers was written by lawyers but has no connection to children's actual activities, or what they are capable of, or what they're capable of dealing with, whether it's, you know, a playground dispute or gravel underfoot, right, so that just sort of like distances us from real life and puts this scrim of weird bizarre constant danger you know, kids feelings are gonna hurt they're gonna trip and they're gonna skin a need is four pages are so weird, you know, of course, no running and of course, no tag and this and that. But one of the things is and if children are organising a game of three square, and I thought, Oh, my God, that's the most lawyerly thing I've ever heard because there is no three square. There's two square and there's four square. And clearly they just averaged it because they have no idea what reality is like on Earth. Right? And so so we start thinking like lawyers the nor I want to tell you the the elementary school that I went to, I actually work down the street from the elementary school that I attended as a kid. And I heard from a patient recently that they they stopped allowing tag, and I just can't believe it. I loved playing tag as a kid. I love that game. And why Why on earth are we telling kids they can't play tag? It just boggles my mind. Are we afraid they're gonna trip and fall? I don't understand. Oh, there's there's so many potential dangers. Oh, my God, Jessica, first of all, a kid could get tagged. And then they'll feel bad because they've lost a kid could get not tagged and then they feel left out because nobody cared about them. A kid could be it. They are singing. They are they are different from everyone else. They are ostracised. They must go and chase people and Oh, my goodness. So running, and then there's the tension of am I going to be caught or not caught? And then let's just flip it for a second. Because now I'm convinced now I understand. Yeah, right. Right. Right. And don't forget there's gravel. So there's exercise. So factor, you don't want to do that. Yeah. So yeah. So So let's think about what you do get from from tag a, yes, exercise. B, what is executive function. So executive function is figuring out how to do something, how you will do something and then proceeding to execute that plan and also to be wise enough and sort of aware enough to pivot as new information comes in. So that's what you want to be doing right? You want your brain to be planning doing and recalibrating when need be and coming up with an even better plan and then dealing with some problems should they arise oh my god, there's a power line down the street. I guess I'll just keep driving. No, go around it right. And so what is tag other than a masterclass in executive planning, okay. You know, Jessica is it she always goes towards the tree first, I'm gonna go towards the school. Wait, she's surprised me she's coming here. I'm gonna go and hide behind the you know, the slide or, you know, or maybe I want to get caught because then the two of us together will play it's just every step of that game is dealing with anxiety, dealing with new information coming at you dealing with previous things that you've stored and thought about assessing the situation for Problem solving using your body using your brain it is it's a fantastic exercise in every sense of the word for any child. And it's not even children to play tag every species that can run maybe not worms, but gazelles play tag and chimps play tag. And they all do it because it's, it's so developmentally rich and to take it out of kids lives because they might get hurt is hurting them. And that's my I mean, I believe you're now just always helping children, quote unquote, is hurting them. That's my whole thesis. And so we have to stand back and get out of the way and let them do some things on their own, including what they will inevitably do on a playground, which is play some form of tag and they will be better off. And they might even experience the effort. Fun. I don't know. Why should they do that when they could be studying? What I can't believe is what you're saying is not an exaggeration. It is real. It was happening. It's happening at my elementary school. I can't I can't believe it. I can't believe did you go and talk to them at all? Like excuse me taking out tag? Yeah, we've taken away lunch too. Should they not eat? They could choke? Sorry. That's Oh, my gosh, she said a joke. It's so yeah, it's getting it's getting preposterous. That's that's the truth. Maybe I shouldn't call I haven't called because my kids don't go to that school. And I, you know, sometimes I, maybe I'm conflict avoidant, but I think you're right, that you have to start somewhere else, it's just going to take a hold of our society, and our kids will just be left in their rooms, I guess that's what we're left with. That's what we hear that kids are basically in an adult supervised structured activity, which would be the equivalent of recess with no tag, right? Or, or somebody hovering over the three square game that doesn't exist to make sure nobody's feelings get hurt, and nobody pushes the ball too hard. And then if they're not in an adult run activity, they're generally on a device. And yeah, if you want your kids to succeed in the real world and thrive in the real world, you have to give it back to them. And that's what you know, I keep coming up with new slogans. What is a new slogan and Jonathan Hite who I work with, who has a book coming out called the anxious generation, it's going to be a big deal. Maybe it's out by the time this comes out. But you know, what's a slogan for this? Okay, it's like, okay, to save the anxious generation, which is often online and often depressed, just say this. Be home by supper. It's that simple. Be home by supper. And I talked to my husband about this all the time, because we both experienced childhoods where we were able to play outside with friends, and we would come home by supper. And we have such beautiful memories of those times. And I feel bad. Yeah. So you were saying, Okay, so the first two things you said, was gonna segue immediately into action, but I'll go through the alright. So the media litigious society and expert culture, they're always telling you, you're doing it wrong, here's a new way to do it. Here's exactly what to say, when you're looking at the kids drawing, you can't say that's good picture, you did a good job, it's always I see you put effort into your drawing skills. You know, let's, let's have a growth mindset. Tomorrow, you could do it again, and the kid will have two arms instead of the three, that you gave them something like that. Anyways, there's experts telling you, you're doing it wrong, and here's better ways to do it. And it starts when you're pregnant, and you have to eat every single bite correctly, and it will be tied. She who eats you know, a bologna sandwich or a piece of free you know, the all everything bad that happens to your kid, you know, until you die is because of that sandwich. And then there's the marketplace, which knows that the easiest dollar to get from any human being is the dollar of a worried parents. So you worry the parent so that you can get their dollar Oh, or their knees gonna hurt. You know, children crawl 137,000 miles before they stand that sounds like too much. It's like, well, it's apparently not. Because they all do it. But no, it sounds like a lot. Well, it does sound like a lot, I wouldn't want to crawl 137,000 miles, well, then here's a knee pad, you can put the knee pads on your child and their knees won't hurt. And it's like, but don't you want the knees to hurt so they stand because he can't stand it. So there's just all these products out there that exist that nobody has needed since the beginning of time, and nobody will need until the end of time, but they're out there. And they they create a worry. And of course tech is the one that does it best because oh you better be watching your kid every single second and you better know every everything that they've you know, every place that they've been and you better know their grades every second and so you start feeling the big overarching change I'd say is that the assumption is that if if you have every single data point about everything your child does, sees each reads licks watches, here's you can optimise them second by second heartbeat by heartbeat there. There are monitors that will you know measure your child's blood oxygen law Well from moment to moment, and then you can fix it. And then they'll be perfect. And then you can relax. But of course, you'll never relax because getting a trillion data points per second is not going to relax you. And by the way, you aren't God and you cannot make everything perfect. And in fact, you'll come into the world ready to be wired by an imperfect world. And that's what they're expecting. That's what their entire brain and gut biome, they're all expecting, you know, some some mouthfuls of sand and, and those things will end up making them stronger in the long run, not horrible, horrible traumas. I'm not talking about that I'm talking about some every day, frustration, dirt confusion, and a couple of B minuses. You know, when parents asked me about particular recommendations on baby safety products, generally, my line is save your money for a date night, you know, save your money and do something that you can enjoy it with. Because you can literally spend all of your money, all of your hard earned money on ways to baby proof your home and quote unquote, make them safer. There's toilet seat lock, there's a nice house with a toilet seat lock, that's just the worst. It's like, Oh, I gotta pee. And I can't figure this thing out. It's literally endless. One thing I've learned as I talked to parents about fears, a big example is the fear of a kid falling out of the crib and hurting themselves. And oftentimes, they'll have a kid that crawls, you know, learns to crawl and somehow as Houdini gets out of the crib, and parents are petrified, oh, my goodness, my kid can get themselves out of the crib. And I have to say, of all the times that I've heard this story, which I've heard multiple, multiple times, I've never had a kid, you know, I don't want to maybe knock on wood. But have a have a problem from that fall. Yes, they get out of the crib, but somehow, they're okay. And, you know, I just think there's a saying that kids are made of rubber, like they're, they can fall, but they're a lot more resilient than I think parents give them credit for. And so that's just something I tried to, I really tried to reinforce when I talked to parents that there are a lot their bodies are a lot more forgiving than we realise. And, and it's not just physically resilient. I mean, the other thing is that they are emotionally resilient. And I don't, I hate that I always have to give the caveat doesn't mean you can completely ignore or scream at your kid. They're all live, and that's great. But the Parents Magazine article that I quote the most because I feel it's the Rosetta Stone for this current culture is one that was about play dates, which is already a problem. But anyways, the question that the magazine answers is, your kid is old enough to stay home alone often does for short periods. But now she has a friend over can you actually make a dash literally a dash to the dry cleaner. And of course, Parents Magazine says no, and they give the two reasons. One is they could get hurt. And they go into a long story about some kid who microwaved some macaroni and ended up with a burn. Okay. And then the second story is, the second caveat is also you want to be there in case someone's feelings get hurt. You want to be there. If there's a squabble to step in, in case someone's feelings get hurt. And I thought that is the most dystopian possible advice I've heard anywhere, which is why I keep quoting it because it's assuming a that you only have one kid because you're listening to one conversation the whole time be you're listening in on every iteration of their conversation. I don't want to be candid Canada's cool at the Oscars. How can we watch the Oscars? I don't get what you asked me. So funny. Now I want to become no one because you're supposed to be listening to all that and thinking, Who are their feelings getting hurt, I better step in if there's a squabble, it's like, No, me first. Now me first. And you actually want them to figure it out. But Parents Magazine is saying step in before they do. So really what they're advising you is to assume your child is so fragile, they can't handle an argument with a friend, and be that it is better to for you to solve it, then for them to solve it. Which means you've left them with no muscle memory, no executive function understanding of how to solve an argument other than Mom, it's my turn. Now she said it's my turn. So that's, that's, that's the big problem is that we have a lot of assumptions about what we can and must do. Because we're assuming that our kids are so fragile that if we don't, all bets are off. So it drives parents crazy. I think it drives moms particularly crazy. It was just a Pew study. Why didn't a big Pew study about parenting? And I thought the most interesting thing was on page 13, where they asked young people who didn't have kids yet. Do you want to have kids? And 57%? I think of the young men said yes. And I think about 43% of the women said yes, yeah, and I'm assuming those are different numbers, and they would have been a generation ago. You know, they didn't put it in context. I wish I wish it was there, but I have to assume that it probably was because it just seems like Well, if my job is going to be listening in on every play date and jumping in with a with the perfect solution, anytime anybody's feelings are getting hurt, that leaves me with a terrible life. I mean, it's the opposite of date night. Right? It's, it's like being with the seven year old but not being a seven year old. And also the icky feeling of almost having a sickly child, the difficulty of that the thinking of your kid is so inept, or fragile that anything goes wrong. And it's my fault, because I didn't step in, and now she's suffering. That's, that's a rough, that's a rough road. I also think there's such value in experiencing some conflict in childhood. Because if you don't, then you get into the real world where guess what, not everybody is nice, not everybody is going to compliment you and say the right thing. And so I think it's really important to learn how to deal with different types of people, because someday you're gonna get a boss, that might not be the nicest. And that's just real world. Yeah. I endorse this statement. I'm more and I approve. I'm Jessica. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And I wanted to tell you, so when I, when I told people that I was excited to interview you, and I told them the story about how you had your son on the subway, I got the same response three out of three times. And that was, wow, that's really interesting what she did. But times are different now. Times have changed. We couldn't do that. Now. We couldn't let our children ride their bikes to the store by themselves, because it's a different world than it was then. Do you agree or disagree with that statement? What do you what do you have to say? I hear it a lot, obviously. And I agree, it feels really different. It feels much scarier. We were talking about this at the top of the conversation about how the media is so incessant, now and it wasn't when most of us were growing up. But I do have on, you know, if you gotta let grow.org, and you click on the thing at the bottom that says, crime statistics, just go look for yourself. It's I mean, I don't make up crime statistics, I take them from the FBI. And you can see that the homicide rate in the US and the violent crime rate in the 70s and 80s. And 90s was higher than it is now. Wow. Simple as that. And you know what, it did go up a little again, it was plunging from the 90s, down, and then in COVID, like 20, and maybe 2020 and 2021. It went up a little, but it's been going down again, since. So the level that it's at even having gone up some in the last couple of years, is still lower than the 70s 80s or 90s. So I'm so happy to have you on record saying this because I want to tell you about a personal dispute I've been having with my mom. So this is my mom who grew up, you know, in the 70s. And she did admittedly hitchhike even as a kid, and she's still here today. She definitely in Los Angeles. I mean, she describes her parents, you know, they weren't, they were not overly protective. They weren't watching her very closely. And so she did have a free range childhood herself. And my daughter who's 13, we recently got a dog, and we've been having her walk the dog around our neighbourhood. She takes a loop with the dog, you know, it's about a half a mile loop. And my mom told me she couldn't sleep one night, she was so worried because my daughter has been by herself walking the dog. And she thinks we should have a rule that when she walks the dog, she should go with somebody else for fear of a stranger that might doesn't kill somebody else. And I guess one time she was walking in there wasn't a man on the street. And what do you say? Imagine that. Imagine that. And you know, and I said to her, you know, what I was proud of my daughter crossed the street, she had the wherewithal to cross the street go the other direction, and everything was fine. It was daylight. And so I shared some of the statistics that you shared about childhood abductions and how they're really, really, really, really rare. That concept, de minimis. Anyways, I think it's interesting, because even people that had more of a free range childhood are so taught to be afraid now. Right? Even if the statistics don't support it, right, you know, there's rationality, and then there's feelings and feelings always win. But you know, there's Thinking Fast and Slow, your feelings are fast and your rationality is slow. And we were talking earlier about the whole idea of mean world syndrome, how come so I hear this often that the grandparents who let their kids you know, ride their bikes and take the local bus or whatever, are now so scared. And I think it has to do with the two things. One is this sort of mean world syndrome that she said another 30 years to, you know, see scary stories and have them sink in. And your brain works like Google, which is that if you ask Google, you know, where can I get a good taco and Jackson Heights, Queens where I live, up comes a list of you know, there's taco logo, there's taco freesia or whatever and it's, and it's relevant, right? It's, it's the search results that I'm looking for a lot of great taco places. But if I ask is my kids Safe at the bus stop or walking the dog OPCOM the worst stories of the last 50 years, literally last 50 years, a 10 page was at his bus stop at 1979. And he was taken. Jason du Gard was at her bus stop and 1980 something and she was taken because these are the stories. First of all, these are stories, right? You can't you can't access non-stories about you and me waiting at the bus stop when the bus comes. And we go to school. And also the more you know, the more emotional something is, the easier it is to retrieve. So you got actual footage, and you have stories and you have emotion. And those populate the search results have is my kids safe walking the dog. And so it looks like know your kid, it's crazy to let your kid walk the dog, don't you remember these three stories from you know all these different eras and all these different states. And be the more easy it is for your brain to retrieve a story or to retrieve an image or an idea, the more common your brain thinks it is. That's just a fallacy. It's called the availability heuristic, the more available a story is, the more likely and common you think it is. And so we're all prey to that. And so I'm not surprised that your mom in the intervening 30 years has gotten more scared. But if you want to try to use that slow, rational part of your brain go look up the actual safety statistics. So that's yes, no. And the are the rates of abduction still as low as you quoted in your book. They're extraordinarily low. They're extraordinarily low. I mean, I always talk to this poor guy, David Finkel, he runs the crimes against children Research Centre, and he is tasked with figuring out you know, how many kids are abducted a year, and my other cell points out by the time you're talking about the number of kids abducted, you've lost the argument, which is true, because everybody always imagines Well, it might be very few. But what if mine is one of them, but it's, it's very, very low. If you want your kid to be kidnapped by a stranger, you'd have to leave them outside for 750,000 years for it to be statistically likely that they would be kidnapped in a law and order to type kidnapping Peter grey said something interesting. He said the truth is nobody wants your kids. Yeah, yeah, there's there's no Henry store like that to the ransom, Reggie. But the the other point is that, like people always think that like there's safety or danger, and so I might as well go with safety, right? I'm not gonna let my kid be kidnapped. It's like, okay, well, what about the other side of things? What about soaring rates of depression and anxiety? Which Peter has a paper in the in the Journal of Paediatrics. That traces not just a correlation, but he believes a causation between as children's independence agency free play have gone down literally over the decades, not just its COVID, not just since phone, but over the decades, their mental health has gone down in tandem. These fears are negatively impacting our youth. I think so. And do you? I'm curious, are there any other common misconceptions of fear that are prevailing? Are society any anything else that that you think parents should be aware of where the where the risks are out of proportion to reality? Well, that's such an interesting question. What I really liked in your book, if I if just to be a leading Halloween, to lead, the answer is Halloween. Yeah, Halloween is great. I think I call Halloween the test market for our fears, because we see how outlandish our advice can get. And if people think it's not outlandish than they, then it sort of permeates the rest of the culture. So the number of children killed by a stranger's poisoned candy on Halloween turns out to be you read the book, it's zero. It's zero. Yeah, I actually talked to the sociologist who figured this out, he actually went back to 1958. And, and would read the newspapers for November 1 second, and third, in all those eras to see if, you know, child dead and and in fact, no, and that would have been a big story. And there was one kid who was poisoned by his dad. The life insurance policy purposes, right was a life insurance policy that the father actually three you taken out on the kid. And the pathetic part is that that dad sort of believed what a lot of us just like so many kids are killed on Halloween by poison candy. What's one more is like, there's this big pile of dead kids. I'll just throw my kit on there. And you know, we'll be off to the races, and I'll get the insurance policy. But it turns out that actually no, nobody is killed by that. And you believed it, and you tried it and he ended up being executed himself, because of course it was Texas. And then you talked about a kid who got into their uncle's heroin and the parents. Oh, it was candy. Yeah. So what's amazing is the power of myth to shape our reality, which is that the University of Michigan just did a study in a survey in September, and I thought the statistics were pretty shocking. Maybe they won't check you. You're working with paediatrician all the time, but they asked parents of kids aged nine to 11 this was 1000 parents across every demographic and geographic area of America, would you let your kid trick or treat without an adult? And the percent? Who said yes, is these are kids nine to 11? Is what? I'm scared to find out the answer. 25% 15 15% Wow. 15% Well, the sad part is I have such wonderful memories of Halloween, being without my parents, you know, with my friend, Monica. We went from house to house and we collected all this candy. And we had this, we had the best time. And so I worry that with all of this fear, we're literally removing joy from our kids. childhoods. Yes, the short answer is we are but it's, you know, if you if you sort of want to claw our way back, you have to point out that it's not just joy, it's its development. And part of the reason Halloween was exciting is you were out on your own at night, right. And you were sort of dressed up like a grown up whether you were a vampire, or a ballerina or whatever. And you sort of had a job, which was to knock on doors and get something. And so it was really the one night of the year that you got to be an adult and you were facing your fears. You were doing a job you were dressed like some you know something, not just a kid, and to take that out of kids lives to make them safer when no child has been poisoned by Kit by a stranger on Halloween. And there's no increase in child molesting by anybody on the sex offender registry, which is another fear on Halloween. So if there's the one thing that kids have to beware of on Halloween is cars. And one of the reasons that cars are such a danger, especially at this point is that so many cars are creeping along after their kids as they go from house to house. So really, I would say let your kids trick or treat. Tell them they can't go into anybody's house. And they should wear something very reflective? Yes, I'd say yes. No, that no, I think that's great advice. It's like the idea is to let our kids do things be independent, but also teach them how to be safe, appropriately safe, right, appropriately safe. And then there's some safety that comes from street smarts, from saying I am going across the street, there's this guy there, or you want them to use to develop their own smarts and common sense. And if we're there doing everything with them or for them, they don't get to develop it just like you know, if you are holding your kid up so that they can pretend that they're hanging from the jungle gym, they will get no muscles, right at some point, you just have to leave them hanging as it were, with or without their opposable thumbs in the mix. At some point, you just have to leave them hanging for for their benefit. So now I want to ask you, for parents that are listening. And maybe they are maybe they think of themselves as falling prey to the fear culture, and they want to figure out how to get themselves out of it. And your book, you talk a lot about baby steps and how we can how we can think about more baby steps to have our kids become more free range. Can you describe some baby steps that parents can start to think about so they can implement into their lives? I can but I'm going to pivot to let grow because let grow is the nonprofit that grew out of free range kids. And when we started it, our goal was no longer to try to change minds. I had been lecturing about free range kids for 10 years, and everyone would not along and nothing would change. So when we started like grow, we said our goal is to change behaviour. So what is the easiest way to do that it's collective action is a lot easier than individual action. And so let grow is trying to promote a couple of things in the schools that you can also try at home. But in the schools, it's a lot of people doing the same thing at once, which has its own power. And so we try to get schools to stay open. And I would recommend you talk in your school about this for what we call a like roleplay Club, where there's an adult watching the kids but they don't they're like a lifeguard at the pool. You know, maybe once in a while they'll blow a whistle. But really, the kids are making up their own games. They're having their arguments, they're solving their Spats, they're coming up with something fun to do. They're changing the rules. They're deciding who they want to play with, who they don't want to play with. And it is like a wildlife preserve of our childhood after school, maybe five days a week, maybe three days a week, whatever the school does, it's mixed ages, and there's no devices. So that is a really easy way to give kids back the you know all the skills and the joy that they get from free play. So that's easier than doing it on your own and trying to find a playmate so I recommend that. And then the other thing we recommend as a way to really make it much easier to let go just a little bit or more is to have the school assign what we call the let grow experience. All our materials are free. And so the LeCroy experience is a homework assignment that tells kids to go home and Do something new with your parents permission but without your parents. And once again, it can be the walking of the dog. It can be, you know, wash the car, climb a tree, go to the store, babysit your younger sibling make pancakes for the whole family. And the great thing about this experience is that all the kids are doing it, and all the parents are doing it. So the parents don't feel like they're the crazy one, letting their kid walk the dog, right or play at the park. And so it's just renormalizing, the idea of letting your kids go, which is so easy. When you got a little push from the school saying this is really good. Just try it. And they're not saying you have to put them on the subway, they're just saying figure out something that's right for you, your kid, your neighbourhood. And of course your kids can do it with friends. It doesn't have to be alone, but it has to be without you. And that's the easiest way to take a step back is when everybody's doing it when the school is recommending it. It No, you're right, because I try to push my kids to be a little more independent. And I do feel like I might get you know, looked at once or twice from other moms that I'm being a little bit different. My big example personally is my kids, because I'm not home, right when they get out of school. We have a nanny, and the nanny, our nanny doesn't drive and our kids go on the LA public bus with our nanny. Yeah. And they're the only kids that my genuinely they're the only children at our local elementary school that take the LA public bus home. And I get so many looks of disbelief. So many questions. How can I as a paediatrician allow my kids to take the LA public bus, two miles from the elementary school to home. And the the funny part is my son likes it. When I asked him about it. He goes with his little sister. And he says he likes that he feels independent. He feels like he gets to do something different. And so that says that that speaks volumes to me that for him, it's not a chore for him. He genuinely enjoys it. But I definitely get questions from the local parents. Well, that's interesting, because you are a paediatrician, they should sort of assume that you have some clue as to what's good for kids. Right? Why would you be in this profession? If you were completely oblivious to danger and health? That wouldn't? You wouldn't be a very great paediatrician. Right. Thank you. Thank you, you think that they would take a clue? But yes, so a collective problems are easy yourself with collective action. But it's so interesting that your son feels proud and kind of happy doing this, it doesn't surprise me at all. And when you do step back and let your kids do something like that, A, they get this rush of excitement because they're big, right back to this Tom Hanks idea I can do something in the real world. Be you feel so proud, right? I mean, I could see it as you're smiling as you're telling the story. I mean, he's not Honestly, I feel proud. But I also recognise that when people listen to me telling the story, I may get judged, right, because it's not a very judging everybody every single second, that's just human nature. That's true. I agree with that. I got to deal with it. I was gonna say that the other thing that your son is getting, aside from being part of the real world, which is very heady, and very, your brain is expecting that as a child, they never expected to be another little cocoon. That's a strange way to live. But he also gets this other gift from you, which is that you believe in Him. And to have your parents not just love you and protect you, but believe in you think that you're smart, you're brave, you're capable. And they put their money where their mouth is, and they let you take a bus that is so just breathing in. It's just fortifies it's the wind beneath their wings. And to give that to your child, as opposed to oh, Honey, I'll be with you. No, let me handle that. Oh, that's dirty. Don't touch that. Oh, let me help you. It's a different feeling. And I think your son is lucky to have a mom who believes in Him. Thank you. Thank you. And I do trust him. I mean, I do we do talk about safety precautions and looking both ways and paying attention. So it's not as if I just send him on his way without guidance, but yeah, I do trust him. And even I thought of an example this morning. Something new even having our eight year old daughter do is she knows how to work our our latte machine, the Nespresso machine, and she's been making my husband his morning lattes. She loves frothing the milk and she loves putting the Nespresso out here. Oh my god. Somebody's making my latte in the morning. How fantastic when at first I thought should we be watching her because scald burns are common for kids. And I watched her do it and she makes the latte with caution and she does it well and she's so proud of herself to make it and then give it to my husband and it works for both of us. You know for the parent. We're so excited to watch her participate and help us And, and you learn a new skill and she's so proud of herself and she hands him his morning latte. So there again, you've mentioned so many great things. It's, she's proud, she knows you trust her. And also she's contributing. She's not just a taker, right now she's a giver, right? She's part of the economy of your family. You You love her, but you also are grateful to her. So she's not just grateful to you. That's a that's a nice relationship, as opposed to, you know, giving the dog a treat. Yes, no, and it feels good to be a giver. I think that's so smart to think about the collective and how to try to change the culture for our children. Because I do agree that that's, that's a big, that's an amazing, that's a meaningful step. I always complain because our neighbourhood, there are a lot of children that live in the neighbourhood, but rarely do I see kids out and about playing rarely. And so I'll walk with my kids looking for kids, for other kids around for them to play with. And I really don't see any kids like a predator where other children it's true. It's true. So here's another idea, which is to keep Friday afternoons free. Try to get some other friends in the neighbourhood, just one afternoon a week, don't schedule the Kumaon or the Mandarin or whatever that day. And it's Spanish lessons, the tutors Anish lessons, the sports and right, this is a sport, it's called being alive. Having fun making things happen, making friends, and the joy of having somebody in your neighbourhood that you can hang out with, well, they need to they need to be around these other kids for this to happen. And maybe it requires you going on, you know, nextdoor.com or talking to other parents at, you know, at school at some point, just saying like, Hey, how about this Friday afternoon thing, it's a great idea of replay. That's a great idea using next door to encourage to see if parents want to bring their kids over, I'm going to do that or not, hopefully trying to get a grant to start a little app where you can find like anybody else. I'm in 1137 Do anyone else and 113721 to let their kids play on Fridays? You know, I'll be on the stoop on 80th Street and anybody who wants to send their kids can? Have you gotten a lot of good feedback. It's lectro.org. It's let grow.org Yeah, which is fine. You know, and there's stuff for individual parents, too. It's basically the same ideas for individuals, as we recommend for schools. You know, let your kid do something new on their own and try to get you know, other parents who will let their kids play outside, when mom who just had her kid do the Lectro project, fifth grade daughter never walked home from school by herself. It's here in New York City. And she said, Well, how about it? And that's what the kid decided to do walk home with a friend. And I had the kid write something as long as the mom was writing to me, I was like, well, could you have your kid right? How was and the mom first wrote this poignant little story about how she, her daughter had been so sort of brave, and, you know, I guess assertive as a toddler, and then had grown more timid over the years and would say things like, I shouldn't have done that, or I should never have tried, and it was breaking the mom's heart, you know, to see the kid, both timid, and also blaming herself when things didn't go, Well, no matter what. And so she was surprised. But her daughter said, Yeah, I am ready to walk home. So she walked home with a friend and she said walking home was so scary that first time because she kept looking at all the cars and vans, you know, when something terrible going to happen, and she watched TV with her grandmother, so she knew that there were, you know, predators and shipwrecks and asteroids, she was just afraid of everything. And then she did it again. And she said, what was really strange is that this time, I still, you know, glanced over my shoulder, but I was almost as happy and carefree as my friend. And it's like, I mean, we send our kids to therapists for that exact breakthrough, right to be almost as carefree and happy as as a carefree happy child. And it's free. This is free. It's free for the schools, it's free for the parents, it takes no time. And so it's still slower than I would like. I mean, the Lego project and the Lego experience it just they're all there on the site. I wish every school was start doing them tomorrow have tried to get an NIH grant a therapist, we work with Stein get an NIH grant to test independence as therapy for children with anxiety. But of course, it's also preventative because you grew up thinking of course I can do things of course, I'm part of the world. Of course, my parents need me to bring them their coffee, of course, I am smart enough and strong enough and capable enough to do these things. So I feel like our message is very clear. Our methods are very simple. And our moment is now I think you I think you're right right on because we are doing our kids such a favour if we give them opportunities to be independent and to play without parents hovering over them. That's right. I was gonna say speaking to the mic, but you are speaking into the mic. You know what else I liked that you mentioned in the book, which I wholeheartedly agree with. And you talked about the media and the effects of media making us fearful. But I think for the sake of our children, I think it's so important to turn the news off when they're around. I think we do them such a disservice if we're constantly having the news on and they're hearing the news, because that will seep into the young brains. Yeah, yeah, there's no need. I mean, I think we should, and you're talking to somebody who worked at a tabloid for 14 years, I was at the New York Daily News. You know, there's a lot of bad news on that front page. But yeah, I'd say turn off the news. And why would you want death and doom as your wallpaper? Well said, well said, well, thank you so much. This has been so enlightening. so helpful. I so agree with your message. And I really hope that more and more people tune in, I think legro.org is phenomenal. And if there's any way I can ever help spread the message of legro.org Please let me know. Go to your school. Go to your kids school tomorrow. Hey, I was talking to this lady. She doesn't seem crazy. He's got no idea and it's free. And it's free. Well, thank you so much for your time, your expertise and all that you do. I am incredibly appreciative. More than more than you could know. Oh, wow. Okay, I think I know a lot at this point. This was fun. And I'm glad you're a paediatrician, spreading these messages. That's that's really important too. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening. And I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of Ask Dr. Jessica. Also, if you could take a moment and leave a five star review wherever it is you listen to podcasts, I would greatly appreciate it. It really makes a difference to help this podcast grow. You can also follow me on instagram