Politics

Stop Criminalizing Parenting: Free Range Kids' Lenore Skenazy on Our Irrational Fears over Child Safety

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The kids are back in school, which means it's time to meticulously plan every moment of their lives and overreact about every real and imagined danger they face as soon as they leave the house…or so the conventional wisdom goes. 

Free Range Kids' doyenne, Lenore Skenazy, explains to Reason TV how to resist the forces of fear and authoritarianism that would turn many parents into criminals simply for occasionally trusting their kids to be safe out of their sight. 

"Stop Criminalizing Parenting: Free Range Kids' Lenore Skenazy on Our Irrational Fears over Child Safety." About 12 minutes. Produced by Anthony L. Fisher. 

Original release date was September 10, 2014 and the original writeup is below.

"People say, 'Now that I can get arrested any time I let my child play outside or walk to school, I won't do it. And that's the opposite of what Free Range Kids is about," says Lenore Skenazy, proprietor of the blog FreeRangeKids.com. She adds, "Free Range Kids is about getting so many kids outside, that it doesn't seem strange to see a child playing in the park." 

In a conversation with Reason TV's Nick Gillespie, Skenazy debunks the myth that children left unattended in a car for a few minutes are in mortal danger, decries "busybodies" who feel a civic duty to call the police when they see an unaccompanied child, and offers helpful tools for terrified parents on how to let their kids enjoy more freedom to explore the world.

About 12 minutes. 

Produced by Anthony L. Fisher. Camera by Jim Epstein and Fisher, with help from Brett Crudgington.

Music: "Applicant" by The Matt Kurz One (http://www.angelfire.com/crazy/mattkurz/)

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