Helicopter Parents vs. Free Range Kids: Q&A with "America's Worst Mom" Lenore Skenazy
"If you google 'America's worst mom,' I'm there for 68…pages," says Lenore Skenazy, proprietor of the controversial parenting site Free-Range Kids, a book of the same title, and a syndicated columnist for Creators.
Since 2009, Skenazy has been waging a non-stop battle against helicopter parents, nanny-state nuisances, and a media consumed by scare stories about everything from child abduction to food additives to sports injuries. The result is what Skenazy calls "'worst-first thinking,' which is coming up with the worst thing that could possibly happen and then proceeding as if it's likely to happen."
Such a mind-set culminates in over-protective parents and a society that insulates children that has turned childhood from a time of fun and exploration into a version of 24-hour lockdown. "You have to admit that there's a little bit of risk in everything and that there's never been a safer time to be a child on this planet," says Skenazy.
Reason TV correspondent Kennedy sat down with Skenazy to discuss why? "you don't have to worry to be a good parent."
About 4.30 minutes.
Produced by Joshua Swain. Camera by Jim Epstein and Anthony Fisher.
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