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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[crypter]

Back in the 80's I was what you would call a free range kid, we were allowed to play deep in the backwoods as long we came back before it got dark and those are my fondest childhood memories. 

[Jeanjellybean]

I remember parents criticizing my single mom for letting my sister and I walk to school at the ages of 9 and 7. To be clear, the school was literally a 5 minute walk from my house in a neighborhood where hundreds of kids were walking to the same school. One parent also didn't let my sister and I cross the street until she had walked to the middle of the crosswalk to let cars know that kids were crossing. Not sure why she did this because it was a four way intersection with a stop sign and my sister and I had already looked both ways. Some parents are way too paranoid these days.

[bobaldo]

So-called "free range" parents are the ones raising their kids normally. What is happening with parenting these days is symptomatic of paranoid psychosis..

[missxmarvel]

Overprotecrive parents should be in the top 10 of the worst parents you can have. It's like you are treating your kid like a parttime prisoner and he chances are high that they will fail in almost everything.

[jessicaalcorn]

...someone should tell helicopter parents that no one wants to steal their crappy kids...

lol.

[JCDealy]

Crazy as it sounds, my parents droped my friend and I (12 and 11 years old) at a meadow in the Sierra's for a week (on our own).  We hiked, fished and camped... And those were the best summers.

[mler]

Something the free range parents tend not to mention, is that a lot of these abductions happen because the child was not equipped. Smart a sugar scenarios are rare. Most kidnappings happen when kids, say, accept a ride home, or don't know what to do in a situation when something isn't right. When I was a kid, we were told not to accept rides, who to call if something goes wrong. I have, in fact, been confronted by adults, maybe their intentions weren't so great, but I was equipped.

[rodneywalker]

my friend got mad at me because I told her, your children has no freedom, she goes to school games with them, the skating rink on Friday nights, trick or treating at Halloween, goes through their school back packs calls them through out the day packs their lunches, their in the 4th and 6th grade, parents need to teach independence, im so glad my parents taught my how to stand on my two feet at an early age!

[snzegaming]

She's 100% right though! We live in a culture where the media rules our thoughts, hence always thinking in the worst case scenario!

[TheNakedWombat]

Never been a helicopter parent in my life and I feel sorry for those kids who have those parents.

[smidermann]

Wow. My Brother and I grew up as a so called Free Range Kids! Man did we have fun!!!!

[MsRandomBubble]

I guess I'd be a free range kid then. I still don't see how this is an issue, decades of children were raised like this, and those are the now grown adults that aren't asking mom and dad for help all the time. These are the people that are fiercely independent, where as the generations that are being raised by helicopter parents are the ones that can't handle adult life without going to mommy and Daddy for help.

[sweethearts]

I agree with her 100% I've found that children with these types of parents are far more successful in life. I'm a mother now and when I apply this to my child he has so much confidence until my family steps in. I wish my mother would just let me go!

[memo-fqps]

America: Where letting your kid walk around the neighborhood by herself is considered child abuse but whipping your kid with a belt isn't

[glitterycuties]

I never understand the parents who let there kids wear nothing but won't let them walk across the street by them self

[amberbante]

I've got very bad anxiety because my grandmother, who raised me along with my mom, and was very overprotective of me when I was a kid. Her worse fears for me were abduction ( something about people from foreign countries would kidnap blond haired little girls for prostitution),   getting sick ( I wasn't allowed around other kids if they had even a little sniffle, and I wasn't allowed out in hot weather as she feared that I could die of heat stroke as her mother did-despite the fact that her mother had died of complications of scarlet fever brought on by heat stroke ), and a pre 9/11 fear of terrorists ( she wouldn't allow me to play kick the can as she feared a terrorist might put a bomb in a can that might blow up).

[LongLiveInspiration]

she seems really smart and i agree with her... why is she a bad mom? that's a horrible label. 

[terradraca]

Funny how often it's the sanest person in the room who everyone calls crazy.

Keep up the good work Lenore.

[blingbling]

My ex-wife didn't back off our boys as they got older, and she degenerated as a person. So I kicked her out to make her get a useful education and a job and stop hovering around our boys. It worked well for the two youngest, but the oldest has no self esteem and is very arrogant and unhappy with three degrees. Two out of three is OK.

[TheNakedWombat]

If you live in a place that actually is dangerous, then I would not let my kids roam too freely. A matter of making choices based on reality instead of the world as told by the media.