Episode 005: The “Worst Mom in America” on Raising Confident, Free-Range Kids with Lenore Skenazy of Let Grow

Our interview guest today has been a journalist and writer for many years and earned herself the title of “Worst Mom in America.” I’m so proud to interview her because she earned that title when she let her 9-year-old ride the subway alone and wasn’t afraid to write about it in a major publication. 🙂

Growing wings from the firestorm that ensued, she published a book called Free-Range Kids and has been an advocate for letting kids grow ever since. She encourages legislation to protect parents when they are making wise choices for their children’s independence and even has a nonprofit offering curriculum to schools and families with the sole purpose of encouraging adults to step back so that children can step up.

If you want to raise healthy, independent adults, this half-hour will enlighten and inspire you, edifying you to push back in the face of a culture that seems to be flying away with helicopter parenting.

Let’s ground that movement!

Lenore shares:

• How we got to this point and what the real crime statistics are
• What future-proofing is and how we can incorporate it into parenting
• The role of fear dosing in raising competent human beings
• Why Lenore and I think that using sharp knives isn’t even a risk but should be a requirement for childhood
• The root cause behind increasing depression and anxiety in our children’s generation
• How doggone easy it is to raise children a bit more like our own childhood went down

Please recommend the Let Grow curriculum to your school, or grab the parent version and raise the bar for your kids every year!

If you have a child over 13, send this scholarship contest to them! When I was in high school, I wrote essays for just about everything, especially the small/random ones, and got a LOT of scholarship money and even a trip to Europe out of it all! Including…and this is very ironic now…$1000 college money from Tylenol.

Can’t see the video? See how to raise confident children here on YouTube!

No time to watch the whole video? Here are the notes!

These timestamps align with the video, not the audio podcast (although they’ll be fairly close).

Raise a Confident Child with Lenore Skenazy

• 0:15: Today we’re talking about letting go and letting grow with Lenore Skenazy.
• 1:46: Lenore shares some of her background in journalism with us. She wrote a piece about her 9-year-old riding the subway alone that really stirred people up and started a free-range movement!

• 3:03: In the intervening years, Lenore has seen two predominant views at war. People condemning parents for things like letting their kids play alone in the yard and people speaking out against helicopter parenting. Which is winning?

• 6:36: In the food world we talk a lot about root causes. What’s the root cause of our culture’s paranoia over something bad happening to kids if they aren’t supervised at all moments?

All you parents out there are experts and it’s just the “experts” who have convinced you that you need someone else to help you. -Lenore Skenazy

• 10:38: We go on a little rabbit trail about kid-safe knives and Lenore shares a knife story a mother told her.

Keeping Kids Safe While Allowing Independence

• 12:45: We’ve all heard that crime rates are down from when we were kids, but many parents are skeptical. While it’s true that rates are lower, we live in a society that thrives on fear-based messages making it harder to feel safe.
• 15:12: Lenore teaches 3 Rs rather than “stranger danger.” Recognize, resist, and report are three steps to keep kids safe. She teaches kids that they can talk to anyone, but they shouldn’t go off with anyone.
• 18:02: Even if you fully support the idea of giving your kids more independence, it’s hard to deflect the naysayers. Lenore gives us some helpful talking points.

• 20:24: There’s been a steady uptick in the number of kids with anxiety and depression in our kids’ generation and no wonder! I’d be anxious if I was constantly told that things were too dangerous for me! Everyone needs to feel some internal control over their life including kids.

If you’re not there, your kids will figure it out. -Lenore Skenazy

Let Your Kids Grow!

• 22:53: Lenore has an organization called “Let Grow” and they have programs that schools can use to work with parents to grow independence in their kids. Lenore shares some stories of kids doing new independent things and how their perception changes.
• 26:36: Some of the things we’ve defined as “hard things” are very simple. You need to let your kids learn how to do them so they can see how conquerable these tasks are. Kids also need to be allowed to fail in order to learn.

• 27:00: We define the term future-proofing. It is looking to the future as a parent and seeing the different life skills your child will need to develop to be a functioning and thriving adult. There are so many things kids need to learn through play and experience that they don’t learn sitting at a desk.

• 29:08: Playing with other children without an adult organizing the activity is a crucial part of future-proofing. This teaches so many interpersonal skills.
• 31:06: Lenore shares one of the big takeaways she heard from a principal who did the “Let Grow” program at their school. It seems so small but made a notable impression.

Beneficial Risk When Raising a Confident Child

• 32:08: Whenever I do presentations the knives definitely freak parents out! How can we view knives as a beneficial risk? How must a middle schooler feel to be told that they’re so inept that they can’t use one of the most basic tools of our civilization?

To be treated like a baby when you’re not is very demoralizing. -Lenore Skenazy

• 34:28: We hear all kinds of scary stories about child snatchers, but Lenore has some scary stories of parents running into trouble while trying to raise free-range kids. Her goal is to change society so that this isn’t an issue anymore, but in the meantime get the law to define neglect more clearly and narrowly. Free-range parenting laws would protect parents and be good for CPS. It’s challenging to raise confident adults in today’s culture!

• 37:02: Every time your child does something that scares them a bit like climbing a tree or walking through the neighborhood alone, they dose themselves with a tiny bit of fear and it empowers them and builds up their tolerance for doing hard things.
• 37:58:  We end on a note of encouragement to empower you as parents.

Resources We Mention to Raise a Confident Child

• Lenore’s website
• Let Grow Independence Kit: FREE to download—there are ideas for things your kids to do independently and an explanation of how independence makes kids less anxious, more confident, and competent.
• Follow Let Grow on social media: Facebook and X
• Follow Lenore on social media: Facebook and X
• Lenore’s book Free-Range Kids (Amazon/Bookshop.org)
• Range by David Epstein (Amazon/Bookshop.org)
• Benefits of letting kids fail with Jessica Lahey
• Raising adults with Julie Lythcott-Haimes
• Challenges to raising adults in today’s culture

Lenore Skenazy is co-founder and president of Let Grow, a non-profit promoting childhood independence and resilience. Ever since her column “Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone” created a media firestorm, Lenore has been declaring that our kids are smarter and stronger than our culture gives them credit for. She is the author of Free-Range Kids, the book-turned-movement that got her the nickname, “America’s Worst Mom.” You may have seen her on The Today Show, The Daily Show, Dr. Phil, or her own Discovery TV reality show, World’s Worst Mom.

At Let Grow, Lenore oversees school programs, an online community, legislative efforts, and myth-busting, all promoting the idea that when adults step back, kids step up.

Plus, for the record, she used to write for Mad Magazine! A point of pride.