Lenore Skenazy is the mother of the free range movement and has helped countless parents let go of the need to hover and fret. Julie talks to Lenore aobut how that has all changed now that parents are dealing with a pandemic that almost demands one hover over their children. How can parents still give their children some measure of independence while still keeping them safe from Covid-19?
Transcript
Julie:
Hi everyone. I’m Julie Gunlock, your host for the third episode of the Bespoke Parenting Hour. For those new to the program, this podcast is focused on how parents should custom-tailor their parenting style, to fit what’s best for their families themselves and most importantly, their kids. So today, I am really excited to be talking to a good friend. And also just my, I would say my parenting guru, Lenore Skenazy. Hi, Lenore?
Lenore:
Hi, you know I always think like, “Oh no, don’t come visit me and think, Oh, I’m going to find a perfect family with perfect kids.” That’s not true.
Julie:
Well, I have met one of your sons and he is pretty close to perfect.
Okay. I feel like I have to officially introduce you because I know you so well and I love you so much. And you had such a huge impact on my life. You have a profound, I would say impact on how I raised my kids. But for those three people who aren’t very familiar with Lenore who might be tuning in. I hope you are, I’m going to give you her official bio. Okay. So Lenore is a journalist by trade. She spent 14 years at the New York Daily News as a reporter turned opinion columnist and two more at the New York Sun. That’s gone now, right?
Lenore:
Oh my God, you’re talking about newspapers. This is a depressing way to start a podcast-
Julie:
I’m not done.
Lenore:
Well, I didn’t say the New York Sun doesn’t exist anymore. As of yesterday, the New York Daily News just got rid of its newsroom. Everything has to be done from people’s bedrooms. Yeah, that was Superman’s newspaper. If you watch the Superman movies and there’s this giant globe in the lobby, that was where I used to work. New York Daily News, which they called The Daily Planet in the movies. But really that was it. And now there’s no newsroom anymore as of yesterday.
Julie:
Yeah. That’s amazing. Okay. So in 2008, after her column, Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone, landed her on every talk show from the Today Show, to Dr. Phil. Lenore, then founded the book and blog Free-Range Kids. This is where I come in. This is where I really got to know Lenore. These launched the anti-helicopter parenting movement and garnered her the nickname, America’s worst mom. She got a promotion of sorts when Discovery Life tapped her to host the reality TV show, World’s Worst Mom. She’s lectured everywhere from Microsoft, at Dreamworks to the Sydney Opera House.
She received her BA from Yale and her master’s degree from Columbia. Geez, you’re no dummy. This is my favorite-
This is my favorite line from this bio, which I am certain you wrote. She lives in New York city with her husband and her beloved computer and her sons have safely flown the coop. So my connection to Lenore is obviously the Free-Range Kids, how to raise safe self-reliant children without going nuts and worry. I would say that your book Lenore launched what I would call a revolution in parenting. It’s certainly a movement of parents who are tired of constantly having to hover over their kids. And for me, I wanted to parent more in the way that my parents did, which involved a lot of please go away and entertain yourself another way of assertive capturing what you do.
I want to talk to you about that, but maybe you could first talk to us about this,, I say this new organization, it’s not really new, I think it’s been around for what? Four or five years now?
Lenore:
Let Grow.
Julie:
Yes, Let Grow. So tell us about Let Grow. And what are some of the projects that you’re working on with Let Grow?
Lenore:
Oh my gosh, what a lovely softball question. No, really appreciate it. So, here’s the deal, as you said, I let my son ride the subway. I started the movement the Free-Range Kids that said our kids are safer and smarter than our culture gives them credit for. And yes, I went around the world lecturing about it and people would node along, people agreed. They really loved their own childhood. They loved getting on their bikes and riding around town and not coming home until the streetlights came on. And yet they just couldn’t get to that point with their own kids. And that’s why call it the Anti-Helicopter Parenting movement is not fair because we all became helicopter parents. And we didn’t mean to
And when everybody is doing the same thing, it’s a culture shift. It’s not individual neurotic, overprotective parents going crazy would worry. It is a society that has started reinforcing a new parenting, I hate the word paradigm. So forget that I’m about to say it, parenting paradigm, parenting style, that said that your kids should always be with you or with another adult, because if they’re alone, they’re going to be unsafe or they’re not going to be getting enough enrichment that they can get ahead. So if you could, in the olden days you might’ve sent Julie and her siblings are out to play in the park, but now it’s you’re going to go to lacrosse, you’re going to go to gymnastics. You’re going to go to Kumon or Chinese or you name it. There’s something where an adult is going to be teaching you something.
Maybe you get a trophy, maybe you get a grade, maybe you get aligned to put on your resume as you’re applying for college. But what you don’t get is, free time, fun, figuring things out on your own, problem solving, when your bike breaks down and you’re three miles from home. So, the society had changed so much and there were plenty of parents who were sad about it, but they really didn’t feel that they could do anything differently because the social norms were constant supervision. And so three years ago, Jonathan Haidt, who wrote The Coddling of the American Mind and Peter Gray, who wrote the book Free to Learn which I highly recommend. I actually recommend all those books, as just really eye openers about how kids learn when they’re curious, when they’re doing something just for the fun of it, or just because they’re so driven to make this skateboard better.
And I’m going to work on the bearings and I’m going to select it this way or that, when they’re doing that, they are getting so much education and we just don’t recognize it as education because it’s not in a classroom. So anyways, Peter Gray, who wrote that book and Jonathan Haidt from The Coddling of the American Mind and Daniel Shackman, who was the longtime chairman of [Fire 00:06:59] which fights for free speech on campus, everyone was worried about, it seemed like kids were becoming anxious and depressed and fragile and sensitive. And these are not things that you want for your kids to be. You want them to be resilient. You want them to be able to shrug off some problems or solve them, or come to some resolution, compromise with their friends and go forward.
And the theory was that, maybe they were arriving on campus fragile like this because it had started sooner and who was fighting the trends, the parenting and psychological and educational trends that were taking away kids’ normal curiosity and resilience and replacing them with anxiety, depression. Of course, they found me and I’m very glad they did. And so together we founded, Let Grow. It’s not letting it go, which is… let grow is fine. Let it grow back. Let go is not what it is. And actually yesterday, believe it or not, I was on Dax Shepard. I got a brag here, and I was [inaudible 00:08:06] to Kristen Bell. And I said, “And it’s not even let it go.”
Julie:
That’s perfect.
Lenore:
How often do you get to do that? Yes, isn’t that cool? Anyway, so its Let Grow, and Let Grow, our goal is not to change minds. Our goal is to change behavior. Because there’s a phrase that I think says it, well, it’s not my phrase, but it’s that a lot more people change their minds after changing their behavior, then change their behavior after changing their mind. Like if you start exercising, you might think like, “Oh, everyone should exercise.” But thinking everyone should exercise and getting yourself to get up early and do that morning run, there’s a lot of downtime. There’s a big gap between the yeah, that makes sense and yeah, me doing it. So this is devoted to yeah me doing it.
So, Let Grow, trying to come up with and has come with some cool ideas that make it easy and normal and legal and fun and cool to give your kids some more independence. And we can talk about those, but basically that’s our mission, is to make first of all, to make people recognize take taking independence out of childhood is not a minor thing to take out, to replace it with car rides to the soccer field every day and never have them make their own game or explore in the woods, or even just stay home and noodle around with something just because of interest them. That’s a big, it’s like [inaudible 00:09:29], you can’t take out all these parts of childhood, the confusion and the disappointment and the betrayals and the excitement of adventure and exploring, and making a friend and doing something on your own, and still expect your kid to have a solid foundation emotionally, I’d say socially and emotionally.
So, we’re just trying to make people recognize independence is key and then make it easy to give it back.
Julie:
Well, I think first of all, I have been trying to do that myself and I really relate to this idea of believing it and then doing it. That’s a struggle that I’ve had. And I think I’ve been fairly successful with allowing my kids, but I do have an internal struggle and I do still worry. And I don’t know that you’ll get rid of that entirely, but-
Lenore:
Yeah. I wish.
Julie:
But I have in practice I mean, I really my kids do a lot of things independently and I’m proud of myself. But I want to go back to Let Grow and talk specifically about your outreach to schools. First, I just want you to talk a little bit about, it goes beyond helicoptering your own kids. And you know that I’ve dealt with this personally. What I think the most dangerous part of helicopter parenting, look, if people want to helicopter parent their kids, I don’t think it’s good and I don’t think it’s good for their kids and they’re going to go… you have this you have all these studies showing kids go off to college and have anxiety attacks because they don’t know how to live. They don’t know how to take care of themselves.
I may not agree with it, but if you want to do it, that’s fine. But it’s a matter of helicoptering other people’s kids. Our friend Bethany Mendell, she’s been attacked for leaving her kid in the car for two minutes. I was confronted by someone for leaving my kids in the car for 10 minutes and all the windows were down. It was a 60 degree day. And so talk a little bit about how much has your movement, and I really do think this is your movement. How much has it made an impact in that area of telling people that, mind your own damn business, I mean, obviously, and look, I don’t need to say this.
Obviously if you’re leaving a kid on a 90 degree day, 80 degree day with the windows rolled up or sunny day with the windows rolled up, we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about letting my eight year old ride his bike around the block or go run an errand for me, or young kids having summer jobs. I’m interested in… this is it’s become, parents are arrested, parents have been prosecuted. How much of an impact do you think you’ve made and also Let Grow has made in this area?
Lenore:
Right. Okay. So first of all, let’s talk about mind your own business. Because that’s really interesting because I feel like the public has been misled into the idea that leads to helicopter parenting that all children are in danger all the time, unless there is an adult with them. So we’re just redoing our crime statistics page because crime statistics are just kind of extraordinary. Crime has been going down so dramatically since the early 90s. And yet if you do not me, if Gallup does these polls to ask, is crime going up or down? And the majority of people still think it’s been going up. I’ve been thinking this all along as it’s been going down.
So, I feel like these busy bodies to a certain extent are first of all, they’re misinformed because if you turn on the TV or you look at Facebook, it seems like everybody’s being snatched off the street and sex addicts, which thank God isn’t true. And for the record, I spoke with the head of the Crimes against Children Research Center. That’s the center that does the reports for the FBI, crunches the numbers. And the head of it is a guy named David Finkelhor. And I asked him how many kids have been taken from their parents while they were shopping at Target or Ikea, just doing some regular old errand and taken from the parents, snatched away, before the parents could say, stop and sold into sex slavery. And the answer was, “I think you can guess from the tone of my voice, what’s the number? What do you think Julie?”
Julie:
Zero.
Lenore:
The number is literally zero. Just like the number of kids poisoned by a stranger’s candy. I mean, for some reason we really love believing that there’s just a lot of very normal looking situations that turn out to be as horrible as anything on earth, but really most times a normal situation is a normal situation, trying to poison your kids. Yes.
Julie:
Can I just also interrupt for one quick second say, there is this weird thing in Hollywood where I mean, there are entire shows dedicated to crimes against kids. There’s-
Lenore:
I know. It’s sickening.
Julie:
There’s a fetishistic kind of obsession with it that really I find disturbing. And frankly, I find a lot of things disturbing in Hollywood, but I think that also adds to it, like you say, the constant drum beat that this could actually happen when the number’s zero.
Lenore:
Well, first of all, it’s such an easy way to engage a viewer or a reader. I mean, I think of it as a cheap trick, really, if I’m on page three, this adorable child that we’ve just seen her celebrating her birthday and clutching her unicorn at page three she’s dead in a ditch while you’ve grabbed most readers, not me, but a bunch of readers. And certainly Liam Neeson has figured out how to fake an entire genre of snatching, which is to have your snatched while on a Parisian vacation and sold at a very stylish auction on a yacht to a Saudi Prince. It was as florid as the black and white movies of the silent movie era. Whenever he was worried about white slavery and yet people make their-
Julie:
Almost classy.
Lenore:
Yeah. It’s almost fun. Anyways, the thing is that your brain is taking in all this information and it would be great if all of us, well, it might be bad, but if we were totally rational, we would say, “That does not happen. Let me look at the statistics. I am going to do my research.” But we don’t. We go, “Oh, my God.”
Julie:
We’re not Vulcan. Yeah.
Lenore:
So, you see, I mean, I think there’s like 17 Liam Neeson movies at this point on the same theme. And boy, those Vulcan can have her.
Julie:
If I could do it over, why am I trying to reassure people? There’s so much more money to scaring people.
Lenore:
I know. I always felt that way too. It’s like, why did I write for you and said, “Lock your kids up, here’s why.” And then it’s like, “Did you hear about this horrible case? And once I saw a movie about that and don’t forget all the Law& Murder episodes.” So your brain is taking all this in. And then if there’s a case anywhere, any time. When I left [inaudible 00:16:36] ride the subway at age nine, I was getting calls from people saying, what about Aidan? It was a tragedy in New York. A kid was stolen from the bus stop, but it was in 1979. And this was in 2008. And so, if you have to go back that far to come up with a story, why are you thinking about that horrible thing instead of the intervening 30 years, when 180 million kids went to the bus stop and weren’t taken.
Julie:
Well, this pervades every aspect of our life. You mentioned the bus stop, I remember, gosh, my school district. The officials in my school district, they’re used to my complaints, but they canceled school over and over again for some minor snow. But then within the snow had been shoveled and they had packed the snow into these piles. Okay. And again, this is Washington D.C, we’re a Southern city. I mean, well, I live outside of an Alexandria, Virginia. We’re a Southern city and we don’t get a ton of snow, but we happen to get one of these freak storms. But again, the roads were cleared, everything was fine, but the snow had been piled near bus stops, which was genius. And so, they were afraid that kids would climb, then slide down, then get in the road and be run over.
Okay. And I say, “Okay, first of all, that’s probably not going to happen. But there’s probably some… you can’t make rules based on this like, “Oh, what if this happens?” Because you could also have a car lose control, like an elderly person who loses control of the car and plows into the kids. You could do this all day. You talk about sometimes the falling chandelier, the falling piano. It’s like you cannot walk down a street because you’re afraid something might hit you on the head. A bird could die mid flight and hit you in the head. But it’s interesting too. And I don’t know how much you want to talk about school, school reopening and I’m getting off track here. Because I want to get back to Let Grow and this is-
Lenore:
Yeah, but I forget, I want to go on to the story about the snow in front of the bus stop. Because what’s interesting is that, we reward the most fantastical imaginary… People who can come up with worst case scenarios are considered the most caring. And I call it worst first thinking. The thing that took me years to figure out is, when I was interviewed over and over again about why did you let your son ride the subway by himself? And I’d say he wanted to do it. We’re always on the subway. It’s statistically extremely safe. I knew where he was and what he was doing and we’d discussed it before and he could read a map, he speaks the language, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the question that followed up almost inevitably was, but how would you have felt if he hadn’t come home?
And what was interesting about that is that first of all, he had and then secondly, you know how I would feel, so why are you asking? And it took me a long time to realize I was not being asked in the sense of a normal question. I was being chastised because I had done wrong thing. I had thought about the literal odds and my kid and my city and my experience in the city and his readiness, as opposed to going to the worst case scenario. And to be considered a good parent and I guess a good school administrator now, you have to go to that dark place. First, I call it worst first. I can you think of the worst case scenario first and proceed as if it’s likely to happen?
So, when there’s some snow in front of a bus stop, and instead of saying, “Wow, it’s going to be inconvenient, or I guess they should stand a little to the side of the bus stop or-“
Julie:
Or trusting kids to stand to the left of the pile of snow. That’s one thing that I’ve always loved about you is, you truly love kids. It’s one thing that I think is so often not talked about is, how we treat kids like they’re stupid. And one thing you’ve always done is say, “Look, maybe we should trust these kids not to always make stupid decisions.” Kids are smarter than we give them… You say this all the time, kids are smarter than we give them credit for. And when you limit them, you limit their ability to test themselves. They don’t know. They maybe don’t make as good decisions because they haven’t had to.
This is worst case scenario. I don’t think a lot of it, I am in the regulatory field. I write about the regulatory world and what I don’t think people know though is, this worst case scenario is actually a way in which governments regulate. It’s called the precautionary principle.
Lenore:
Yeah, the precautionary principle. It’s like if it hasn’t been done before you better not do it because it might not be safe.
Julie:
Yeah. It’s the better safe than sorry rule. And you think about a mom, I’ve had this happen to me, I say, hey… this is very modern day. “Hey, can we do a play date?” And I found myself saying things like I don’t really want to host a bunch of dirty children in my house. How about they meet up at the local elementary school, ride their bike and then go shoot some hoops or whatever. And I would get the well is who’s going to be at the playground to watch them while they play. And I would get the sense of well, it’s better just to be safe than sorry. And in my mind, I’m hearing all of the ways of which I’ve heard products actually regulated in that way. It’s very stifling.
So, this sort of thought process, it’s way beyond parenting. It gets it to the marketplace, which I feel like that’s a whole other podcast, but this is really pervasive in our society, in all areas. And certainly we’re seeing that now with the reopening of the schools with Coronavirus, where you have people saying, “Look, if one child is infected, look, we can’t take that risk.” Meanwhile, we have some serious emotional and psychological problems going on. We have vulnerable sets of the population of children who are from poor families and minority students that don’t do well or don’t have the equipment to do virtual learning.
And so, it’s interesting to me that we have to consider that one most horrible outcome. And they’re setting policy on that. What are your thoughts about school reopening?
Lenore:
Oh my God, there’s so many thoughts. Actually I haven’t even believe it or not because my kids are older. I haven’t truly thought what I would do if school was reopening in my neighborhood and my kids were young. I can’t say what I would do. It’s as simple as that. I’m agnostic on that and I’m hoping that parents are all muddling through it and allowed to make their own decisions and whatever decision they make is legit. I mean, I think if you want your kids to go back to school and the school is open, that’s not a cause for shame. If you want your kids to stay home, if God forbid you make your own pod, you’re not being a terrible person, you’re just trying to figure it out. We all are.
There were so many other things that you’re saying that I kept wanting to think about and share. One is, better safe than sorry, is an expression that implies if you’re not safe, like whatever we’ve decided safe is, you will be sorry and that’s not true. It’s a bad framing. It makes the precautionary principle, which is don’t do anything if it hasn’t been done before because it might not be safe into something that makes sense because if you’re not safe, then you will be sorry, but it’s possible. And in fact, we wouldn’t have civilization as it exists today if people weren’t trying things that were new ideas and some of them weren’t safe and some people… there was Apollo 13, there was a… you can’t make any progress if your only goal is utter and complete safety and that anything that goes wrong will be caused for either a giant lawsuit or you being thrown in jail.
And so when you’re asking about schools thinking about what they can do and whether it’s reopening during COVID or letting kids come to school when the snow is piled up, yes, they are worried that they will be sued because they can’t be God and make sure that everything is perfectly safe and in every step of the way. Sure, you want to make your school safe and you don’t want to cover the floor in marbles, that’s a bad idea. And you don’t want to say, every kid gets a machete and now it’s time for recess. But I use it probably that and I might even be inclined to sue my school if that was what they did.
But the idea, the waivers all the time for everything, like when my kids were little and they were going to a “field trip” which was to the park that was like two blocks from the school, I had to sign a waiver as if they were going to Gambia, and you know what? They had to get there [inaudible 00:26:17] first, you know what? They have to learn a little language, it’s like, are they going by boat? You should have a boat. So the weird thing is, once again, we’re getting back to the idea that if you are not only cautious, I like caution. I might say, I am a cautious and nervous parent. Even though people think I’m not, but I like helmets and mouth guards and seatbelts. And I like vaccines, I like things that keep you allowed to live in your life.
Seatbelt doesn’t change, the fact that you’re getting there at the same time and a vaccine can prevent you from getting a disease. A helmet while you’re riding a bike. I pretty much think those are great. So those are choices and they make sense to me, but to be fantasizing that there’s something crazy about taking 25, nine-year-olds across the street to the park, to the point where it needs to be legally notarized before you’re allowed to do that. That’s turning regular life into this first of all danger zone and then legal minefield. And I would love to dial back from the idea that we should be seeing everything through the lens of what could go tragically wrong and who could we blame and how can we sue?
Julie:
Will you talk about the waiver. I know your kids are… you’ve got one still in college, so your kids are way past the phase of being in that. So you’re telling a story that’s quite old, that’s over a decade old or so. And you think about it that that culture of waivers and nervousness has been well established, by today that cautious culture has been well established. And you think now the coronavirus hits, I mean, of course, no parent should be shocked that schools are staying permanently closed. If they aren’t going to make parents give the results of a blood test and a security background test and sign a waiver and do all sorts of stuff to take kids across the street. They’re not going to open schools.
And so, we’re in this situation, what bothers me, and I don’t want this to turn into a school reopening conversation, although I swear I could talk to you for four hours about a variety of topics, but-
Lenore:
Actually, I’m really interested and really it is the issue of our day.
Julie:
It is.
Lenore:
And I am so agnostic. So talk to me about what you’re thinking makes sense and doesn’t.
Julie:
In the nature of this podcast, I’m talking about… I really believe that. And you have also influenced me in this way that I believe parents should be able to allow to parent the way they see fit. I think that’s really important. And you’ve always been so kind about like even with helicopter parents, you’ve been very sympathetic to them and said, “I get it. I understand why you’re nervous, but these things are good for kids.” So, what bothers me so much is, and this is I’m more talking about the public schools here, because I think there is a lot more flexibility in private parochial schools at least from my own experience talking to other parents. There is no choice. You will do what we have decided. And there is no flexibility for instance, my children-
Lenore:
Wait, is that true?
Julie:
It is true, well, at least in my case. So my school district-
Lenore:
Okay. Yeah, tell me.
Julie:
Well, my school district is not being flexible. And when I talk about flexibility, I’m talking about, for instance, I wrote an essay in the spring, actually in the summer, about how my kids fared with the virtual learning. And I’ll just give you a hint. They didn’t do well. Okay. And my youngest, who doesn’t have any learning disabilities. Doesn’t have any learning problems. He struggled so much. And it was because he just couldn’t. There would be for one little assignment, there would be four different programs. He had to watch a video. Then he had to watch a video over here. Then he had to do a questionnaire. Then he had to go to a different program to turn in the questionnaire.
Julie:
There were like four different… and it was just too much for him. He’s a little kid. He’s 10 years old. And also, they’re not online a lot. So, I asked the teacher, “I’d like some paper-based stuff. I have a printer, I have a computer. Can you please email me this stuff?” “Nope, Nope, Nope.” We need to do it the other computer. So what I’m talking about it’s because the school district itself has created a system, an online system, and that’s the way they’re doing it. And so, grading is this for this online format and turning things in is via this… so if you send a paper-based, well, you can’t then turn it into the teacher.
And look, I think some individual teachers, I just happened to get one who wasn’t really very flexible. Maybe there is but the bottom line is there’s still a grading system and it’s all virtual and they’ve all set this stuff up virtually. And what makes me mad is we have a distribution system in this country. A nationwide distribution system where schools are physically closed, and yet they’re still handing out meals. And I’m not arguing that, many of these kids need these meals. If there is a logistics system already set up a distribution system, a very sophisticated distribution system set up to hand out baloney sandwiches. Why can’t teachers curate as some paper-based products that kids can then get, and then they can be turned in. I just don’t believe it’s not possible.
And the bottom line is, there’s not even conversations about it. And so I think for kids who don’t really do well in an online format and a virtual format, I wish that there were more choices. I wish that there was more flexibility about this, and I’m not asking, look, I also want my kids to go back to school. I have thought about this. I’ve looked at the data, just like you with crime statistics. I’ve looked at the data on the amount of children who have been hospitalized, the number of deaths, the number of infections. And I am confident that this is not a disease that is really risky for kids.
And so with certain measures in place, with handwashing stations and limiting the number of kids in the classroom and wearing masks. I’m perfectly fine doing that. They’re doing it in South Korea. They’re doing it in many Asian countries. They’re doing it in Europe. And so I’m kind of frustrated by this sort of, we’re closing the schools. But at the same time, I understand. And I’m not going to argue that, in light of that, I wish there was more flexibility for parents. So that parents who do have kids who struggle with virtual. And frankly, you know what I would be really nice Lenore? is a little bit of sympathy. Sympathy.
I write the school administrators and there seems to be no sympathy about kids who are struggling. One of my children has an IEP, which is an individualized education plan. And there’s a good amount of data out there and research that shows certain kids have more trouble than others with the virtual learning. And one of these groups is kids with IEPs, ADHD, autism, ADD, and my school district just announced that even IEPs are going to be, they say they’re going to meet the IEP requirements with virtual learning. And so it just frustrates me that even for that demographic, the ones that are most vulnerable in this situation, not to the disease, but actually to not learning.
I’ve gone on a long time here. And I think if you hear me talking and I want to ask you about this, and this will kind of get us back on track. You can tell I’m very worried academically. I’m worried about what the school is going to teach them, they’re going to walk away… I read a Washington Post article that you wrote about, try and very respectfully telling parents to just take a deep breath and relax a little bit about the loss of education. One thing I tried and I try to hear your voice in my head when I’m freaking out about this stuff is, there’s other ways that kids can learn, talk to parents because I feel like I’ve just freaked everyone out with this [inaudible 00:34:40]. Talk to me about how your kids learn in other ways, it’s not necessarily what they’re going to learn on some virtual learning application from their school.
Lenore:
Sorry. I just thought I heard my husband in the other room, totally not needed in this family. So, what’s interesting to me is that, we did a study. We surveyed 800 parents and 800 kids ages eight to 13 not the same parents at the same kids, and then we did it again twice during the pandemic so far. And we asked parents questions that weren’t about academics. We asked them, “Are you seeing your kid develop any new interests? Are you are they doing things independently now or are they helping around the house?” We gave parents a list of adjectives angry, disappointed, proud, amazed. Half were good and half were bad.
And that was the question of how do you feel when you’re looking at your kid, and the parents for the most part the five top adjectives were all the good ones, amazed, proud, surprised, delighted. And I don’t think they were surprised and delighted by the academics going on in their homes, because a lot of people were frustrated and a lot of people were surprised at how short the lessons were or how confusing it was. Like you were talking about to figure out, this thing is on YouTube and this thing is on Google and what are we supposed to do? And how do we hand it in? But what they were amazed by is the emergence of I would say, a quirkier or maybe a more self-directed kid than they had seen before, because before there was no time for that kid to emerge.
If you have to get up early and go to school, then do your homework and get to soccer. And then there’s the reading log. And don’t forget to make the [direma 00:36:44] and then the next day, it’s all the same, except for soccer substitute piano, or Kumon. A lot of kids’ days were structured and supervised by someone else, by an adult teaching them something. They learned those things, they learned soccer and they learned, Mandarin, but they didn’t figure out something that just innately or intrinsically interested them. Everything was extrinsic. And so I guess I rapped on a list. So on the kid survey, it turned out that the kids we gave them a list of adjectives as well, bored, angry, happy, I’m sad. I can’t remember what all of them were, but I can tell you, number one was bored, but then number two was happy.
And at the very bottom of the 10 was, sad. And I think the boredom and the happy are two sides of this double helix. They never had a chance to be bored. They were picked up at 3:07 and then deposited at soccer at 3:22. And then they had their soccer practice until five. And then they got in the car and they were doing their homework or playing on the iPad. And then they got back and there’s time for a fast dinner before all the other homework and stuff. So when I asked kids, when we, as you’d say, Let Grow, ask kids, what new thing are you doing? Just for fun, not for school. And I’m just going to read you a couple of them.
I learned how to braid hair, how to clean it, toilet, how to dress SpongeBob, how to roller skate, coding, corn causes mucus in the body. That was one of my favorites. I learned about owls and where they live and how they hunt. You’ll like this one, socialism is bad because you cannot get something for nothing. Yeah, really, maybe it was yours. How to put on a new door handle, how to use a microscope, cooking, singing, reading, how to tie my shoes, tricks on the trampoline. And my favorite one of all, I learned my sister has a boyfriend.
Yeah. But I mean, it really reminded me of an old fashioned house, dogs are colorblind, I learned how to make noodles, this thing floats that thing floats and really that is all education. And we don’t recognize it as such because it’s not an SAT question. What is the corn do to body? Or can you put on a door handle? Yes or no, please send a video. And yet think about, so you’re putting on a door handle, you’re learning how to use the tool, how to figure out what [inaudible 00:39:23], how to deal with the fact that now it’s turning backwards and how do you make it go the right way? And so that’s frustration tolerance. It is experiential learning. It is dexterity. It is seeing something through to from ideation to completion.
And when you put it in these sort of boring teachering words, then you can see it. But for the most part, I feel bad that parents are, I know have been sort of taught something is educational when there’s a test. And when I’ve taught in the classroom and there’s a test and when you can see the kid’s grade through the school’s portal. And in fact there are societies, before honors and in some places still that don’t even have a word for play versus learning because when you’re a kid and you’re watching what adults do and you’re imitating them, that’s really fun. And you’re driven to do that, but by the way, so is it play or is it learning? And we have separated the two so far that when we see kids doing something just for fun, we don’t even give them or what’s happening any credits.
And so, the thing I would love parents to relax into a little bit is that, when your kids are doing something just for fun, and that includes some video games where you’re learning, strategy and cooperation, and you’re having this social, emotional connection to your friends on the team for your learning frustration tolerance, because it’s hard to get to the next level. And you do have to put in my God, my kids are putting a lot of time in, working your way up from, from level A to level B. Those are not nothing. And so even for you, your kids are struggling. If you had to take your kids out for a while, or if your kids get bad grades for a while, because they’re just not going to hand in these things, because it’s too hard to… you can’t hand in a printout and you’re having trouble with the online portal.
Remember that all education is not school and watch what your kids are getting into and give them the time. And if you have, I’d say don’t get so much into what they’re doing, that it becomes your project rather than theirs. Like, “Oh, I see you like to dress SpongeBob, let’s download all the Disney characters and everybody from Nickelodeon. And in each day you can draw three of them and I’ll give you a gold star.” That’s sort of taking it away from them. And so if you can, on the other hand, if there’s some art supplies around, or if you’ve got some blank sheets of paper, which apparently you do, since you can’t print out any of your answers for your kids to test, do that and that’s it.
In a way we’ve had so much school that we missed the other part of education. So now we’re going heavy into the self-directed education.
Julie:
Well, this is an incredibly, I will say personally, if I weren’t on a podcast right now, I’d probably burst into tears because that is incredibly helpful to me because I am stressing and I am a little bit helicoptering on their education. I am a little bit hover like, and I can see that I’m not using the skills I have as a free ranger in terms of play and learning or in experiencing life. I’m not free ranging with school. I’m really hovering. And this is very instructive for me. And it’s interesting. I talked about, how I thought you really started a revolution for raising kids, but this is in some ways, this Coronavirus and school shutdowns and just the togetherness, the constant togetherness.
It’s interesting how it might also, we may see a bit of a revolution in parenting and in terms of how kids learn. And I hope so because this has been a learning curve for me too. And when I think about that list that you provided, my kids have baked bread. They all know how to make their own breakfast because, I work in the morning and I say, you get up and you take care of yourself where it used to be, they came down, we have this little breakfast bar and then I would make their breakfast and then I’d pack their lunch. And then they get ready and the husband would make sure they got dressed and down and pack their backpacks. And then I give them their lunches and we have this very strict routine. And now I’m like, it’s not a restaurant, get yourself a bowl of cereal, make yourself some toast. But one of my son’s favorite accomplishments is that, he can make an over easy egg.
Lenore:
That’s good. That’s really hard.
Julie:
That is really hard, I know adults on some of these cooking shows, they tell the person like, make a perfect either sunny-side, but really over easy because it’s the flipping. Can you-
Lenore:
Yes, sunny-side is not yet. Sunny-side is like half of it.
Julie:
Yeah, exactly. If you can flip it and not break this delicate egg yolk. So, that is just a huge accomplishment. And basically the reason he learned to do it is because I was too busy, make your own dang egg, was the mantra for me. And so it is really important that parents remember… it used to be, I read all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books when I was little. Of course, they walked to school and they had a one room school house, but she did an awful lot of tours with Paul and Paul gave her an awful lot of things to do. Same with, I just read Where the Red Fern Grows with my youngest. Have you read that Lenore?
Lenore:
No I haven’t.
Julie:
Okay. Now that is like-
Lenore:
I just recently read for the first time, last year, Little House on the Prairie. And tell me about Where the Red Fern Grows. And then I will remind you about something about Little House on the Prairie, you got wrong.
Julie:
Well, you should definitely read Where the Red Fern Grows because this is about a young boy, I think he’s probably 13, 14, maybe 12. I don’t know, but he’s around that. He’s a very young boy and he saves up his own money and walks to town to buy two Coonhounds. And these are like the hunters and the hunting dogs that, they make that crazy noise and he hunted raccoons-
Lenore:
How do you know that from a book?
Julie:
Well, they actually, they write out that sound and then it’s so funny, I read it to the kids. And then we heard a Coonhound in the neighborhood. And I’m like, “Oh my God.” We were all making the sound because we were so excited to actually hear an actual Coonhound. They hunt raccoons and the raccoons would go into a tree and they called it… when the hounds find-
Lenore:
They freed the raccoon?
Julie:
Well, they barked at the raccoon, they can’t kill the raccoon. Anyway, so this boy would skin them and he’d sell… this it’s not your place in 2020, okay. This takes place at 1920 and he’d sell the pills. And he made his own money and his… And there were moments where his mom would get very nervous. And there were some terribly… one boy actually dies in the book. It’s a really exciting book, but talk about ultimate free ranging and talk about a kid who learns his limits and who takes risks. It’s a fabulous, fabulous book. I don’t remember what the point of this story was. I don’t remember why I told you that I read that book.
Lenore:
I think it was that he was getting a lot out of what he was doing and the saving of the money and having a goal.
Julie:
There was no conversation, there was no discussion of schooling and an arithmetic and things like that. But my goodness, this kid was learning a tremendous amount about life. So tell me about the little… so you just read the Little House?
Lenore:
Yeah, just read Little House on the Prairie. And first of all, what a great book. I really, really enjoyed it. And secondly, they weren’t going to a school house. They were going nowhere, the year that the Little House on the Prairie book occurs. It says they had left Wisconsin, maybe they’d been going to school there and before they move on because that Little House on the Prairie I hate to be a spoiler, but people they leave it and they’re going on to their next adventure afterwards. But so that’s a year when basically she and her sister, I’d say like eight and six years old. And then they have a little baby sister’s like two or three. Go outside and they taste the Prairie hand, whatever those are.
And sometimes they go with their dad places, and sometimes they do a little sweeping of the chimney or the hearts or whatever, but mostly it’s free time. And look at, that’s the story of a woman who went on to write one of the best selling series of all times looks like she missed an entire year of school. We really believe that second grade must follow first grade and then third grade must come and you have to learn certain things by certain milestones. And the portals that parents have now, you’re not only see their grades. You see how they did every day behaviorally and how they did on each spelling quiz. And it is micromanagement of a very narrow band of learning that we have exalted above the rest. And I don’t even think teachers think that that’s all there is for kids to learn. I think teachers love to see children blossoming.
So, I have to put in a word here for one of the Let Grow initiative is, a free project for schools or can be done at home. It’s called the Let Grow Project, what a clever name. And what it is, it’s telling kids that your homework assignment is to do something on your own. And when a school sends that home, either by remote learning or in class learning, and there’s this little piece of paper that goes home, it does two things. First of all, it pushes the parent to do something. We were talking about how behavior change is really the catalyst for all change. So the kid says, well, I want to walk the dog and maybe it’s too dangerous a neighborhood. No, but you can cook dinner or you can do your ovaries, the egg or whatever. So they’re going to do something independently.
And then it also frames it for the teacher and for the parents, this is part of their education. And I just have to tell you a little story about a third grade teacher who did this actually have Title One school. Title One is where a lot of kids get free or reduced lunch. A lot of immigrant kids at this particular school. And he said, but by third grade, you can often tell, who’s going to sink, and who’s going to swim at school. And I didn’t realize it happens that soon, but he said it does. And yet when you introduce Let Grow project, everyone can swim because, okay, you’re struggling with multiplication, but you learn to ride your bike without training wheels.
And this kid learned how to make tortillas. And this kid taught her sister, how to do a cartwheel. And there was one kid who came in every week or so, and told the class what was happening with his… he was making an amphibious vehicle out of a little trikes truck and what happened to think, well, let’s say, but next week I’m adding the noodles. What happened this week? Well, I added the noodles, but then one fell off now what? So, you could succeed, even if you’re a “bad student” you have all these other assets and interests and curiosities and capacities that are never celebrated at school because they’re not something that’s on a test and it’s not something that everyone is doing the same thing.
So all these kids would bound up the stairs to tell Gary, this amazing teacher, what they had done for the Let Grow project school becomes a place, even for those who were struggling a place of success, because you can say, “Hey, I got the thing to float, and the motor’s working or whatever.” So, it allowed the kids to succeed. And then the other surprise benefit for Gary, was that he doesn’t speak Spanish and a lot of the parents of these kids don’t speak English. And so there was very little communication between him and the families. But once the Let Grow project was introduced, then actually a lot of the dads started texting him photos, “Look, this is my daughter making the muffins. This is my son helping me. Here’s the hammer. He was painting the room or whatever.” And boys making muffins and girls hammering.
But the point is, that suddenly even, it was sort of like who’s going to sink or swim as parents, and they all got a chance to swim. And so now, because of remote learning, we have the, it’s called the Let Grow Independence Kit, which is the same thing. It’s a list of ideas of things the kids could do at home, everything’s free and an explanation to the parents that this is learning, and a little form that if the kids want to fill out, looks like a list. I did this and here’s how I felt and here’s what it looked or whatever. So that’s it. I just want to say that there is all this learning that we’ve forgotten about all the Laura Ingalls Wilder and Where the Red Fern Grows and third graders Title One school learning, that can go on once we widen our vision away from learning is only what’s on the worksheet.
Julie:
This is just so encouraging Lenore. And before I conclude this podcast, which honestly, it’s very hard to, because I write notes and I’ve got about 17 things to follow-up on questions and I-
Lenore:
I had notes too, The tax extent of mentality we haven’t talked about.
Julie:
Frustration, what’d you say? Frustration tolerance? Is that not just the key phrase for this entire last four months? So both for kids and for-
Lenore:
Okay. Go on. I’m sorry. I just want to jump in frustration tolerance is also what your son has learned making eggs over because they always work.
Julie:
Yes, absolutely. And I have learned frustration tolerance allowing him, because this is the thing that I will end it now, but I will tell you, I am a little bit of a nut on cleanliness and organization. And so when I say, Oh, they would come and sit down at the breakfast table and that wasn’t a chore for me. That was a control thing for me. I was able to… because there’s plenty of parents who get their kids up from school and say, “Get yourself ready.” I know parents who just wave goodbye from the bed okay, to their kids who are off to school. And so part of it was a control thing for me. And so it’s been a real challenge to let them make a bit of a mess in the kitchen. And I’m trying to explain to them, they need to clean up. But that’s been a bit of frustration tolerance learning for me as well.
But I really do think that this podcast has been so helpful just frankly to learn more about your movement. And for the parents that are tuning in it will really help them remember… Perspective is a very big thing for me with this podcast. At the end of the podcast, I always and I have one today. I always talk a little bit, I give some historical perspective. Basically, I tell horrible stories of things that happen to children 100 years ago. So that parents remember that put things in perspective, for instance, talk about crime. What was crime like in the 1970s? Not good.
So that is one thing is, is giving parents and perspective on this during the COVID-19 school shutdowns, during all this staying at home and mask wearing that kids learn in other ways. So I really want to thank you if you can just before we hang up here, if you could tell everyone where to reach you and where to find all your stuff and talk about a little bit about reaching, going to the let Grow website, that’d be great.
Lenore:
Oh, sure. So I would say go to the Let Grow website. What a good idea let’s grow is L-E-T-G-R-O-W.org. Although, we did get that calm. So they’ll get to us either way. If you want to write to me, if you have a story or a question I love, especially hearing stories of growth but I’m open to anything. It’s [email protected] and that’s it. The Let Grow project and the Let Grow Independence Kit are there. Or if you write to me and you want me to send you the link, okay. I will, it’s really easy. And like I said, everything’s free. So we’re a non-profit and we are just dedicated to making independence recognized as an important part of childhood because without it, we feel the kids are not getting everything they need and to make children who are growing up thriving. And a little bit curious, a little bit spunky giving them independence, especially during COVID seems like a great idea.
Julie:
Lenore, thank you so much for coming on. I hope not to bug you too much, but I’m probably going to ask you to come on a lot because I think I feel like this is therapy for me and-
Lenore:
[inaudible 00:56:55] for what it is, you probably won’t even air this. It’s just stuff like, “Oh, I’m fine”
Julie:
Exactly. I actually get paid a salary to do this. And then I get therapy on the side. This is all a lie. I’m actually just on the phone with you. Tim the producer hung up hours ago. So anyway, thanks for coming on and we’ll talk to you again soon.
Lenore:
Okay. Thank you, Julie. I love talking to you too. Thanks a lot.
Julie:
So I think that conversation with Lenore really as a nice segue into, to how I’m going to end the podcast today, which I always end my podcast with a little bit of a historical perspective here. I think it helps people realize that we’ve got it pretty good nowadays. And so It was interesting, I was looking at the school closures and I was curious how it was handled in 1918 during the Spanish flu, another global pandemic. And I found this article in the Washington Post May 13th called during the 1918 flu pandemic, at home learning meant little schoolwork. So I think this’ll be a little reassuring and again is a nice tie in with what Lenore was saying.
So, the Washington post reporter interviewed Debbie Schaefer-Jacobs, she’s the curator in the Division of Cultural and Community Life at the Smithsonian. And she says that, teachers probably sent reading assignments home, but school work was minimal. And again, it’s important to know that schools did close, they fully closed during that the 1918 flu. So she said again, that teachers probably sent reading assignments home but schoolwork was minimal. If students wanted to practice spelling, they used alphabet or speller boards. I’m not really sure what that is, but they were a popular learning toy at the time. And then she says outside of school, kids kept busy with chores. Many children also had jobs from delivering newspapers to helping on farms and even working in factories that began to change in the 1930s.
I think that’s a good thing when the government enacted laws regulating how much children could work. But it is interesting that in those days learning was different, teachers probably saw that, okay, I’m going to send some reading home, maybe some lists of books that they should be reading. Many kids probably read the Bible. But again, teachers probably recognize that kids were going to learn in other ways by actually doing work and chores and things around the house and around the farms. So I hope that offers you a little reassurance. Obviously schools are doing a lot more, we may not agree with the form, the way in which it’s being done, but certainly there’s a lot more instruction given to kids than there was 100 years ago. So I think that, that’s a nice way to conclude this podcast today.
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