Interview with Lenore Skenazy of Let Grow and Free-Range Kids

Welcome to Where Parents Talk tv.

And today we are joined by Lenore Skenazy, who is many things.

Now Lenore is the president of Let Grow, a not for profit organization promoting childhood resilience and independence.

She's also the founder of Free Range, the movement.

Lenore, thanks for joining us.

Thank you, Leanne.

I'm happy to be here.

And let's start with that nine year old.

How's he doing these days?

I just got off the phone with him.

First of all, he's 22.

He's about to take his truck driving license test.

So you never know where your kids are going to go.

But I can tell you for sure that he was interested in taking the subway.

Now he's interested in trucks.

There's been a wheel involved in the things that interest him along the way.

And so back then it was just a furor over that blog.

And when we spoke to you, we're talking about the hysteria of the world that we lived in.

We're talking nine years ago.

Where are we on that hysteria?

Richter scale, let's call it hysteria, right?

There should be a word for that, the hysteriometer.

I'd say we're pinging probably at 11, maybe 12 at this point.

I wouldn't say that our fears for our kids have gone down noticeably in those years, although I do think that Covid has provided a strange pause and re envisioning of our kids in that they've had so much free time for the last, I don't know, six months or so that a lot of parents who had their kids doing things pretty much all day in some kind of structured supervised setting just because that's what parents do.

You know, you have your kid go to school and then after school, if you're working or if you want them to have a class there and some coach session or some, you know, some class or some sport and then they come home and then you have to read the reading log with them and fill in all these things and make sure they're doing their homework.

So when all that disappeared and was replaced with just this giant swath of free time which no parent could supervise the entire time because we're talking 24 hours a day, I think parents started seeing their kids in a new way.

And in some sense some Sense, it was liberating for everybody.

I mean, I think the kids became actually kind of quirky during this free time because they started figuring out their interests because they were so bored.

And there was no school and no soccer, no kuma, no karate.

And most of the parents were saying that, like when we gave them a list of adjectives, you know, good ones and bad ones, dismayed, excited, despairing, angry, whatever, excuse me.

The number one thing the parents said was they were.

God, what was it?

They were impressed.

And then number two was that they were grateful.

And number three was that they were surprised in a good way.

And all five of the good adjectives were above the five of the bad adjectives.

And we had given them randomly, so it wasn't like they were just chicken, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, like we had done.

And I think that they were impressed because first of all, a lot of them said that their kids were helping out more around the house than they had done, which you can understand, because now, first of all, some parents told me that they had time to teach their kids, this is how you do it.

You know, sometimes there's a famous, I don't know, an old story of a man who is sawing down a tree and it's taking forever, and it's just.

It's like he's sweating and it's.

He's groaning, and somebody comes by and says, oh, my God, you know, what a dull saw.

Why don't you just, you know, sharpen your saw and it'll be so much faster and easier.

And the guy says, I can't take time to sharpen my saw.

I gotta chop down this tree.

And that's sort of what parents were like with their kids.

It's like, I can't teach them how to vacuum and how to do the dishes and do the laundry.

I've got to get all this done because tomorrow I have to get them to school at 7 in the morning.

And so suddenly the kids were learning.

They were learning how to cook, they were learning how to babysit, they learned how to ride their bikes for sure.

But.

So I feel like as much as the culture had been going towards more and more supervision and more and more structure of kids and more and more new things to worry about, when all hell broke loose and all laws were off, all bets were off, parents saw their kids as much more competent, in a way mature than they had been treating them before, so it's yin yang.

Interesting.

So in other words, the pandemic has sort of been beneficial in terms of providing or encouraging.

Yeah, recalibrating in terms of independence and resilience.

Because those two words, I mean, are in the, are in our vernacular every single day of the week now.

Right.

Because we're talking about a global pandemic, et cetera, et cetera.

So what needs to be done to sustain that?

Do you think that's so interesting?

Well, in one sense, I think it will automatically sustain itself because once your kid goes from crawling to standing, you don't say, oh, go back to crawling now.

It's just you've seen them in a new light.

They've seen themselves, they are more independent than they were before and off they go.

So I can't imagine that parents suddenly think their kids can't make their lunches anymore and that we have to go back to doing that or that they can't even make their fun and so that every afternoon has to be filled with an activity.

I do think that I don't know how quickly a structure disappears after it's been, you know, put in the attic for however long the pandemic takes.

I don't know if right after, you know, there's a vaccine or a cure or whatever, if all the after school sports programs are going to spring up again and all the travel soccer leagues and all the, know, the testing prep or whatever.

I do think that between kids liking some of their independence, I mean, I think they miss their friends, but I don't think they miss being in an activity that they had to go to every second, including school.

So I think kids are going to have developed so much of an inner life or a separate life from their old, you know, schedule that I don't think they will go automatic or willingly back to it all.

And I think also if they've come up with something that they can do that's free, that's good for parents and where they can take care of themselves, then I don't think parents will feel as much of a need of sending them off to some activity every afternoon and something all weekend to keep them occupied if they've learned how to occupy themselves.

One thing that let grow we're trying to work on is to document all the growth that is going on in kids these days, all the different weird activities that they've started and all the blossoming that parents have seen so that we can remind parents of it when, you know, when the tug of the old starts pulling at them.

It's like, wait a minute, don't forget, you know, this is the kid who learned how to decorate cakes.

So why don't you let her have, you know, at least the weekend free to pursue some of that?

So it's interesting, when we last spoke 11 or nine years ago, social media barely existed.

Obviously, to the extent it does now, et cetera.

What kind of advice could you offer to parents today about how to foster independence in their children.

Vis a vis social media?

Or what is the, you know?

Well, because a lot of kids have this whole other life that you alluded to that the parents might know nothing about, but that's, you know, as they get older, but when they're younger, like, I don't know, we live in a very different world.

And not every parent is that comfortable still with everything that's out there, allowing their kids to be independent.

There's still a very big percentage of people out there that like to helicopter parent for whatever reason.

So how do we.

Yeah, I want to unpack one phrase because people think that it's my phrase.

People think that I'm the anti helicopter parent lady.

And I really feel like I am anti helicopter culture that has made us so afraid or made it's almost forced us to helicopter.

I got a letter this morning from a mom of three in South Carolina where they are going back to school, and she wants her kids to be able to walk home.

You know, she lives close enough, she trusts her kids, whatever age they are.

She believes that certainly with the oldest, with the other two, they should be walking home.

And the school will not let that happen.

And the school says she must come, or an adult, you know, an approved adult must come and pick them up.

And so here's a mom who does not want to be a helicopter parent, who will look exactly like a helicopter parent if you see her tomorrow, because she has no choice but to come and take her kids who she feels are perfectly competent in getting home alone, but she has to be with them.

So there's a culture out there that is enforcing a certain kind of hovering and supervision that whether parents want to or not, they find themselves sort of caught up in it.

And that's a woman who really is trying to reject that kind of hovering, who is being forced into it by the school or by the school's insurance agency or something.

I'm not sure why, but then since we talked, Parents Magazine, the bible of the parenting world, published my very favorite article ever.

Favorite, because I think of it as like, it's the Rosetta Stone.

If somebody's going like, why is this society so wacky at the moment?

I can say, well, you know, go read the Parents magazine parenting playbook, a playdate playbook, because you will figure it out from there.

And the playdate playbook had all these questions from parents that I'm assuming that the reporter had to write, asking, you know, what if this happens?

What if that happens?

And one of the questions was, if my kid is old enough to stay home alone now, and sometimes she does, or often she does, but now she has a play date over, can I still let them play and run to the dry cleaner now that there's my kid and her friend over?

And Parents magazine said, no, no, no.

They didn't say it exactly like that because it's print.

But basically it was absolutely not.

And they gave two reasons.

And first was, what if they get hurt?

And the reporter dug up a story of two kids who were making macaroni and cheese in a microwave, and they took it out and it fell on one of them, and she ended up having burns and had to go to the doctor.

And then, like, reluctantly, the reporter adds, actually, the mother was home, but in the backyard.

So it's like, you know, first of all, it's not a mother who left kids at home alone.

And secondly, you're saying that mothers shouldn't even be in the backyard because something terrible could be happening, you know, 50 yards from the kitchen.

And that's already too irresponsible of the mom.

But the other thing that the article said was, and what if there's a spat?

What if there's a squabble?

You want to be able to intervene before anyone's feelings get hurt.

And to me, the Rosetta Stone part of that is like what Parents Magazine is telling parents is that you must be hovering so close that, first of all, you're listening in on your kid's entire conversation.

Secondly, you're diving in because you don't want them to get angry or frustrated or mad at each other.

The assumption being that that will be so traumatic that it shouldn't happen to your kid, they'll never recover, or they can't ever figure it out on their own.

Only a genius like you, who's 20 years older than them can figure out how to assuage the feelings and make the play date continue.

And so what it is doing is completely undermining any faith that you might have that kids are humans.

Of course they're going to be frustrated and angry sometimes, but we all get over it.

And it's probably good to have a little inoculation as you grow up, you know, so that when you're really mad at your boss, you don't need somebody, you don't need your mom coming over and saying, oh, well, boss, you know, my daughter.

So when we talk about this helicopter parenting phenom, I feel like we are fed this template every way.

And every day, you know, there's all the other parents are standing by their kid at the bus stop.

I guess I should too.

I can't let my kid walk home because the school won't allow.

I thought I could let my kids play, you know, they're 9 and 10 years old.

But no, I'm supposed to be so close that I can listen to each word and make sure and take their emotional temperature.

There's items that tell you where your child is at any point.

You can read all their emails and texts with different kinds of technology.

You can see what their grades are.

Because all these schools have portals that show you exactly how they did on their Spanish quiz 10 minutes ago.

And so it's the culture that is telling you that you should be watching everything your kid does.

Says, eats, reads, watches, licks, you know, hears.

And so we are told that if we're not doing that, our kids are in danger.

And that is why we are stuck helicoptering.

Not because our kids are truly in any more danger than we ever were and not because we even want to.

It's just this cultural norm.

So Let Grow is trying to change that norm so that we can make it normal again to let our kids have some independence.

Even like have a play date without us, you know, like the KGB listening in at the wall.

So on that note, what made you decide to start Let Grow, and how do you go about facilitating exactly what you just described, you know, promoting resilience and independence in children?

Wow, these are lovely questions.

So for 10 years, as you know, since you talked to me at the very beginning of this, I went around the country, and sometimes Canada and sometimes Australia, strangely enough, talking about free range kids and talking about just this, our culture is forcing this fear upon us.

And then it didn't seem fair to me and it didn't even seem good because we all remember our own childhoods and I think we're mostly grateful for having had a chance to ride our bikes or make our own lemonade stand without our mom pouring the lemonade for us.

And everybody would nod along.

Not everybody, but certainly a lot of people would nod along and nothing would change.

So a few years ago, Jonathan Haidt, who you might have heard of, he's a psychology professor, psychology professor or a philosophy professor at New York University.

And he's co author of a book called the Coddling of the American.

Very popular book.

He started to worry about what he was seeing with kids who were of college age.

They were anxious.

They were easily thrown off their game.

They would go to the counseling center if there was a mouse in the room or an argument with the roommate.

And then the actual statistics about kids emotions were, they were alarming that kids anxiety and depression had been going up for about a generation.

And he thought, well, it's not like they suddenly get anxious when they get to college.

It must be that something is happening when they're younger that is sort of taking away the resilience or the flexibility of kids so that by the time they are, you know, reaching their late teens, they don't think they can handle things that everybody a generation or two before could.

So he came to me and I said, let's start a nonprofit together that tries to sort of overthrow this overprotective culture younger, at younger ages, so that rather than doing this late stage intervention, when they get to college, you know, they can arrive on campus or go to jobs, learn how to drive a truck without having been sort of tamped down so much, almost suffocated with care that they, you know, that they, they're a little stunted.

So I said, okay.

But our goal this time was not to just change minds, because changing minds, as it turns out, doesn't lead to changes in behavior.

It's really hard to change behavior.

So we decided our goal would be to change behavior knowing that the minds would follow.

Just like if you start exercising, then you become, you know, like, oh, I should be healthier and do stuff.

But it's hard to say, like me, I should exercise because I never will.

So Let Grow is dedicated to making it easy and normal and giving a little push to parents, to teachers, to society, to Letting Go, which is originally going to be called Let Go and Let Grow.

And we do this, you know, we do it through programs and stuff for, for parents at home.

There's all sorts of materials on our website, which is letgrow.org but through the schools, we offer all these free things.

So it's not like I'm getting a dime for every program we sell.

But one of our initiatives in the schools is called the Let Grow Project.

And it is extremely simple.

So simple that it doesn't really need a name, but we gave it a name, and that is that kids go home with this homework assignment that says, mom, look, it says I have to do something on my own.

And we give them a list.

Not that they have to do what's on the list, but it's from kindergarten through eighth grade, so it could be anything.

Make a sandwich, ride your bike, run an errand, visit your grandma, make dinner for the family, get a job, break leaves.

Just all these different things.

And the reason we do it through the schools is because if all this.

If, like, everybody at the school or everybody in the district gets this homework assignment, all the parents are doing the same thing.

We're all letting our kids start walking.

You know, even my kid could walk with your kid.

They're gonna walk to the playground.

They're gonna run an errand, so you're not the crazy person.

And in fact, your school is telling you to do it.

And then it just builds on each other because it's like, oh, what did you let your kid do?

Oh, my kids do that.

Maybe mine will do that next week.

And we've heard from neighborhoods that have done the Let Grow project for their schools.

Well, my favorite one is that one kid went to.

This was in a small town in Connecticut.

One kid went to the local market, and he was buying.

I don't know what I'm gonna say, a muffin.

I really don't know.

And he had to be under.

Fifth grader under.

So that's it.

He was 10 or younger.

And the people at the market were like, what's he doing here?

And where's his mom?

And why is he alone?

And finally one of the clerks said, what are you doing here?

Sorry?

He asked the kid.

And the kid said, I'm doing my Let Grow project.

And they're like, what the heck is that?

And he said, oh, for school.

I have to do something on my own.

I decided to get a muffin.

Oh, okay.

And after that, when kids started coming to the market, it was normal, right?

Oh, it's another Let Grow kid.

Okay.

Oh, it's a Let Grow kid.

So it's so easy to change the norm back to probably what you were growing up with, right?

Once you have run an errand and gotten your own muffin from time to time, definitely.

Right?

So even though we're in this strange Covid time now, where there's, you know, some people are at school and some are half and half and some are all at home, there's also the Let Grow independence kit.

Same place, same idea, different cover letter.

It's basically, it's saying now that your child's at home.

But it is the same idea.

It's just giving parents not only permission, but a push to let them do.

Let their kids do something that probably they were doing at that age.

And it just changes the whole culture.

We heard from another school, the principal said that she was driving home after a week, after the kids had done the Let Grow project.

And you can do it once a year, you can do it once a week.

It doesn't, you know, you figure out what makes sense for your school or your class.

But in this school, they had done it once.

And she was driving her home, like two weeks after the project.

I can't remember if it was a week or two.

Really doesn't matter.

The point is that she'd been the principal of that school for 17 years, but on this time, when she went home, she saw two kids on bikes, one on roller skates and one on a skateboard.

And she said in those 17 years, she had never seen kids outside on their own.

And here it was just a little bit later, the ice is broken.

So really what we're trying to do at Let Grow is break that ice.

Because it feels great to not be so terrified and not understand how cool your kid can be and how much freedom you can have and how much they can blossom if we just step back.

So our slogan now is when adults step back, kids step up.

And that's what Let Grow is dedicated to, is just making it normal again, including changing laws that might say that, like, you know, you don't want anybody to be able to say, I saw your kid walking outside, and therefore I'm going to call 911 and say, you're neglectful.

It's like, actually, that's not against the law.

So we're trying to make sure that the law is very clear, that neglect is real neglect.

Not letting your kid have some independence either because you're working two jobs and you can't come home every day and they need a latchkey, or because you want them to walk to school because you think it's good.

That's so interesting.

And what is the plan in terms of the vision for Let Grow?

Where do you want to see this going and how far that.

Interesting.

I'm not a.

Sometimes I don't think I think big enough.

And so I try to.

And if in my mind, when I think about how much happier and less anxious kids are after they've done the Let Grow project, and also I'll talk about later The Let Grow Play club where we encourage free play before or after school and the fact that it's all free.

So you talk about something free that's good for kids, that doesn't take class time, that doesn't require any extra equipment or any money spent at all.

I started thinking like this should be in every school because we were talking earlier about how kids are getting so anxious and depressed and even, I don't even want to say it, but even some very bad things that can happen to kids are happening to kids more that they're doing to themselves.

And so if I, you know, it's sort of like why don't people drink water instead of soda all the time?

Now people are drinking water, it's better for them.

It's sort of like why don't we encourage independence that we have really leached out of kids lives.

I was going to read to you this.

Can I read you just a few sentences from some kids?

Sure.

So a seventh grade teacher reached out to us last year and said her class, she teaches health, so she gets all 240 kids in the seventh grade.

And she said she'd never seen kids as anxious as these.

And she was so sad for them and worried for them because they seemed to have been like their confidence was missing, but so was almost their gumption.

It was like they couldn't even almost express things that they wanted to do on their own because they'd been allowed to do so little.

And so she said, okay, come on, fill out this form.

And she made a little Xerox for them.

What is something that you'd like to do that you've been hesitant to do so far?

And these are kids who are 12 and 13 years old.

So I'm going to read you a couple of sentences from different kids.

I was hesitant to try walking my dog alone because I was scared that he would get loose from the leash or a scary man would take me.

Okay, Number two, I was afraid to climb a tree because I was scared I was going to fall and break a bone.

Three, I wanted to try doing a wheelie on my bike, but I was scared I might hurt myself.

Four, I was afraid to try and cook because there's an open flame and I could get hurt.

And the last one that I'm gonna read to you, I was hesitant to use a sharp knife as my parents had never let me before.

Wow.

Yeah, that's pretty, pretty telling right there, isn't it?

It's so telling that I feel compelled to read these out loud because I'm not sure people recognize how dramatic this is.

If I was saying from now, I mean, if I put it in blunt terms, from now on, your children must be locked in the home and given lessons about how endangered they are and how It's World War 3 out there and how the second they leave, they're going to get hurt.

But the second they try doing anything on themselves, you know, try and do anything alone, they're going to get.

Look at the catastrophization.

It's like the dog is going to get off the leash.

That doesn't usually happen, right?

I climb a tree, I'm going to break a bone, I do a wheelie, I'm going to hurt myself, I'm going to cook, I'm going to get burnt.

I mean, nothing is confident.

Nothing.

It's the opposite of optimism.

It's pessimism to the point of catastrophization, right?

That's a mental health issue.

And it's brought about because of this culture where Parents Magazine is saying, don't, you know, don't let your kids argue.

And the school is saying, don't let your kids walk home.

And the parents are, you know, the Busybodies are calling 911 because there's a child alone on a swing at a park.

So I'm hoping that independence, like pushing independence, encouraging it, even studying it, is going to become an antidote to the fragility that we're seeing in these kids.

And it reminds me like, you know, for years and years, the culture kept making fancier, fancier food until we got Wonder Bread, right?

Wonder Bread was great, but it was completely white.

We'd taken out all the whole grain, all the chaff, all the chewy kind of crunchy stuff, thinking that this was the best.

And it seemed like the best until suddenly the tide turned and said, wait a minute, we threw something out that we should have been putting back in.

And so we started putting it back in.

And I think that we're going to start putting independence back into, if it has to be into the curriculum.

You know, we're trying to teach kids social, emotional learning.

They should, you know, they should be confident.

They should be caring and compassionate and wise and open minded.

And I think a lot of that comes from negotiating some risks and having some arguments with friends and falling off your bike and having to get home on your own.

All these things are building blocks of a successful, resilient person.

And we took them out mistakenly and we got to put them back in.

It's so interesting when you describe it that way and earlier in your discussion, or you're alluding to the anxiety and the depression and sort of the mental issues that we're seeing, especially among young children.

So does that mean that we have to wait for the pendulum to swing all the way over to the point where these mental health issues become so pervasive now we're forced to do something about it?

And are we heading in that direction?

Because, you know, mental health issues to the point that we're discussing them and hearing about them on a daily basis, even five years ago, it just didn't happen.

So what is the bottom or like, how furthermore do we have to go for?

This is really my question.

Do you think?

Well, it's really interesting because I would hope no further.

I mean, the fact that we both are aware of these issues and you know, sometimes it seems like maybe it's just we're diagnosing them more.

You know, it could be that the needle is more sensitive or it could be that it's kind of hip to say, oh, I'm so depressed.

I actually was hip when I was growing up, so maybe now I'm so anxious.

But there are actual statistics of hospitalizations for self harm and those are going up.

And that's not somebody saying you seem depressed, that's somebody acting on it.

And to me that is a crisis.

I don't know how much more of a crisis we want to, you know, like, when do we declare a crisis a crisis?

I'd say, I mean, I hate catastrophizing about anything and I don't want parents to think it's their fault.

And I just feel like if you live in a society that has told kids that everything that they do could hurt them, obviously they're going to grow up sort of scared.

And, you know, what is anxiety?

I was actually talking to a psychologist, psychology professor the other day and he was saying, like with ocd, obsessive compulsive disorder or phobias, the idea is that something out there, there's something out there that could hurt you and that you couldn't handle whatever bad thing could happen.

So you, you avoid any kind of situation where something, you think something will happen that you can't handle.

And you're also already assuming no resilience.

You're assuming the worst.

Like if something like these kids, if I climb the tree, I'm gonna fall.

But the assumption on the, you know, is that not only will you fall, you'll break your leg, it will have to be amputated.

You Know, that's it for you.

Gangrene, the end.

And so the only antidote to that is reality.

And so when kids are getting anxious thinking they can't handle anything, they need a real life experience to show them, haha, surprise, you can, you can handle it.

And in real therapy, when there's something called cognitive behavioral therapy, one of the things is exposure.

So I'm terrified of spiders.

Okay, Lenora, if you saw, I'm actually not terrified anymore now that I'm spending time in a country home.

I see them as my friends.

But anyway, say you're terrified of spiders.

Okay, I'm going to put you in a room with a spider.

Now I want you to guess how bad that's going to feel.

Okay.

And then they put me in a room and the spider's in the corner and I come out and they say, how bad was that?

I said, oh well actually it was a 20.

You know, it's all the way over there, couldn't move very fast.

And so when the reality doesn't jibe with the mental image, reality wins.

And also by being sort of forced to look at like how scared I was versus actually I wasn't that scared, it gives me this great boost, right?

Hey, I'm stronger than I thought.

And so giving kids the experience of doing even these things that they're talking about using a sharp knife.

I keep wanting to make a video of how hard it is to chop off your finger.

Really hard to chop off your finger even with a sharp knife, maybe a cleaver.

But like have them walk the dog and it's like I'm scared it'll get off.

Did it get off the leash?

No.

Did a scary man take you?

No.

Okay, so we just need to bring a little bit of independent reality back into kids lives because the parents and the kids are in this double helix of you shouldn't do that.

Well, I want to do that.

Well, you know, it'll be dangerous.

Okay, I won't do that.

Well, do you want to do that?

No, it's too scary.

You just have to break it.

And the only thing that breaks it is action.

Action.

Not thinking about it, action.

And so if the schools are saying, you know, you better come in on Monday having done something independently over the weekend, it just works.

You're asking questions nobody asks.

So interesting.

I mean, I did a podcast earlier today.

Wasn't so most proud of.

Huh.

Well, I can.

I could say my silly answer and then my deeper answer.

My silly answer is that.

And actually sort of has to do with something deeper too.

My silly answer is that I always, as a kid even I wanted to start a fad or a phrase.

I actually wore buttons around school with different phrases.

I made jewelry hats desperately.

Like, how do you start a phrase?

And I don't think you start it by wearing a little button, as it turns out.

Nor do you start a craze for terrarium necklaces.

Something else I was trying to get off the ground.

Anyways, I've started a phrase, so I think that's cool.

I mean, Free Range Kids is neat.

It's in the dictionary and I trademark, so whatever.

So that's the sort of silly vein thing.

The thing that I am excited about is it's what we're just talking about now, and it hasn't actually happened yet.

But I think that independence is going to be a therapy.

I think it's something that people just haven't noticed.

I almost didn't notice it as a therapy.

I just thought it's something good for kids.

And so I've been talking to a lot of shrinks and the evidence that this changes kids is becoming, you know, it's becoming clear to me, but it hasn't been studied a lot.

So I'm desperately hoping that graduate students across America will start looking, you know, doing double blind tests to see the actual impact of this.

Because in this particular seventh grade class where I was just reading you the I was scared statements from the teacher, the next year, Jodi sent me a screen grab, which was that this one boy who is now in 8th grade wrote to her and said, thanks to her, she's an inspiring teacher.

And she kept saying, kids, you got to get out of your comfort zone.

You know, that was her big phrase.

So between Jody and doing 20 Let Grow projects in the year because she made them do 20, he said, I'm off my antianxiety meds, so wouldn't it be Cool.

If there was a free, easy, fun way to make that happen.

I mean, I guess I can't be proud of it yet, but I'm excited about it.

Well, you certainly have laid the foundation, and you're well on your way.

And the sky really is the limit when you consider that that column that you wrote innocently all those years ago.

So weird.

That is the weirdest thing.

Oh, it's.

It's amazing.

One final question, and this is kind of a deep one, but it really.

Kind of another one.

Oh, my God.

You're.

You know, really.

All my.

All my easy answers are, like, on this sheet of paper over here.

And you're not asking me, but you're.

You're on the front lines of something that I just.

I just think is an epidemic in society.

Right.

Is the idea of this independence and the lack thereof in terms of how some people are raising their children, not.

Just them not knowing.

It still sounds like we're talking about these bad parents.

No, no, no.

But you know what I mean.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Summarize it.

But.

But I guess part of my observation has been, is a lot of parents don't know that they need help.

You know, as a young parent, you're just trying to feed them and clothe them and change them and da, da, da.

When ideally, should a parent be given this kind of exposure to this kind of information on how to continue to foster independence in their children?

And before you answer, I did speak to a child psychologist who's an international expert on bullying a short time ago, and she said, you know, when you think about it, every single thing we do as parents is to prepare our children for independence.

Every single thing we do from the time that they're born, you know, you feed them, you give them solids, then you want to teach them how to eat on their own, all these different things that go on.

Yet there's some part of all of us that is against that.

When they get to a certain age or stage or I don't even know what it is.

So how do parents know that they need this kind of information and when do they ideally need it?

That's interesting.

So it almost feels like they don't need this information.

They need a lack of the other.

They need to know that, like when Parents magazine is saying, worry about every spat that your kid has with her friend, that that's propaganda.

They need to recognize that, like when a company is trying to sell you baby knee pads, when we all know that children crawl and they seem to survive it without, you know, Lacerating their knees to such an extent that they, you know, are crippled.

You know, that's the marketplace.

They need to know that.

When magazines are saying all the dangers in your home, did you realize that, you know, this cop is doing horrible things to your kid?

They need to.

I'd say that more than information, they need a little, they need a little recalibration like we were talking about earlier to like go like, wait a minute, is somebody trying to sell me something?

Somebody trying to scare me?

Didn't I do that when I was a kid and I really liked it?

Didn't my mom trust me to do that when I was that age?

It's just a little bit of divorce from.

You just have to almost be a cultural critic in your own life and going like, why am I being sold this temperature color changing spoon to feed my child?

When I know when the food is hot, I can feel it, I can taste it.

So who's doing this to me?

Obviously somebody's trying to sell something and I don't blame people for trying to make a buck, but maybe just try to make a comparison between what you remember doing as a kid and that you appreciated and what you're being told you can't do with your own kid.

And I don't think there's a particular age or stage.

I think it's recognize that there's this tsunami of information and books and products coming at you that didn't exist a generation or two ago and somehow you made it to adulthood and your parents made it to adulthood and your grandparents made it to adulthood.

So just a little bit of, I wouldn't call it cynicism.

I'd call it show me, you know, show me that I really need a temperature changing spoon.

Really.

I mean, a color changing spoon for the temperature of the food, really.

I don't know.

So I'd say I'm on the side of parents because this information is coming at them from every side.

And I don't want to sound like there is a particular way to raise your kids that will make them perfect or not perfect or you know, turn them into a sculptor versus a car mechanic.

I don't have any of that information.

Wish I did, but I don't.

All I have is a knowledge that there's a cultural imperative that says that there's everything, there's a huge risk to everything that you let your kids do independently and somehow zero risk to hovering all the time.

And I'd say be skeptical of that message.

There's no such thing as zero risk.

And there's no such thing as, like, you know, letting your kid walk to school is risky, but driving them isn't.

No, both of them are really safe.

Neither of them is perfectly safe.

So try not try to resist the lure of safe or sorry.

It's not just safe or sorry.

There's a big swath in between.

And you can live there.

Wow, that is incredibly insightful and, you know, tons of perspective and food for thought.

Lenore Skenazi, thank you so much.

And thank you for all the work you do because it is very necessary.

You clearly remain as passionate as ever.

Yeah, I wonder when I'm going to get bored.

It hasn't happened yet.

I don't see that happening.

Anyhow, thank you so much for your time today and all the best with all of your projects.

Oh, thanks, Leanna.

Thanks for checking in.

It's fun to have somebody who was there at the beginning to talk to again, so thanks.

It's hard to.

You know what?

It's my pleasure.

And it's hard to believe that all this time has gone by.

We'll have to.

We'll have to make it a regular occurrence.

Right.

Thanks so much, Lenore.

Thank you.

Bye.