1KHO 553: How to Break Free from the Era of Ankle-Monitored Childhood | Lenore Skenazy, Free Range Kids

Summary

Podcast Summary: The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast

Episode: 1KHO 553: How to Break Free from the Era of Ankle-Monitored Childhood
Host: Jenny Urich
Guest: Lenore Skenazy, author of Free Range Kids
Release Date: August 20, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode features a lively, insightful conversation between host Jenny Urich and Lenore Skenazy, founder of the Free-Range Kids movement and author of Free Range Kids: How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow. The two dive into the dramatic shift in American childhood from independent, self-directed play to what Skenazy calls “ankle-monitored childhood.” They explore the culture of parental anxiety, societal expectations, and the importance of granting children autonomy to foster resilience, confidence, and mental health. Throughout, Lenore’s trademark humor and candor make complex topics relatable and actionable for parents seeking to reclaim a freer, more fulfilling childhood for their kids.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Humor as a Vehicle for Parenting Change

[02:09-05:24]

• Jenny raves about Lenore's book, describing it as both one of the funniest and most helpful parenting books available.
• Lenore shares her background in comedic writing (formerly for MAD Magazine), underscoring how humor can disarm fear and prompt important conversations.
  • Quote: “All I wanted to be was a funny writer... but it comes out.” – Lenore Skenazy [02:51]

The Halloween Candy Myth and “Worst-First” Thinking

[03:38-07:37]

• They debunk the perennial Halloween poison/candy myth: Despite decades of panic, no documented cases exist of strangers killing children via Halloween candy.
  • Quote: “Every year, reporters call ... to their surprise that no child has been murdered by a stranger’s poison on Halloween.” – Lenore Skenazy [03:58]
• Jenny and Lenore discuss why irrational fears persist, despite clear evidence to the contrary.
• The concept of “worst-first thinking” is introduced: always imagining the worst possible outcome as the most likely.

Parental Worry as a Social Expectation

[07:37-10:54]

• Modern parenting equates worry with responsibility; if parents aren’t constantly anxious, they feel negligent.
  • Quote: “Worrying is like a demonstration to yourself that you’re being responsible.” – Jenny Urich [07:40]
• Lenore explains that only exposure to real-life, independent experiences (not just worrying or theory) dislodges irrational fears.
  • Quote: “Nothing dislodges them. The only thing that dislodges them is reality.” – Lenore Skenazy [08:18]
• Exposure therapy parallels: just as with phobias, the antidote to overparenting anxiety is deliberate action, however small.

The Decline of Child Independence and Its Consequences

[11:00-15:36]

• The average age at which children are allowed to cross the street has risen dramatically.
• Lenore and Jenny discuss how independence and free play have plummeted over recent generations, with significant mental health consequences.
  • Quote: "...as kids’ independence and free play and mobility in the real world have been going down over the decades, their anxiety and depression have been going up." – Lenore Skenazy [12:19]
• The importance of “internal locus of control”—children feeling they have agency—is highlighted as critical to well-being.

How Control Became the Centerpiece of Modern Parenting

[15:54-25:26]

• Jenny and Lenore reference Dr. William Stixrud: Lack of control makes both parents and children anxious, so modern parents often prioritize their own need for control, inadvertently making their kids more anxious.
• Lenore pokes fun at the hyper-vigilant parenting culture, including advice to prepare kids for daylight savings time and “potty libraries.”
  • Quote: “We are turning everyday experiences in children’s lives into intensely adult-run activities...” – Lenore Skenazy [24:33]
• Lenore outlines how parental standards have only become more demanding as daily life has become more convenient, referencing sociological history.

Institutionalization of Adult-Directed Child Activities

[25:26-30:51]

• Jenny reads from a preschool curriculum manual requiring minute-by-minute instruction for ball-kicking–a symbol of over-structuring.
  • Quote: “Everything assumes zero agency, curiosity, or physicality on the part of kids.” – Lenore Skenazy [27:49]
• This approach, they argue, stifles problem-solving and readiness for the real world.

The Exaggeration of Risk and the Lure of Omniscience

[30:51-35:54]

• Parental fears have been exaggerated to the point where mundane outdoor activity is viewed as as risky as 19th-century tetanus.
  • Quote: “We’ve really inflated everyday life with exaggerated, extravagant fears...” – Lenore Skenazy [30:51]
• Lenore discusses the modern obsession with data and surveillance, including tracking a child’s every bathroom break at daycare, tying it to the cultural and even theological ideal of “omniscience.”
  • Quote: “Resist the lure of omniscience.” – Ginny, quoting Lenore Skenazy [35:56]

Loss of Freedom Across Generations

[39:26-41:18]

• Jenny reads Lenore’s “Four Generations” anecdote, showing how children’s range of free movement has shrunk over time—now, many kids rarely leave their own yard.
• They connect this shrinking freedom to rising rates of emotional distress.

Collective Solutions: The Let Grow Programs

[41:18-49:05]

• Lenore explains why changing this culture requires collective, not just individual, action.
• Two Let Grow school programs are highlighted:
  1. The Let Grow Experience: Homework assignments encouraging children to do something new, independently, outside of parental oversight.
  2. Let Grow Play Clubs: Schools stay open before/after school for mixed-age, child-directed, device-free play, with adults present only for safety, not facilitation.
  • Quote: “The only thing that stops it from being terrifying is showing: ‘Kid, this is how you do it… I’ll be upstairs.’” – Lenore Skenazy [46:53]

The Unparalleled Value of Free Play

[51:56-55:48]

• Through anecdotes and research, they argue that play is the best developmental “booster shot”—superior to any class.
  • Quote: “If it were a class, there would be waiting lists to get in.” – Lenore Skenazy [55:48]
• Modern childhood no longer supports the same serendipitous self-discovery past generations experienced.

Childhood as the Foundation for Purposeful Adulthood

[56:01-60:50]

• Lenore shares stories illustrating the “childhood to career” connection: how unstructured play and quirky passions in childhood often predict and shape meaningful adult vocations.
  • Quote: “Who you are as a kid is the oldest part of you.” – Lenore Skenazy [56:38]
• Lack of unscheduled, adult-free time to “noodle around” and pursue interests makes it much harder for children to find direction and confidence later in life.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Modern Parental Anxiety:
  “Seeking control only makes us more anxious. It certainly isn’t required for good child rearing.” – Jenny Urich [20:53]

• On Over-Institutionalization:
  “Parenting manuals go to like 1,259 because there’s always another thing that you can be doing, another thing that you can be trying with them...” – Lenore Skenazy [22:56]

• On True Risk:
  “If you actually wanted your child to be kidnapped and held overnight by a stranger, how long would you have to keep the child outside unattended for this to be statistically likely to happen? 750,000 years.” – Jenny Urich, quoting Lenore [39:00]

• On Agency and Childhood:
  “Childhood was a time where you learned what you were about.” – Ginny [56:06]

• On Play and Development:
  “All the latest research shows that play itself turns out to be the most important developmental booster of all.” – Lenore Skenazy [55:48]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:09 – Jenny’s introduction to Lenore’s humor and impact of the book
• 03:38 – Debunking the Halloween candy myth and cultural “worst-first thinking”
• 07:37 – Discussion of worry as a demonstration of responsibility
• 08:03 – Exposure therapy and “Let Grow” philosophy explained
• 12:19 – Declining child independence and the rise in anxiety
• 21:31 – Parents’ obsession with control, “potty libraries,” and over-structuring
• 25:26 – Jenny reads from over-prescriptive activity guides
• 30:51 – Changing societal perception of risk and the “lure of omniscience”
• 39:26 – The four-generation anecdote on diminishing childhood freedom
• 41:18 – The four “new norms” from Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation
• 43:35 – Introduction and explanation of Let Grow programs
• 55:48 – The unique role of play in cognitive and emotional growth
• 56:38 – Personal stories about childhood passions leading to meaningful careers
• 61:21 – Humorous quotes about the rapid shift from outdoor to screen play
• 62:19 – Episode close; mutual appreciation between Jenny and Lenore

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Final Thoughts

This conversation is a powerful, affirming, and practical resource for anxious parents and educators. Lenore Skenazy shines as both a relentless advocate for child autonomy and a witty observer of cultural excess. The episode arms listeners with reassuring facts, actionable steps (like the Let Grow Experience and Play Clubs), and a compelling reminder that letting go is not just an act of trust—it's an essential gift to both parents and children.

"Fewer than a third of our kids are playing outside anymore. Childhood has changed in less time than it takes to say, ‘Red rover, red rover, let's go inside and play Call of Duty.’”
– Jenny Urich [61:21]

Recommended Action: Explore resources at Let Grow to start shifting from “ankle-monitored” to “free-range” childhood—one small, brave step at a time.

Transcript

[Ginny]

Hey, friends, It's Ginny from 1000 Hours Outside. We're always talking about books here. Let's talk about some books we love in our family. You know how much I care about helping families spend meaningful time with our kids. We spend so much energy getting outside, connecting, and making memories. But I found that some of our most grounded, intentional memories happen at home when we're reading. That's why I'm so grateful we have found Brave books. They've created the most incredible stories rooted in biblical values like kindness, honesty, and courage. And what makes them stand out is that every book comes with conversation starters and fun activities. It's not just reading, it's bonding. Reading aloud is one of the most powerful things we can do for our kids. It builds their vocabulary, imagination, and emotional intelligence. And it builds connection, especially on slow days or rainy afternoons. Brave books have become a treasure, part of our family's rhythm. If you want to try it out, brave is offering 20% off your first order. Do just go to bravebooks.com 1000hours and use the code 1000hours. Every hour with our kid really does count. Again, that's bravebooks.com 1000hours and use the code 1000hours.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Welcome to the 1000hours Outside podcast.

[Jenny Urich]

My name is Jenny Urich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. And I'm so, so, so excited. I'm so excited. It has been four years, and you help kick off this podcast. Lenore Skinniesy is back. Welcome.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Wow. Four years older. Yay. Great. Here I am, Jenny. Yep.

[Jenny Urich]

So my story is that someone asked me to do a podcast. Well, they said, I'm launching a book and can I come on your podcast to help launch this book? And I kind of had one that I'd done some episodes by myself, but I. It didn't work well, so I'd let it go. So then I was like, I guess so. You know? I guess so. And then I was like, well, will anybody else come on, you know, if I'm gonna do this? And you said, yes. And I was shocked. I was shocked because I had already read your book, Free Range Kids, Lower.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Level Celebrity than you would assume.

[Jenny Urich]

Such a fan. This is the most amusing. It is wildly beneficial, but also the most amusing parenting book.

[Ginny]

I think that's out there.

[Jenny Urich]

I have read so many of them, and. And when I read it for the first time, I didn't know I was going to have a chance to talk with you. But when I read it for the first time, I was, like, snorting. People were like, what is going on? And it's like a comedy book. I'm reading a parenting book, Free Range Kids How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow. I'm snorting. And then I read it again to get prepared. You know, I'm like, I'm going to go back through. I tend to, like, have my books on my shelf and I'll, you know, glance through from time to time. But I went cover to cover. I was like, it's one of the funniest books I've ever read. Certainly the funniest.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Four years ago, when Lenore was still funny. Yes. Okay, now I'm happy to hear it. Yes. Right, right, right. I'm coasting on the fumes.

[Jenny Urich]

How are you so funny?

[Lenore Skenazy]

I used to write for Mad. I used to write for MAD magazine and crack this. Probably before your time. No, that's all I wanted to be was funny writer and my. My dearest friend from high school who I always just. We had so much fun together, and we're always writing together. Went on to write sitcoms, and I thought, oh, no. And I'm just journalist. But it comes out.

[Jenny Urich]

I mean, it is so funny. I'm gonna read just one. It is the most entertaining, enjoyable parenting book you'll ever read. Plus, you're gonna learn a lot to talk about. This is just one little part. You're talking about Halloween. The biggest fear on Halloween, of course, is that your nice, quiet neighbors, the ones who you never really got to know but somehow managed to live next to you in peace and harmony the other 364 days of the year, have been waiting like kids for Christmas, for this one day to murder local children.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Yeah. Yeah. You know, every year, every. I feel bad for. So the guy who found out how many kids are murdered on Halloween by neighbors. Strychnine is. He found out. Zero. I'm cutting to the chase here. It's a guy named Joel Best. He's a sociology professor, I think, in Maryland. And I used to call him all the time because I was a reporter and say, you know, can you tell me what's happening? And finally, after, like, 35 years of him having these facts, he said he's given up because reporters call every year to find out to their surprise that no child has been murdered by a stranger's poison on Halloween. So he's like, if he's had the information out there for 35 years and reporters call him every year, why has it not sunk in? And that's. I mean, that's what's kind of interesting about our culture. It's like we want to be afraid of things that we know probably aren't really going to happen. It's a strange yum factor of like, oh, it's so scary, but I'm embracing it. I. I'm. You know, the only reason I wake up and. And keep writing and keep doing these podcasts is because I am still perplexed by what is it that motivates us to think this way? When all the facts and also all of common sense suggest that your neighbors. You don't want to murder your children. I mean, isn't that interesting?

[Jenny Urich]

Using Halloween candy, no less?

[Lenore Skenazy]

Right, right, right. Or perhaps apples, because you don't even.

[Jenny Urich]

Know who you murdered, you know?

[Lenore Skenazy]

Yeah. It's like, where's the satisfaction? You need to, like, send them home with a tracking device and see if it stops, and then you just have to assume. Right. Okay. Okay. It's over in Greenwood Cemetery now. I guess it worked, right?

[Jenny Urich]

It is just a wild thing. I honestly, every Halloween, feel slightly nervous about it. And I don't think anybody knows that it's never actually happened. And it's a huge deal. It's like, every year, Check for the razor blades.

[Lenore Skenazy]

So. So off the record, although I realize this is not on the record, When I was trying to do a debunking video about the candy and the razor blades and everything, I tried to stick a razor blade in an apple because I thought it would be so obvious that the apple has this gash in it and that it's sticky. Right. And so I haven't done this a lot, so I was trying to put. And I sliced my thumb. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. And it turns out that it is pretty easy to hide. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was more subtle than I thought. So I took that part out of the. Out of the video. But really, nobody's doing it. It's just. It's not a pastime of your neighbors. So that's that. There was one kid once murdered by his dad with poisoned candy, but the dad had taken out not one, not two, three life insurance policies on his son. He was behind. He was in debt. And it was pretty obvious to connect the dots. And the dad ended up in the electric chair in Texas.

[Ginny]

Well, there we go. In case you wanted to know.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Right, right, right. They gave him poison candy.

[Jenny Urich]

The book is so funny. You talk about, like, the use. You say, oh, we are in a new era. Ankle monitor, childhood. I just. The humor. It's like, none of it is cheesy. It's so relatable and it's so unexpected. It is phenomenal. So when you talk about the fact.

[Lenore Skenazy]

That I'm going to watch this every morning, this part of the podcast, every morning, I wake up till I die.

[Jenny Urich]

But you know, it. I mean, it is so funny. You've read other parenting books. I learn a lot from other parenting books. I have never snort left at any other parenting book. And it's from start to finish. It's so good. So when you talk about the fact that this is a big deal, it's like we want to be afraid. And you do explain that to a degree. You talk about how worrying is a form of control. And so we've gotten to this spot.

[Ginny]

Where people feel comfortable worrying.

[Jenny Urich]

They feel like if they're not worrying, then they're doing something wrong. You wrote, worrying is like a demonstration to yourself that you're being responsible. It has become our national pastime.

[Ginny]

How can we step out of that?

[Lenore Skenazy]

Oh, are you asking or did I write a paragraph on that? I could just not along with myself.

[Jenny Urich]

I'm asking. I'm sure you did write a paragraph.

[Lenore Skenazy]

About it, too, but probably somewhere at some point. It's been 17 years, so the only thing I've seen that works with anyone almost about any activity that they're afraid of is you have to do it. By do it, I don't mean worry. I mean let go. That's why the organization, the nonprofit that grew out of Free Range Kids, is called Let Grow, because we were originally going to call it Let Go and Let Grow. And what I mean by that is you actually have to experience not being with your kid, maybe not even tracking them, maybe them not even having a phone with them, someplace separate from you for a chunk of time. And whether that's five minutes or five hours depends on you and your kid and your neighborhood and what they want to do. But it's only by until you get out of your head, which is where the worries are, and into the real world, where reality is. And your kid can go to the store or can go to the park or can walk to a friend's house until reality is allowed to flood into your brain and take the place of all those worries. Nothing dislodges them. The only thing that dislodges them is reality. That's why in actual therapy, there's something called exposure therapy, which you've probably heard of. It's like you're afraid of a dog. And so the therapist shows you a picture of a dog, and then you have to stand across the street from a dog. And then you have to be on the same sidewalk as the dog, and then you have to be in a room with the dog, and then you have to pet the dog. And then the dog is like. And you're like, oh, he's so cute. And pretty soon you want a dog, or at least you're not terrified every time you contemplate them or see one. And the exposure to the reality has cured you of your obsessive thoughts that are fear based. I don't blame parents for feeling so afraid, because I feel like almost every product in America is sold through fear. And all the media is based on fear. And there's a currency to sharing fear. You know, like, did you hear? I thought I heard. You know, did this happen? And then you get institutions that are based on the false assumption that our children are in constant danger, which is why you sometimes hear parents being arrested because they let their kid walk home from school or go to the store, go on the subway or go, I wasn't arrested. So we're in this sort of fear stew. It's just in there, and it gets in your brain, and then it becomes part of the policy and it becomes part of the social norms. And so all I've been trying to do since I wrote Free Range Kids and then even more so since Let Grow began, and I have other people helping me, is make it easy for people to have the real world experience of sending their kids outside. Maybe not for a thousand hours to begin with, maybe for one hour, and realizing your kid comes home happy, tired, sweaty, hungry, and ready to go outside for that next hour.

[Jenny Urich]

What a victory.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Yeah.

[Jenny Urich]

What a victory.

[Ginny]

That is.

[Jenny Urich]

That is a really big deal.

[Lenore Skenazy]

It is a big deal.

[Jenny Urich]

Dr. Madeline Levine has this point in, I can't remember which of her books, but she talks about how the average.

[Ginny]

Age where a parent will let their child cross the street now is 12.

[Jenny Urich]

So 12. So, you know, that's like middle school. Right? And she says the average age that kids are having intercourse for the first time is 16. So she's like, there needs to be more than four years between crossing the.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Street and that, and they shouldn't do them at the same time.

[Jenny Urich]

Right, right. And it's like, you know, I mean, that is so late. You know, the 12, they can't cross the street until they're 12. I know you do so much work with Dr. Peter Gray. He's like, I was walking to the store when I was four. Four. You know, it's just he beats us all he does beat us all. It's such a change, and it's a change that has happened very rapidly in just a few generations. Things have really changed. So, okay, what is wild is that Jonathan Haidt wrote the forward to this book. So it's really cool how you've all been connected for.

[Lenore Skenazy]

It is weird. It is weird. It's like little, you know, we're like balls on the. On the billiard table. Somehow, we all just keep connecting.

[Jenny Urich]

Yeah.

[Lenore Skenazy]

And I know I've met Madeline Levine at some point, too. I mean, because we're all saying the same. I just got a book proposal today from somebody else saying, like, you know what kids need? They need independence and free play. I'm like, yes.

[Jenny Urich]

You're like, oh, I've been saying that for a really long time.

[Lenore Skenazy]

You've been saying it. I've been saying it. Peter and John. And what's really cool is that that it is an idea that has currency. You know, I was America's worst mom because I let my kid ride the subway alone at 9. And I don't think I'm considered, like, a nut anymore. You know, I've, like, graduated to, you know, tree nut or something. So what Peter is talking about and has been writing about really effectively is that we think that we're doing the best things for our kids when we spend more time with them, when we put them in more organized activities, when we take them places, when we give them all these teachable moments. But he had a piece in the Journal of Pediatrics two years ago that traced, as kids independence and free play and mobility in the real world have been going down over the decades, their anxiety and depression have been going up. And it's not just since COVID and it's not just since Bones. Right. It's not just since modernity, in a sense. It's really as kids become more. I don't want to say this the wrong way, but, like, they become ours. Less they belong to the world and more they belong to us. And we're supposed to be taking them places, like packages and delivering them places and picking them up. As that has happened, understandably, kids feel less excited about waking up in the morning, and there's what they call a loss of internal locus of control. Who controls your life if it's internally, you know, controlled, that you make some decisions and you make things happen and you realize the consequences and you try again. That's a nice, healthy internal locus of control. You're in charge. And, of course, kids aren't entirely in charge. But you're in charge of your day, you're in charge of your hour, right? And then an external locus of control is when other people are telling you what to do. And it's sort of micromanagement. And kids are micromanaged because, you know, they get up in the morning and here I'm going to pour your, you know, your cereal and the milk into it because we gotta, gotta hurry, which I understand is part of American culture, but we gotta hurry. Gotta get into the car, I'll drop you off. Oh my God, this drop off line is so slow. But here we are, finally. I drop you off and then, you know, off I go to work. And then by the time you're out of school, somebody is picking you up or there's an activity waiting for you that somebody else is running. And then there's homework and then there's the reading log, which is the worst idea ever. I once did a piece on reading logs and asked parents, you know, what are your feelings about the reading log? Because I know children's feelings about reading log. And the parents were like, ah, the reading log. And, and one lady told me that her son used to be an avid reader. And then along came the reading log where you have to read for 20 minutes a day. And she said, now when he's reading, he will stop in the middle of a sent, oh, 20 minutes. Because it became external as opposed to internal. Internal is intrinsic, right? And suddenly it was a chore instead of a delightful pastime. So we think that we're helping our kids by adding more and more opportunities for us to direct them and watch them and teach them. But in fact, as you know, because a thousand hours outside implies time in the real world, exploring, figuring things out on your own and maybe being confused and frustrated, some of the. You need to be a full human to feel fully human. And we're not letting our kids do that.

[Ginny]

I mean, it is so much to think about.

[Jenny Urich]

It's so important. Dr. William Sticksread talks a lot about control and the link between anxiety and control.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Wait, I just have to say, oh, I had coffee with him. It's like, really, there's like 17 of us that we all just meet, right? I'll say this, you say that. You quote me, I'll quote you.

[Jenny Urich]

There we go. Well, he said, I thought this was actually really thought provoking, that this lack of control is what makes us feel anxious. And so what we've done is we have traded. We're choosing ourselves as the parent. So it does make us feel anxious when we don't have control over our kids. It also makes them feel anxious when they don't have control over their lives. And so you have to choose one or the other. You either have to give them the good life, right. Or and you have to deal with a little bit of your own anxiety.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Either we're anxious or they're anxious and we're choosing. I don't want to be anxious. And so we're making them. Oh, that's really interesting. And actually I realized I didn't have coffee with him. I had coffee with Ned Johnson, who is his co. Oh yeah, yeah.

[Jenny Urich]

Bill and Ned. Yes. Yeah, they're both fantastic.

[Ginny]

Hey friends, It's Ginny from 1000 Hours Outside. If you followed along for a while, you know that I occasionally travel for speaking engagements. And if you really know me, you know I don't love flying because I feel pretty awful. Either I have to take something like a Dramamine or Bonine and then I'm exhausted or if I don't take one of those things then I just get really motion sick. But everything changed for me with Relief Band. I never travel without it. It also helps me feel better when I'm nervous about speaking or doing anything that I might be a little anxious about. I'm so honored that Relief Band is one of our show sponsors. I used it long before they became a sponsor of the show. It's something I use on a regular basis and believe in so much that I tell everyone who even mentions motion sickness about buzzes on your pressure points on your wrist and it helps relieve motion sickness and you don't feel drowsy or crummy afterwards. I've even loaned mine out to friends and family just so they could see the difference for themselves. Relief Band is the original anti nausea wristband that works fast to prevent and relieve nausea caused by motion sickness, anxiety, migraines, morning sickness, chemotherapy. Honestly, the list goes on and on. You wear it just like a watch, adjust the intensity depending on how you're feeling and it starts working almost immediately. It is 100% drug free, non drowsy and has zero side effects. I love that I can use it before symptoms start or even after and still get relief. So if you want to cure your nausea problem fast, join the hundreds of thousands of people who are nausea free with Relief Band. Right now we have an exclusive offer just for 1000 hours outside listeners. If you go to reliefband.com and use promo code 1000hours, you'll receive 20 off plus free shipping. So head to R E L-I-E-F-B-A-N-D.com and use our promo code 1000hours for 20 off plus free shipping. As the summer winds down, I'm feeling that bittersweet shift, saying goodbye to lazy days and getting back into the rhythm of a routine. And you know what? That change inspires me to refresh our space so it reflects our style and makes daily life feel just a little bit smoother. If you're in the same boat, Wayfair is the perfect place to kick off your back to school and fall season prep. Wayfair has everything we need to get our home organized and ready for the season ahead. Inside and outside. Two of our girls needed new beds, so that's where we started. And I can't believe how much they've made bedtime easier. From cozy bedding and linens to storage solutions for every room to playground sets, they have us covered. Plus their huge selection of outdoor items makes it easy to find just what we need to transition smoothly into fall. Whether you're refreshing your workspace with a new desk or making week night dinners a breeze with quality cookware, Wayfair has it all. And with free fast and hassle free delivery, even on big stuff like sofas and dining tables, there's no better time to shop, get organized, refreshed and back into routine. For way less. Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F A I R.com Wayfair Every style, every home. I love getting our kids outside. The sun, the dirt, the fresh air, but also sometimes the sneezing and the watery eyes that used to be our reality. Most falls and springs using allergy medications and lots of tissues. Then I found Earthly. They have herbal remedies for everything with pure real ingredients. Nothing weird, nothing synthetic. I was out there living this beautiful natural life, but we were also taking some unnatural stuff to survive it. Now that's no more. Our cabinet is full of tinctures that support our out in nature life. Even my husband's on board, probably because they're so affordable. My favorite tincture is sinus saver. From September 10th to the 15th, Earthly is having their huge six dollar tincture sale. It's a perfect time to stock up, try something new or toss out some of those guilt causing things in your medicine cabinet. And if you don't love what you get, they will refund you. Honestly, you have absolutely nothing to lose. Well, except your pharmacy reward points. Use the code 1000 hours to get 10 off your next purchase at Earthly.com. that's Earth with an L E-Y.com Earth L-E-Y.com so you write a lot in.

[Jenny Urich]

This book about control, and this is really important. We are heading back into the school year here. Control is a figment of our imagination. Seeking it only makes us more anxious. It certainly isn't required for good child rearing. And you, I mean, because the book is so funny, you talk about like the control has become so overreaching that you've, you say, I've seen articles on how to, how to prepare your child for, for daylight savings time as if it's their first parachute jump. I mean, it's too much. You say, you know, you're getting ready to do potty training now. We did nothing. The kids just, you know, eventually they're like, I don't want to be.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Are they potty trained?

[Ginny]

Yeah, they are.

[Jenny Urich]

You know, the 17 year old, I mean, he's, he's doing fine. In your, the people are like, well, you know, you gotta get books and videos for your child's potty library. You're like, what is that? What's a potty library? So this, this sort of encroachment on, I mean, there. I think that parents from, you know, a couple decades ago would be like, this is nuts.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Well, I'm a parent from a couple decades ago and I did have a potty training book. But what's nuts is the intensity. I mean, in that, in my book, I explain, like, you know, there, there was some potty training manual or something that said, okay, so when you're in the car, you know, why don't you start making up little chants and stories and sing alongs about potty training. And then when you're out of the car, which is almost never, then A, get, go to the potty and B, you know, get puppets and then do little puppets. And I'm thinking of going to the potty. Why? Well, I feel a rumbling in my lower intestine. Oh, well, that must be connected to the anus. You know, it's like, really, do you want to do this and get stuck spoons and spoons talk to each other and then you're associating spoons. It's just horrible. But everything, it's almost like there's no, there's, there's no stopper, you know. And what's the movie? Spinal Tap, you know, they have the sound thing that goes to 11 and parenting manuals go to like 1,259 because there's always another thing that you can be doing, another thing that you can be trying with them or showing them or teaching them or wasting your time on. I mean the sort of the important book here is something by Rebecca Traister, who did a book about how single she was called all the Single Ladies. And it was how single ladies were often the catalysts for big social reforms in America, like Susan B. Anthony. And it's because they didn't have children to take care of. Because back before birth control everybody had these huge families and it was really hard to do anything other than try to feed and clothe them. And she said that when the industrial revolution started gearing up, then suddenly there were some labor saving devices that parents that moms could use in the home. And as soon as those appeared on the horizon, so did books saying, well, if you want to set the perfect table, there's more to it than you might imagine.

[Jenny Urich]

Wow.

[Lenore Skenazy]

And so the standards crept up even as things became easier. Meaning that women still wouldn't have any free time. And not that I think of helicopter parenting as an actual conspiracy against women, but there has been an interesting. You know, a lot of people are less interested in having kids, including a 10 point difference between men and women at this point, with men wanting it more than women, at least in Argentina, because I was just in Argentina doing a. Doing his talk. And I'm not surprised because if your whole life ahead of you is going to be mashing the organic banana and making sure it's the correct temperature and the correct consistency while you're telling them a story about potty training, while you're getting them into the car seat so that you can go to your tumbling class for your 2 year old so that their hand eye coordination will not be behind the other two year olds, then you're spending all your time and your money and your brain power and your joy in life is consumed by a lot of stuff that costs money and time that you don't really have to spend, that we know you don't have to spend because we grew up without having that spent on us. And somehow we learned to tumble and to go to the bathroom and to eat solid food. So we are turning everyday experiences in children's lives into intensely adult run activities that are boring for the kid because an adult is running them and boring for the adult because they're stuck with their kid all day, you know, making up songs about potty training.

[Jenny Urich]

Right.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Okay.

[Jenny Urich]

I spoke at this daycare recently and it was a Fantastic. Daycare play base. No screens. And they were. There were some sort of forms that they had to fill out. I think partially it had to do with funding, and they had these huge notebooks filled with activities to do with the kids, and they had to kind of line it up with the standards. I was shocked.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Let's hear.

[Jenny Urich]

I want to read one. Okay. Kick high.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Kick high. Who kick who.

[Jenny Urich]

What you do, Invite the children to join you outside to practice kicking a ball. A large grassy area is ideal for this activity.

[Lenore Skenazy]

You mean you shouldn't do it in the bathroom?

[Jenny Urich]

Talk about, okay, rules to follow when kicking a ball near others. We're going. And then it tells you what to say. We're going to take turns kicking this.

[Ginny]

Ball up into the air.

[Jenny Urich]

But first we always check to make sure there are no people nearby who could get hit with the ball. Step two, Demonstrate, Lenore.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Demonstrate. Wow. And that'd be bad because I'm bad at kicking a ball.

[Jenny Urich]

And talk through each step as you complete it. Now that I've looked around to make sure it's safe, I'll run up and kick the ball. I'm going to keep my foot under the ball when I kick. Step three, stand it.

[Lenore Skenazy]

I can't stand.

[Jenny Urich]

Tell the child to place the ball on the ground and take at least four, four large steps back. I mean, this is wild. And then, you know, you're going to say, great Charlotte, the ball went higher than your body. Ask children to retrieve their balls and kick again. This is awful.

[Lenore Skenazy]

It's. It's awful. But I hope you will send that to me because it is such a fascinating artifact. And sometimes you just got to go backwards and think like, I'm an anthropologist, you know, sent from another planet or another era, another country, to examine what's going on in the country. So what you just read me is so interesting because it assumes zero agency, curiosity, or physicality on the part of kids, that it all has to be wired by an adult, and the adult has to be super safety conscious. And also using those million words by the time they're two, because otherwise, God forbid, there's like a pause and there could have been a word that you could have inserted in that, and then they'd be a little bit ahead and a little bit more verbal than they are because you said. Or just put the ball in front of them, and then you've taken an activity that's joyful and natural. Even dogs do it.

[Jenny Urich]

They're gonna retrieve their own ball.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Dolphins do it. Right, right, right. If there are tiny Pieces of dirt, worms do it. Everybody does it. Everybody kicks something, right? I mean, kids kick. They can. They kick a. You know, it's an expression. Kick things down the road because it is such a natural part of life. And you've turned it into a boring lesson. Adult led. That is the apotheosis of extrinsic. Right. Nobody's saying, we're going to put some balls out, have fun. Oh, you shouldn't, you know. Oh, were you hurt? You're not even going to be hurt. It's a ball, right? So, you know, you're not kicking medicine balls. So what's great is that it shows you how radical our distrust is in kids. We think they're going to get hurt. We think they're going to hurt other kids. We think they're going to be inert. We think they're not going to notice anything. We think they're going to be mean, and we think they're going to be bored. And those are all incorrect, all incorrect. And we're correcting for them as adults. So you're correcting for something that wasn't wrong. Just like our whole culture is like, I'm going to put you. You know, I'm going to point out this tree because you wouldn't otherwise notice it. And let's look at the leaves. Oh, are they green? And the reason parents are so bored is like, are they green? I think you know. Right? I think you know, and I think your kid is going to figure out that they're green at some point in the future or probably already know it will happen innately. So the big lie in the culture is that kids are dumb. Kids are rocks, or they're computers that haven't been set up yet. And our job is to program everything, and that's the only way that they will wake up. As if there's no curiosity and drive and compassion and love of life. That's innate in kids. And we keep squashing it because we don't think it's there.

[Jenny Urich]

And it's like, have we lost our memory? No one ever did that with us. They just dumped a bag of balls, you know, out in the middle of the field. You have at it, you don't even need a ball.

[Lenore Skenazy]

That's what I'm saying. It is so innate in a kitchen, a dandelion and a pine cone. And it's kind of innate. Interesting that they're both different.

[Jenny Urich]

Right? Right. Well, and then if you play that out less than two decades down the road, which is not that much time, if you are taking this approach. Yeah, right. All right, yes. If you take this approach of, I am going to spell this out so clearly. Step with your left foot, take three steps, kick with your right foot. It's like how, if people were to be logical, how does that set a child up for a rapidly changing world? There is no boss in the world that's going to want to stand over your desk and say, now type this email and say it this way. And when it's done, write best comma, your name, you know, or whatever. Like, that's not going to happen. And so it does appear to be something that would hold a child back from being successful as they mature.

[Lenore Skenazy]

I chisel that on a rock and put it at the front of every neighborhood. Like, your kids are better off if they have to figure some stuff out on their own. The thing that prevents us from doing that, aside from insane rules and laws and suggestions and 10 tips for getting your kid to kick a ball, is the fear that if they are outside, something terrible will happen. You know, either they will be hurt, they will be kidnapped, they will be hit by a car, they will be bullied. And, and what's interesting to me is the fact that all we can see are these fears. And that's why you need reality to counteract them. Because we've really inflated everyday life with exaggerated, extravagant fears that in any other era. I always wanted, like, if only you could go back 200 years. You know, Abraham Lincoln had four kids, right? Four kids. Let's go back to a time when, like, things were truly dangerous. You'd step on a rusty nail and you would die. Abe Lincoln's three out of four kids didn't make it to adulthood. And it wasn't because he was a bad guy. I think we agree he was a pretty good guy. But it's that life was so much more tenuous. And now we've taken. It's almost like those fears for like, you know, tetanus and diphtheria and polio we've placed on, well, if he walks to the bus stop or if she's at the bus stop by herself, or if, you know, if she stops to play at the park for an hour after school. Those are the equivalent of truly death defying activities. And we need to have some gratitude that those aren't. And that in any other era, if your kid simply had, you know, they had, they were healthy and there was no famine and there was no war in your country and the water supply was clean, and then you sent your kid to the park. It's like, well, who cares? They've got everything already. They're so safe. They will never be perfectly safe, but they will never be perfectly safe walking down the stairs or eating solid food or being driven to the dentist. And yet we inflate the fears of whenever they're not with us. And part of it is because we've been trained to think like those poor daycare workers who are stuck narrating like, now I am going to sniffle, I'm going to take my nose and there's a little bit of snot in here and I'm going to reintegrate it into my throat where it will go down through my digestive system that begins with D. Well, actually ds, you know, system is with a Y. You might think it's sis. It just, it's, it's making their lives so boring. I thought you were going to read to me. I keep. On my phone. A friend sent me her kids the, the, the emails that she gets every day from her kids daycare. Aside from, of course, there's constant cameras on them because an unsupervised child is a child in constant danger. But also the poor daycare workers are stuck writing down this, which they send her. And it takes me a while to get it up on my screen, but it's 9:28am P, 10:22am P, 12:15pm P and BM. So that's your job. You've gone, you love children, you want to work with them, you've taken some education classes and you're stuck recording their, their excrement to the minute. And not only recording it, but sending it to parents as if they need this information. And so part of the problem today is not just control, but that we keep getting more pinpoints of control, more information. Oh, well, you know, she peed three times yesterday, but today it's only been two. I wonder if that means. And then, you know, you Google child not peeing and it turns out that they're dehydrated and now you're taking them to the hospital and. But it's so much information. And I'll go on a weird tangent, if you want, about God. Do you want to, you want to go there for a second? Yeah. So there's this wonderful professor of religion named Alan Levinovitz who's at James Madison University, and he said that part of the problem, quote, unquote, is that when we imagine God or when we think of God or when we believe in God, whatever it is, it's an all knowing God and we are formed in our Maker's image. And so we are trying to be that. And he said there are other gods, other cultures that don't think of God as all knowing. But since we have that image of God as the all knowing omniscient being, the more that we can get there, the more we try to be like that. And so knowing the exact minute that our kids peed today at daycare and knowing how many orange segments they ate and whether they ate all five nuggets or just four and a half, we think is important because it's getting us closer to that omniscient ideal. And maybe the ideal of omniscience is a bad one for humans.

[Jenny Urich]

Yeah, I mean, you had the phrase.

[Ginny]

In this book, resist the lure of omniscience. It's a big deal. It's a really big deal.

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[Ginny]

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[Jenny Urich]

You talk about how we have this Worst first thinking. Every parent should read this book Worst first thinking. And you said you had an alternative book title, which was Quit imagining your kids kids dead. That you know, we are just, we're really bad at assessing risk. You have this statistic. If you actually wanted your child to be kidnapped and held overnight by a stranger, how long would you have to keep the child outside unattended for this to be statistically likely to happen? 750,000 years. And they say all the fear in.

[Ginny]

The world does not prevent death, it prevents life.

[Jenny Urich]

And so when you're talking about the history here, so you talked about Abraham Lincoln, but if we go not that far back, you're talking about your own great grandmother. These are important things to read. Like when I learned that Peter Gray walked to the store at 4, that challenged me to like loosen the reins a little bit up on my own kids. So you're talking about your own in your own lineage. Your great grandmother married at 15.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Oh yeah?

[Jenny Urich]

Has your grandma not that long after? And you say our teenage ancestors were capable of raising children, keeping them safe, gathering the Food, passing along all of their teenage wisdom. You know, like they had to do that or the human race would have stopped. Kids used to babysit at 9 or 10. They were babysitting other kids. You say 40 to 80% of toddlers are cared for by older siblings who might just be a year or two older than they are. And then you have this Incredible catalog of four generations. Four generations. How children lost the right to roam in four generations. You got the 88 year old grandpa who would walk six miles to his favorite fishing hole alone when he's eight. Then his son, 63, walked a mile from home when he's eight. Then the daughter walked a half mile to school when she's about eight. And by that fourth generation, that kid is not even allowed to leave his block and hardly even his yard at age 8. Yeah, this is remarkable. A remarkably fast devolution change of something. Yeah, that, that really affects. And I think maybe that's part of the problem is that like in the intro that John wrote, he says this massive society wide deprivation of childhood freedom is no laughing matter. It appears to be one of the major reasons that rates of adolescent anxiety, depression, self harm and suicide have risen.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Yeah, you can't laugh. That's true. I mean, that's why if you read his most recent book, the Anxious Generation, you know, he has four new norms to help kids be less of the anxious generation and maybe to help parents to be the less of the anxious generation. And three are about phones. You know, no phones till 14, no social media till 16, and keep phones out of the school. But the fourth new norm is what we're talking about here, which is more independence, responsibility and free play in the real world. And this is the year he's concentrating on sort of pushing that part of the norm, that fourth norm, because it's the hardest.

[Jenny Urich]

Yeah, that's what he said.

[Lenore Skenazy]

You know, phones you can look at and you think like, oh, that is bad. You know, nobody should be on this, what, five and a half hours a day. There's a piece on his substack today, I think, talking about how kids will spend, you know, if you're born now, you'll spend 25 years of your life, you know, staring at your phone. But of course I won't be staring at your phone because it'll be in your glasses or on your contact lenses. But anyways, at least that's a demon, right? You can look at it and you think, you know, who are these Silicon Valley evil wizards who are, you know, infecting our kids? And luring them to their doom. But the fourth one is, how do I get brave enough to let go? How do I get brave enough to give them this independence and free play that we all are talking about as important? And that's why let grow. When we started, let grow. It was Jonathan, me, Peter Gray, and this guy Daniel Schuchman, who, like, who Dan Schucman was for. He's fantastic. Dan. Dan the unsung Dan. Dan is fantastic. He's a man of. He's so funny and he has so much integrity and he's just a delight to be around. And for 10 years, he was the chairman of fire, which fights for. It's like the ACLU, it fights for free speech on campus. And he and John were worried that kids on campus were so fragile that they weren't even willing to hear or read books that were disturbing or that challenged their viewpoints because they thought that being uncomfortable literally meant being unsafe because they'd grown up so comfortable that the lack of that struck them as wrong. You know, parents and adults were always there to save them. So why was nobody saving them from this discomfort? Now, they needed a safe room. They needed a trigger warning. And what they decided together is that trying to make kids more curious and resilient and robust, which would happen if they were kicking a ball on their own instead of being instructed every second of the day, trying to Change them at 18, 19, 20 is a late stage intervention for a problem that has been festering for a long time. So why not try to raise kids who are more resilient and out there exploring from the get go? And that's when John said, well, I read Free Range Kids. I like Lenore. Let's start a nonprofit with her. And when we decided to start it, A, I brought in Peter, and B, we're all thought leaders. And it's like thoughts just keep going in a circle. Oh, that sounds great, Ginny. Yeah. A thousand hours outside. But if I let my kid go outside and what if something happened then I could never forgive myself. And then nobody would tell me. I could never not live with myself. It's a muttering. And you go back to the beginning. I guess I'll just. I won't let her. I won't let her go outside because it's unlikely something bad will happen. But if it does, I can never live with myself again. The end. And that's back to what you were talking about earlier. You either live with your anxiety or you give your kids anxiety. Well, it's impossible to live with that horrible anxiety if you keep imagining your kid, TED and so thoughts are not on our agenda, only action is. And the reason is because action breaks the cycle. Action changes everything. As you know, the minute you do something, the world has changed. Thinking about it doesn't change anything. John always talks about how a collective problem at this point, nobody letting their kids do anything on their own needs a collective solution, which would be everybody doing it at the same time so you don't feel as weird or guilty or self conscious or alone. And so we came up with two programs for schools that are both free, that, thank God, 1,000 schools are doing now. But of course, we want every school in America to be doing them. And if, let me, I'll just explain, explain them really fast. Yeah. Okay, so this, these are all available at Let Grow, and they are free. So the first one is to do the Let Grow experience. It's a homework assignment that kids get from the teachers. And it just says, go home and do something new on your own with your parents permission, but without your parents. And depending on your kid and their age and the neighborhood and their interests, it can be anything from, you know, making breakfast to climbing a tree, going to the store, learning to skateboard, babysit, visiting grandma, just anything but the act of letting go of your kid for any amount of time, even just sitting in the, you know, sitting upstairs while your kid is cooking, scrambling eggs, is liberating for both generations. The kid sees my mom trusts me, my parents trust me. And the parents think, oh, my God, are they burning down the kitchen? I mean, I've met so many kids who don't cook because they think if they turn down the stove, they will burn down the house. I met a kid who thought that toasting the bread would burn down the house. So we've really, just as we were talking about comparing, you know, 200 years ago till now, we've taken, you know, you don't have to set a fire in the hearth, you don't have to light a tallow candle and let it, you know, burn while you're asleep in a thatched hut. Right, right now you're just talking about turning on your oven or turning on your stove and cooking an egg, which is really safe and really easy. And it's off the charts terrifying for the parents and the kid. So the only thing that stops it from being terrifying is showing, kid. This is how you do it. You need a little butter in the pan. Okay, go for it. I'll be upstairs. Yeah. And then they've made an egg it's the greatest, greatest egg anybody has ever scrambled in the history of the universe. Maybe you give mom or dad a taste, you know, maybe you give a little bit to the dog, but it is thrilling because they finally did something on their own and they know their parents trust them. Yeah, right?

[Jenny Urich]

Yes. What a thing.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Yeah.

[Jenny Urich]

That's huge. That really matters. You say the people who show us they believe in us are the wind beneath our wings.

[Ginny]

Kids are desperate to master the world.

[Lenore Skenazy]

And desperate for somebody who loves them to see that they're not bumbling babies. And if parents are doing everything with their kids and for their kids, the only assumption a kid can have is like, well, you must think that I can't handle anything, right? So the reason that the Let Grow experience is good is it because it pushes the parent. And in our culture, we've just discussed this for an hour or whatever, our culture has told parents that kids are in danger no matter what. And so they haven't had the experience of letting go. But if everybody is letting go at the same time, my kid's going to the store and your kid's getting a haircut and my kid's making us breakfast. It normalizes this. And then it comes to the school and the kids are saying, I did this. Oh, you did that. Maybe I can do that with you. There's nothing wrong with kids doing it together. Right. It's just without an adult. And we just want to renormalize what we've been talking about going, you know, disappearing over the. Over the recent decades is the idea of kids having any kind of agency, intrinsic motivation and trust and ability to do something real as opposed to, I'm going to teach you how to kick a ball, and then we're going to see if you kicked it at. Oh, you know, that was. That was nice. You kicked it at a 45 degree angle. Let's try for a 53 degree angle next time. That'll be really exciting. I'll get out my protractor. We'll see. Oh, gosh.

[Ginny]

Oh, gosh. What is the other.

[Jenny Urich]

You said there's two.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Oh, thank God. I would have forgotten. Yes. So the other one. So the other Let Grow things for schools is to keep the schools open for what we call a Let Grow play club.

[Jenny Urich]

Oh, I love this. And you talk about this in the book. I mean, it's fantastic.

[Lenore Skenazy]

It's so simple. It's Peter Gray's idea. And it is keep the school open after school or before school or both. Even better if it's both. For Mixed ages, all the ages together. You know, K through 5, K through 8. No phones, loose parts, all sorts of junk. Free play. And yes, there's an adult there for legal reasons. And in case there's an emergency, sort of like there's a lifeguard, but they don't get involved. Right. And so you have something similar, not exact, to Peter Gray's childhood, which is a bunch of kids together with nothing special to do. And I've been to several play clubs. There's always a group of boys, I hate to say it. It is always boys who go and organize a soccer game. And that itself should make people's brains explode, because there's no coach, there's no shin guards, right? There's nobody in the bleachers saying, good job, Johnny. You know, it's just the kids. Kids playing on their own. And of course, they will argue at some point.

[Jenny Urich]

Here's how you kick the soccer ball.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Right? Right, right. I'm gonna put this ball on the field, and I don't want you to just look at it. Maybe you want to touch it to get familiar with it so you'll realize it's not so scary. Okay?

[Jenny Urich]

But it is remarkable, if you think about the skill sets, right, of being able to organize a game where everybody has to agree on the rules. It's not standard, however many kids are on the field. And it's not standard size. And I mean, all of those things, you have to negotiate, right?

[Lenore Skenazy]

And then there's the kids who aren't playing soccer, which would have always been me. I would have never played soccer. So then there's the kids like me with the chalk, right? Just drawing or making up. I was so happy to see in my neighborhood, which is Queens, New York, recently, on the sidewalk, there was a hopscotch game. And it went 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 58, 59, 92, 93. It went to 108. Right. And I was like, yes. You know, but if I was an adult making you a hopscotch thing, it would be. It would end at 10, and then there'd be sky blue. And, I mean, you need kids to do things on their own because they will always come up. One mom told me that when her kid was playing on her own with her friends at a park where there was slats, wooden slats, and then the grass just sort of grew up between the slats. The kids came home later and they said, mommy, guess what? We were playing. She's like, what? She said said, lice. We would Go and suck on the pieces of grass that were coming through the slats like you were playing lice. That's great. So first of all, you know, you know what's going on in their house. We've all had it, we all know it. Yeah, but you know, they say that through play kids deal with things. So A, they were dealing with things, but B, if I had a bunch of kids over at my house, I would not say it's lice time. You know, let's play lice. I would say, hey, let's play four square, let's play hopscotch, let's play jacks. I mean, I just wouldn't have any. Great.

[Jenny Urich]

No, yeah, no, no parent, right? No. Parent's like, I've got an idea.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Yeah, really? See those pieces of grass? What do they remind you of? Remember last week? Yes, we remember. So the point is, you need kids to be doing things on their own because they figure out what interests them and when they do, then they have to explain. You know, I'm sure that three kids didn't come up with the same idea of lice at the same time. One kid said, hey, how about we're lice? Oh yeah, that's funny. Let's go down here. Oh, that looks like hair. You know, so there's communication, there's creativity, there's getting buy in, there's making sure nobody's so bored that they want to leave or so mean that you have to kick them out. It's all the skills that kids need to become functioning humans. And we keep thinking when they're with us, they're getting all the teachable moments. You just have to recognize that teachable has the word teacher in it. So we think that teachable means that somebody has to be teaching you. But life is. So I'm learning from you. I mean, I'm learning from everything every day. And to not recognize that is hubris. To think that kids only learn when an adult is teaching them something is stultifying for the kid and sort of too important on you because there's the whole world that they learn from and you only feel that when you step back. So if you have a LEC Play Club where kids are making their own fun and bring junk in the. I got to help John on two chapters in the anxious generation. And one was talking about the Play club. So I was calling like, ah, I'm writing this thing for John. What should I say about play Club? And I talked to a play expert, if you could believe it, in England who said, make sure. There are some sandbags there. And do you know why he said that?

[Jenny Urich]

Sandbags?

[Lenore Skenazy]

Well, bags full of sand.

[Jenny Urich]

Big for heavy work.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Yeah.

[Jenny Urich]

Why? Because that helps to. The proprioception sense and it helps to calm kids down.

[Lenore Skenazy]

And that's. It's a part that.

[Jenny Urich]

Build with it.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Yes.

[Jenny Urich]

I mean, look, there's so many reasons to have it.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Okay, wait, so. All right, so let's go from here. So to build with it, what happens? How do you build? Say you got a sandbag and you want to build a fort.

[Jenny Urich]

Well, they start to stack them. They start to stack them on top of each other.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Who's they?

[Ginny]

The kids.

[Lenore Skenazy]

One kid.

[Jenny Urich]

A bunch of kids.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Because.

[Jenny Urich]

Because many hands make light work.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Right. And. And. And also. And. And literally it makes lighter because those handbags are heavy and a kid can't lift one. Right.

[Jenny Urich]

So it's teamwork automatically. So many things. A sandbag. And I think that's the whole point. It's like the sandbag is so many things. One of the things that I've thought about, Lenor, is the fact that society used to be set up in a way that fostered play. But not on purpose. Yeah, it wasn't on purpose. It was because. Because you didn't have air conditioning. It was because you didn't have as many toys. It was because there's a ton. There wasn't anything on tv, so you naturally went outside and no one maybe had this information. Right. The parents weren't like, oh, oh, this.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Is so good for their proprioception. Whatever. Reception hour till six, honey. Right. Then you gotta come home for dinner.

[Jenny Urich]

So then when it changed, no one knew what we were losing.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Yes. Yes.

[Jenny Urich]

And I think that we're on that uphill battle of teaching people for the first time. I never heard of proprioception in my life until I became a parent and read from. From Angela Hans. You know, I'd never heard of interoception and all vestibular sense. I'd never heard of any of those.

[Ginny]

I didn't learn those growing up.

[Jenny Urich]

I think that there's a knowledge gap there. People don't really know what we lost. But now we're starting to see the ramifications of it. And so I think we need so many of these reminders that play is not frivolous. You said this. This is a huge quote. All the latest research shows that play itself turns out to be the most important developmental booster of all. If it were a class, there would be waiting lists to get in.

[Ginny]

We are.

[Jenny Urich]

We're running out of Time. But I wanted to. No one's ever talked about this on the show. And I wondered if you could touch on this because I thought this was really. It's a key. It's a, it's, you know, it's a.

[Ginny]

Key to the whole thing.

[Jenny Urich]

Kids are not playing as much as they used to.

[Ginny]

But you talk about this childhood to.

[Jenny Urich]

Career connection and you have this quote in here from William WOODWORTH from the 1800s, the child is the father of the man. And of all of the things that we've talked about, this one is incredibly important too, that in ages past, childhood was a time where you learned what you were about. And so often there is this career to childhood connection. And what happens if kids don't have.

[Ginny]

That time to explore or everything is adult led.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Right. Well, you know, the trite thing is that at college graduation, somebody stands up and says, follow your passion. And, and all these kids stare back blankly. It's like, well, let's see, I've had, you know, soccer, ballet and pre med. What is my passion? Because they haven't had the chance to be lice or to do the weird things that just interested them because they had free time and less supervision. So the child is father to the man. Is true. Because who you are as a kid is the oldest part of you. I mean, it's weird because you're the youngest, but it is the oldest part of you. As you grow, it's the inside of your tree. Right. And so if as a kid, well, I'll ask you, Ginny, what did you do as a kid just for fun that you sort of see yourself?

[Jenny Urich]

Oh, gosh. Oh my gosh. I read. I love to read. I read all the Nancy Drew's, I'd stay up late readings. I'm a pretty fast reader. Today I have six podcasts. That's actually low. You know, sometimes I'll do 10 in a day. And so that means I've read 10 books that week. So there's that, you know. And I, I will tell you this. I had a friend, my dear friend growing up. Her name is Beth. We went to church together. And she made me feel so seen because she was good at asking questions and good at listening to the responses. And I thought as a young child.

[Ginny]

In elementary school, I want to be like that.

[Lenore Skenazy]

That is so cool. We are drawn to certain things. I remember reading books about. There was a book where the mom was always entering contests and I thought, that is so cool. And then I ended up running contests for many, many years at different publications. But there are these weird little things that hit you that there is no class in, that no adult is going to suggest. And I'll just give you one example, because I did an article where I interviewed a bunch of people who were successful now about what the through line was, or at least were happy in what they were doing. And there was one guy who said that when he was a kid, he would draw all the time and he would draw weird RVs, recreational vehicles, like, including one that was an amphibious vehicle. It was an RV that could turn into a yacht and RVs that floated and whatever. And it's like there aren't a lot of classes in fantasy RV ideation for 7 year olds, but that's what he did. And then when he became a high school student, he got a job in a local. He was in New York City in a computer store. And he was good at, you know, he was always exploring. And so he was good at coding. And so he was like the guy who could figure stuff out. And so when Penn of Penn and Teller came to that store and said, I want my computer. These are very, very early computers to say, you know, what's up, Penn? Or like, go away or something like that, they said, oh, well, ask Jim or whatever his name is. So. So Jim figures this out and he's starting to work with Teller or Penn of Penn and Teller. And then he goes off to college and he studies architecture. And years later, Penn gets back in touch with him and what does he do? He ends up designing Penn's Las Vegas home with weird, you know, hidden rooms and disappearing staircases and magic in the attic. And it was, wow, all of his interests mashed up together. And had he been in soccer instead of just sketching for himself these pointless RVs, I don't think he would have been that architect.

[Ginny]

That's right.

[Lenore Skenazy]

So what kids need, and I have a million stories like that, but what kids need is time. We want them to follow their passions, and we don't give them a single unsupervised, unstructured section to noodle around and figure out what that might be that might take them from child to the man in a successful way, because they figured out what turns them on intrinsically. So we have to step back and give kids back their playtime and their independence so that they become the people in full instead of good little soccer players and good little students.

[Jenny Urich]

Wow. It's so powerful. You write, kids with a passion are as lucky as can be. They are finding direction, they are developing confidence.

[Ginny]

But best of all. They aren't bumps on the log of life.

[Jenny Urich]

They are learning how to make things happen. It's so good. The book is phenomenal. It is the most amusing and yet also thought provoking and giving you practical suggestions. Parenting book that's out there. It is called Free Range Kids. How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow. I'm gonna have this episode come out when you have a new TED Talk coming out. So I'll make sure. I'll put the link in there. People can listen to that. One of my favorite lines of all books I've ever read. I want to end with this.

[Lenore Skenazy]

All happy families are the same.

[Jenny Urich]

Fewer than a third of our kids are playing outside anymore. Childhood has changed in less time than it takes to say, red rover, red rover, let's go inside and play Call of Duty. I just laughed. I remember I laughed so hard when I read that the first time because, like, just you're, like, not expecting it at all. Rover, red rover, let's go inside and play Call of Duty. And I read it again when I was prepping for this and I just saw, oh, my goodness, this. You have a chapter called We All Scream for Ice Creams.

[Lenore Skenazy]

That's true.

[Jenny Urich]

Woe to the child who develops a good pencil grip at age 7 instead of age 4. Mediocrity is nipping at our children's heels. I mean, fantastic, Lenore. You helped kick this podcast off. So I just. A sincere thank you for saying yes way back when and a huge thank you for coming back on now. This is information that parents obviously still need. It's hard.

[Ginny]

It's hard and you're making it easier. So thank you for being here.

[Lenore Skenazy]

Thank you, Jenny. Thank you for people always quote at me. You know, don't kids need a thousand hours outside? I'm like, I know who coined that phrase.

[Jenny Urich]

That's great.

[Ginny]

I love it.

[Lenore Skenazy]

It's cool.