The Ryan Vet Show

Lenore Skenazy: Free Range Kids and Why Overprotection Is the Real Danger

• Episode 33

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We convinced ourselves that childhood is more dangerous than ever, right as crime hit historic lows. Lenore Skenazy, founder of Free Range Kids and president of Let Grow, joins The Ryan Vet Show to explain why overprotection became the actual threat, and how to give kids their independence back.

In 2008, Lenore Skenazy let her nine year old ride the New York City subway home alone. He had begged for it. He made it back levitating with pride. She wrote a column about it, and within two days she was on the Today Show, MSNBC, Fox News, and NPR defending herself against the title that stuck: America's Worst Mom. She turned that moment into Free Range Kids, and then into Let Grow, the nonprofit she co-founded with psychologists Jonathan Haidt and Peter Gray to make childhood independence normal and easy again.

In this conversation with host Ryan Vet, Lenore unpacks how American fear got so distorted. She traces the spike to the 1980s: the arrival of 24 hour cable news, a handful of high profile abductions, and missing kid photos on milk cartons that left out the context. The result is a culture where, by one University of Michigan finding she cites, half of parents of nine to eleven year olds will not let their child walk to a different aisle in a store. Meanwhile the data points the other way. Lenore cites figures putting the American homicide rate back to where it was around 1900, and notes that a genuine stranger kidnapping is so rare you would have to leave a child outside for hundreds of thousands of years for it to become statistically likely.

The cost of all that protection is not neutral. Drawing on Peter Gray's work, Lenore argues that as children's real world independence has declined over decades, anxiety and depression have climbed, because independence is how kids build an internal locus of control, the felt sense that they can handle things. Ryan connects this to his Generational Pendulum, from latchkey kids to helicopter parents to today's digital leash. Lenore's sharpest point lands on tracking apps: with around 86 percent of children now tracked, she argues we are replacing faith with certainty, and certainty is more fragile because you have to keep checking it.

The episode closes on what actually works. The only thing that changes anxiety, Lenore says, is action. She walks through Let Grow's free programs, the Reasonable Childhood Independence laws now passed in 13 states, and a Harris finding that kids themselves rank free play first and time online last. They are there by default, not by desire.

In this episode:

  • The subway story that made Lenore America's Worst Mom, and what her son actually learned that day
  • Why American fear spiked in the 1980s: 24 hour cable news, high profile abductions, and the milk carton effect
  • The University of Michigan finding that half of parents of nine to eleven year olds will not let them go to a different aisle in a store
  • Why a stranger kidnapping is statistically so rare, and the homicide rate's return to roughly 1900 levels
  • Internal versus external locus of control, and how independence builds resilience
  • Peter Gray's research linking the decades long decline in independence to rising anxiety and depression
  • The tracking trap: why around 86 percent of kids are now monitored, and why certainty is more anxious than trust
  • Ryan's Generational Pendulum: latchkey kids, helicopter parents, and the digital leash
  • Let Grow's free programs: the Let Grow Experience, the Let Grow Play Club, and the Independence Kit
  • The 13 states that have passed Reasonable Childhood Independence laws, usually with bipartisan support
  • The Harris finding that kids rank free play first and online last when choosing how to spend time with friends

Referenced in this episode:

  • Let Grow: letgrow.org
  • Free-Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy (2009, re-released 2021)
  • Jonathan Haidt and Peter Gray, co-founders of Let Grow
  • Peter Gray's research on declining independence and rising youth anxiety
  • The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
  • Kevin Stinehart and the Let Grow Play Club (last week's episode)

Connect with Ryan Vet:

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About Ryan Vet

Ryan Vet is a USA TODAY bestselling author, futurist, and international keynote speaker whose insights on generations, culture, and the future of work have been featured in Forbes, Financial Times, ABC, NBC, and CBS. His research helps leaders understand emerging generational patterns and anticipate societal shifts before they fully unfold.

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SPEAKER_02

On this episode of the Ryan Vett Show.

SPEAKER_01

Very hard to stay sane in a culture that keeps saying that your kids are in constant danger, and in fact, that's where our culture has gone. So you ask, why are kids not outside? Why are we not let them go to the ice cream truck? Maybe they're not even ice cream trucks anymore because no kids go to them. It's because we've really become convinced that anytime we take our eyes off our kids, they're going to be, God forbid, you know, kidnapped, raped, and eaten, or fall behind.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to another episode of the Ryan Bet Show. I am so excited to have America's Worst Mom, but I I don't agree with that, Moniker. This is uh Lenore Sceneese, and she has just spent the last 17 years really trying to help talk about kids. Uh, you might know her from her TED Talk that came out a couple years ago, or her book Free Range Kids, that came out in 2009 and was re-released uh in 2021. But I'm so excited to have Lenore with me. Lenore, thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you for being excited. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. And I know you're doing so much to really make positive movements from uh lobbying and legislating to providing uh programs for schools and resources. And I want to get into all of that, but first we have to go to the origin story. You sent your nine-year-old son on a subway by himself in New York City. Is that true?

SPEAKER_01

Uh that's true. But did I send him? I mean, the fact was that he had been bugging me and my husband uh to take him someplace he'd never been before and let him find his own way home by subway here in New York City, where we live. And uh it got to the point where we had to actually think about this. We had an older son who never asked. And we decided, yeah, uh, I guess he's ready. You know, we're always on the subway, and they're not gorgeous. They don't smell great, but they strike us as, you know, pretty safe, and six million people take them a day. So we said yes. And uh I let him, I I one day I took him to Bloomingdale's, a fancy department store, and I left him there after telling him that that was gonna happen. It wasn't like he was looking around for mom and crying. Um, and so I went home one way and he took the subway home. You have to take a bus across town after that. He came into the apartment levitating with pride, with excitement, with happiness. And so I wrote a column why I let my nine-year-old ride the subway alone. And two days later, I was on the Today Show, MSNBC, Fox News, and NPR, uh, you know, defending myself. So that that's how I got the America's Worst Mom nickname. Everybody thought I was terrible.

SPEAKER_00

I I first of all I'm sorry that you got that nickname, but I also think it has allowed your message to go much further because I think you're you're talking about something very important that is countercultural in America. I would say it's not countercultural in other places, but for whatever reason in America, we have uh this innate fear that our children are going to be abducted, or we were talking even before we started the recording about the ice cream trucks and that that lost moment of childhood and now how every ice cream truck is a bad guy. Could you talk a little bit about uh where some of these fears stem from and and why as a culture and society we seem to be so adamantly against letting children be children and experience freedom?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, well, thank you for that T up. Um I I've been thinking about this obviously for a long time, and I really do have to lay the blame for a lot of our fear at at the feet of the media because something really changed in the 1980s. Uh a couple things changed, in fact. One is we got cable television, which gave us the 24-hour news cycle. Well, when you have 24 hours of bad news in the background of your life, it seems like bad things are happening all the time, probably close to you. Um another thing that happened in the 80s is there were a couple of very high-profile kidnappings, and one of them, Adam Walsh, is his dad, John Walsh, uh, started America's Most Wanted. There, when there was a uh a mini-series done on him, it broke all ratings records. And television executives have one job, which is to get more people to watch more television, right? Right. And so when they saw that, they said, Oh my God, let's just, you know, let's you know, like predators themselves, let's get more of them. And so that just became like a real staple of television. Then of course along came Law and Order, which will never ever end. It will never feel like there's there's always cockroaches rule the earth, but somewhere, you know, this is their story is is resonating behind us. And and then the the last thing that really made a giant impact in the 80s was um the kids on the milk cartons. Ryan, you might be too young to remember these. Do you remember these?

SPEAKER_00

I caught the very tail end of that.

SPEAKER_01

Right. Okay, well, that's sort of too bad. Um, but these were kids' pictures plant printed on milk cartons under the banner that said um missing or have you seen me? And what they were missing, what they were missing, was a little asterisk that would have said, I was taken in a custodial dispute between my divorced parents. Or I ran away. My mom remarried a stepfather and I hate him. Uh because uh the vast majority of kids who um who are missing are are gone because of those circumstances, not because they were taken by a stranger. And I will ask you my favorite fact ever, um which is a strange one, I guess. Probably not everyone's favorite fact. But if for some reason you wanted your child to be kidnapped by a stranger in a law and order, you know, what they call the FBI calls a stereotypical kidnapping, do you know how long you would have to leave that kid outside, unattended, unsupervised, um, for this to be statistically likely to happen?

SPEAKER_00

I've watched your TED talk, and so I know I I believe it's I believe it's like 700,000, is that right?

SPEAKER_01

You're getting there. 700 what? Thousand what?

SPEAKER_00

Hours?

SPEAKER_01

Years. Years.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so I I was I listened to the TED talk and I was still wrong.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, it's 750,000 years. And uh, you know, that's so incomprehensible, but I I love that statistic because you just try it's very hard to keep it's very hard to stay sane in a culture that keeps saying that your kids are in constant danger. And in fact, that's where our culture has gone. So you ask, why are kids not outside? Why are we not let them go to the ice cream truck? Maybe they're not even ice cream trucks anymore because no kids go to them. It's because we've really become convinced that anytime we take our eyes off our kids, they're going to be, God forbid, you know, kidnapped, raped, and eaten, or fall behind, right? They just they won't, they won't get the the they won't be at the soccer tournament, they won't be hearing us uh tell them an interesting uh educational fact as we walk home from school, they will not have enough um extracurricular activities for them to apply to a great college. And so we've turned childhood from a time of what you were talking about, just running around, climbing trees, you know, making forts, to a time of intense cultivation. And and that's done out of obviously love. We want the best for our kids.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

But the ironic, you know, I mean, I think I'm on your show today because the ironic thing is that, you know, too much safety, like almost too much anything, can backfire. And whatever risk there is for letting your kid walk to the bus stop or play at the park, there's a risk of not letting them do that and them thinking that it's all too dangerous or too scary or they can't handle it. And we we call that anxiety. And we are seeing a very uh, you know, an anxious cohort, I'd say, for the last generation. And part of that is because anxiety is when you think that you can't handle something. If you try, you will fail. If you fail, you will never recover. And that's sort of what we've told kids about everything. I don't want you doing that, honey. What if you're never, you know, what if you never come back? Um 50% of kids of parents, this is a University of Michigan study, 50% of parents of kids age nine to eleven, don't let them go to another aisle at the grocery.

SPEAKER_00

Fifty percent of kids that are nine to eleven. So we're talking fourth and fifth, maybe even sixth graders.

SPEAKER_01

Are not allowed to go to another aisle. They didn't say at the grocery, we said the the the the study was at the store. So maybe we're talking IKEA, right?

SPEAKER_00

But still, even one aisle over, that that's startling. And I think uh I shared with you when when we were first talking uh about uh we were at a fast food restaurant celebrating something uh my my son had accomplished, and I had uh at the time a six-year-old and a three and a half year old. The six-year-old uh at this particular fast food establishment, whole whole twenty feet away, uh wanted to exchange his uh book or his toy for ice cream. And uh I remember just the glares when we let him walk from our booth to I mean, we're talking twenty feet. We're in full line of sight. There's not even an aisle of clothes or boxes or anything dividing us. And and then a couple minutes later, our our three and a half-year-old son uh wanted to cut his uh chicken sandwich, and and so we said, go get a knife. And and I'm we're not getting a cleaver. He he went to the plastic pre-wrap night, and and an employee looked at us and like looked at him, and and I was just shocked. And here we are, not even out of sight. And and I just see this prevalent in in this culture. Why I I know the news cycles, I know the fear, but why do you think this is still sticking? You you've been working on this for for so many years, and and people still aren't seeing change. What are what are some of the main reasons?

SPEAKER_01

Well, part of it is social. I mean, nobody wants to be glared at, right? Nobody wants to be considered lazy or negligent. And so if it looks like the social norm around you is nobody sends a six-year-old 20 feet to the to the counter to get an ice cream, well then you don't do it either. I mean, the fact that you're talking about it now uh is indicative that it was, you know, I mean, it I think you still did the right thing, and I think you think you did the right thing. But obviously it shakes you to the core that other people are daring to second guess your loving, rational decision, knowing your child, knowing where you were, knowing what they're capable of, and knowing that it's good for kids to feel, feel their oats. Hey, look what I did. I, you know, I got this ice cream. I mean, there's no better sentence in the world than I did it myself. I I feel it to this day. And to take that out of kids' lives and saying, no, honey, here, let me, I'll do this for you, might seem like that's the socially responsible thing to do, but psychologically, psychologically, it undermines kids. I mean, you know, there's I work with um I founded Let Grow, which is the nonprofit that promotes childhood independence, uh, with three people, and two of them are psychologists. One is Jonathan Haidt, who wrote The Anxious Generation, um, but the other is Peter Gray, who's a professor of psychology at Boston College. And he wrote a piece in the Journal of Pediatrics um a couple of years ago that showed that over the decades, as kids' independence has been going down, decades, not just since COVID, not just since the iPhone, decades, as that has been going down, their anxiety and their depression have been going up. And he makes the case that this isn't just, you know, wow, that's coincidence. It's not a coincidence. It is causation. And the reason is something, the internal locus of control. Have you heard of that expression?

SPEAKER_00

I have, yes.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, okay. So you know that it's the feeling of like I can handle things. Internally, I know that I can control somewhat my destiny, right? I can go get that ice cream. I can trade in this stupid toy for a delicious ice cream, and I won't regret it later when the ice cream's gone and I don't have the toy. No, you gotta live with some consequences, kid, right? But, anyways, that's an internal locus of control. An external locus of control is when somebody else is always telling you what to do. And we know how much micromanagement drives people crazy, right? Well, to a certain extent, we're micromanaging kids' lives. And, you know, that that gets to be disheartening. You start to feel like you can't handle anything, you feel a little bit like a victim. And uh that's anyway, so that's the internal versus external locus of control, and that's what we have been switching out over these decades. Why parents do it is because of the social pressure. And also, I was just reading this morning, somebody tweeted there's an article in Parents Magazine, which has been my whipping boy for 20 years now. Big article in Parents Magazine that says why you shouldn't overprotect your kids. I'm like, I can't believe it. You guys, Parents Magazine, the one that put four pages telling you how to have a safe day at the park, you know, exactly what stroller to bring and what's, you know, what's sunscreen. And of course, you don't want your child out between the hours of 10 in the morning and four in the afternoon when the sun is hot and you don't want them drinking cold liquids, it could be a shock to the system and don't wear flowers because that could attract bees. I mean, they've just been insane for decades. And I've been kind of insane fighting back, you know, me versus Parents Magazine. I could tell you who's winning. But today they have an article on why you shouldn't overprotect your kids. And it's like, well, could you could you also like unravel like the last 20 years of damage that you've done with all your alarmism and giant to-do lists of what you have to do for every single second of every single child's day? So, so to a certain extent, maybe we are starting to tip the balance. I mean, the whole article in Parents was about how when you do too much for your kids that they could be doing for themselves, you are sort of robbing them of the opportunity to A, learn those skills, B, see that you believe in them, and C, start getting that internal locus of control. I can get myself dressed, I can get myself to the bus. So I'm not saying that we're we're losing, but we could use a little help.

SPEAKER_00

That's so powerful. And it's encouraging that Parents Magazine has taken that stand. I'm gonna have to read that article now and and just see how how exactly they unpack that idea a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01

It's a lot down the memory hole. Oh, did we ever say that? No.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And it's I'm sure some of it's influenced by the stroller brands and the sunscreen brands that are trying to get them to advertise, and I'm sure that's a part of the conversation. Of course. But it is encouraging that we're seeing some of this. And I travel a lot speaking uh across the country uh on on generations, and one of the things that irks me, I'm gonna lose some listeners for this, but that's okay. That that irks me, and thankfully I see it less than I did, is the backpack leashes. It's the kids on a physical leash in the the in an airport. Have have you seen those backpack leashes before?

SPEAKER_01

I've seen those. I I for some reason they don't get my goat the way so many other um, you know, modern-day parenting things do. I just feel like, you know, they're not gonna be on the rope at college. Right. Right. Right. Although I did hear about one college that they were on the rope. My God, there was a story about Wesleyan College, uh, East Coast uh small intellectual place, where when the when the st and you know, I read this, is it true? It seems so impossible that when the student council walks around together around campus, they all hold on to a rope.

SPEAKER_00

No way. That that has deeper unpacking for sure.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. And am I am I aligning Wesleyan? Maybe. I mean, maybe that was a joke and that you know somebody repeated it seriously and and now it's now I'm repeating it to you. Uh we gotta look into it. But most kids will not still be holding on to a physical rope uh when they get to college. But I'll tell you what I'm hearing about college is really sad, which is that so many of the kids, I mean, why do you go to college? You go to college to go to the dining hall, as far as I can tell. You know, that's where you make your friends, that's where you learn all sorts of things, you learn how to argue and discuss and open your mind. And increasingly, kids are going to the dining hall, scurrying in, you know, grabbing their food and eating in their rooms. Right. Which is like parents, you know, nobody should pay for college if they're eating in their rooms. They could be eating at home if they're gonna eat in their room. Uh the point of college is to become expansive. And if you've been told all the time that everything is dangerous and you've started to think that whenever you're uncomfortable, you're literally unsafe, uh, you're not going to be open to the world, and that's going to hurt you. Um this is me going off on yet another tangent because I do want to talk about how let grow is going to fix all this. But have you heard of something called primals?

SPEAKER_00

I have not. No.

SPEAKER_01

It's such a cool thing. I'll I'll send you the study. So primals are sort of a worldview. What worldview you grow up with? And there's sort of two. One is teaching your kids, it's a dog eat dog world out there. Don't be a Patsy. You're going to be taken advantage of, you know, don't let them get your trust, you know, or you will rue the day. You know, I'm I'm telling this to you for your own good. And then there's the primal of, you know, most people are nice. You can trust most people. If you're lost, you can go up to everybody. You don't have to wait for a pregnant woman with three kids. You can talk to, you know, a man. They're not going to kill you or stab you or steal you. And and both both parents, you know, both, you know, both ways of of uh teaching kids are done from a point, a place of love.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Right? I mean, you either way you want your kid to to thrive. Um but there was a long-term study, thank God, the long-term studies are so rare, long-term study of kids brought up one way or the other. And into uh adulthood and I think middle age, the the findings about the kids brought up with the sort of mean world primals were were grim. I mean, they were doing worse on almost every measure, worse health, worse marriages, relationships, um, earning less and doing worse jobs. And so this idea, this sort of cultural norm that we've gotten to, which is like, of course you can't stand at the bus stop. Somebody might take you, you know, of course I have to watch um every soccer practice. You might feel disappointed if I wasn't there. Uh of course I have to, you know, track you, you know, what if uh, you know, once again you're, you know, something terrible happens to you. This this outlook doesn't help the kids that we love so much that we're trying to help.

SPEAKER_00

That's good. That's good. You brought up many good points. I want to come back to two things, and then I I want to hear specifically about like grow. Um, one of the things you brought up, and I wasn't thinking of going down this road, but we have a guest coming up that's that's on uh colleges, and you brought colleges up. And it's someone who is actually one of the most awarded colleges for uh on-campus experience for students. And they've been in their role for several decades, and so they were uh talking about how it's basically evolved over generations. And one of the interesting things that they um brought up is now some campuses are having robots deliver food from dining halls, to your point. Or they're having Uber Eats or any of these food delivery services. So taking what you said, they're taking it one step further that yes, people were going to get their dining hall food to go. Now they're not even going out of their rooms to get the dining hall. Now, this university has not allowed that to happen on campus, but uh it's a trend across uh campuses.

SPEAKER_01

Are we allowed to hear the name of the university or is that to be revealed in the next episode?

SPEAKER_00

To be revealed in an upcoming episode.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Um right, I'll listen.

SPEAKER_00

But it it's fascinating to look at this evolution uh of how colleges that were once a uh a growing space for for many students is now allowing this isolation and and we were wondering why kids are are lonely or students are lonely these days, and and that's a leading cause. So I I think that was something really interesting that you you brought up. And I want to go back to the the leash idea one one more time. Um even if it's not the physical leash or holding the rope. But I I think what's happening as we look at parenting trends, and and you kind of look at how the generational pendulum swings, you had uh baby boomers who, as a whole, worked very hard because they wanted to provide things for their kids because they didn't have the things when they were growing up. And so they provided gifts, uh experiences, all of that. But they had latchkey kids because they were so hard earning those money, uh earning that money um that they were away from the home. So the latchkey kids became the helicopter parents, which then uh oh you know, overpowered uh the these more recent generations as we've seen. And so they're trying to orchestrate and cultivate every area of the life to optimize it to make sure it's perfect parenting. But now what I'm seeing is a brand new trend, and it's this idea of a leash that is a digital or virtual leash. We're having things like Life 360 and all of that. So we're giving the illusion of freedom. So I'd love to hear your your thoughts on the illusion of freedom. And is that better than no freedom, or is that actually worse because they're always being watched?

SPEAKER_01

Aaron Ross Powell You are stepping into the thing that I think about the most and talk about the least. Um and the reason I don't talk about it is because something like 86% of children are tracked now. And that's not I don't think that's going to change, even if Lenore makes some very salient points. Um But it does interest me um because the whole idea of Life 360 is that you never have to worry about your child again because you can see where they are anytime. Anytime you're worried about them, you can pull out your phone and check. And and also you could do this with other tracking devices and even find my iPhone, uh, and check where they are and feel reassured. And this is supposed to give you peace of mind. The the the thing that is uh hard to grasp that keeps interesting me is that that's not peace of mind. Just like if you have OCD and you you walk ten feet from your house, wait a minute, did I lock the door? You go back and check. Oh yeah, I did. Okay. Then you walk to my wait a minute, did I did I lock the door? I meant to lock the door, did I lock the door? And you go back and you check, and you go back and you go check. And and you can see that that is not peace of mind. Right. That is simply accommodating your anxiety, which goes unchecked. The only way you actually get peace of mind is when you take when you trust, really is what it is. I try, you know, I'm smart, I know to lock the door, I'm gonna keep going. It feels uncomfortable, I feel a little worried, but I gotta get through my day. I can't just keep going back and check. Go back and I can't keep going back and checking. And um, and when you learn to deal with That feeling of uncertainty and discomfort, that's when the uncomfort the discomfort goes down. That is called you know, that's called therapy, right? That's called exposure therapy. You've exposed yourself to something that makes you feel uncomfortable and gradually it loses its power over you. To keep checking is accommodating and feeding the anxiety. So what I hate about these um devices is that they are pretending to deliver peace of mind and they are delivering us the opposite. The only way that you feel peace of mind is when you feel trust. And and the example that that's easiest for me to grasp is that when I was going to school as a kid, obviously there were no tracking devices, and it was back in the day when five-year-olds walked to school. So my mom, I'd say a nervous mom, mom who quit her job to stay at home with her kids. She actually stayed at home. That was when stay-at-home moms stayed at home. Uh so she'd say goodbye to me in the morning and off I would walk. Um, and then I would cross the street, and weirdly, the the the crossing guard was also a child, because back then we trusted 10-year-olds to shepherd five-year-olds across the street, if anybody remembers that. And then I'd get to school, and then, God knows how many, seven hours later or something, I would appear at home. And my mom didn't spend those seven hours biting her nails, wondering, is she okay? Let me check. I wonder if she's fine, let me call the school, let me look at the camera in the room, which some schools have, let me, you know, uh look at my phone and see if she's there. And so what she got used to doing was trusting my neighbors, my walk to school, my own smarts, her own parenting, the neighborhood, the school, um, the odds, maybe a higher power. All of these things gave her faith.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And we're replacing faith with certainty, and certainty is is is a lot more tenuous because you have to keep checking it than faith. And so I feel like you've you've hit my sweet spot, which is a a culture that is leaching faith out of parents in the kids, faith out of kids in themselves, and then saying, like, oh, but we can bring you something better. We've gotten you an electronic tracker, or we've got a um uh, you know, we've got up-to-date, you know, schools sent home up to the second, you know this, you have kids, right? Up to the second reports on how kids are doing. And did he pass the math test? And what grade did she get in in spelling today? It's just this tsunami of information that actually makes you more anxious under the guise of giving you what you need. You don't need it, it's driving you nuts. And your anxiety is a loop, right? You're oh my god, something bad could happen. I could never forgive myself, look at all these terrible things. I worry about my kid. Oh, she's fine for a second, but what if, what if, what if? So that anxiety loop is is sort of passed along, you know, not in not wholly, but to a certain extent to your kid, right? I mean, there's so many other things that that impact kids, and uh that I hate just blaming parents. And I don't even blame parents for this because look, you live in a culture that has Life 360, that has cameras in the classroom, that has class dojo that sends you home a report on your child's behavior every day, that expects you to be at the bus stop when the bus comes there in the afternoon. Right. And if you're not there, they won't let the kid off the bus. I think, yeah, it's so much safer. Let's take the kid to the bus depot.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

But anyway, so so parents are stuck in this culture of fear, being fed all sorts of data points that could make them worry, and they're told, Why are you anxious? And and the kids are told, Why are you so worried? And it's because of the culture. And the only way to break out of that cycle of fear is through action. So let grow, this nonprofit that I run, tries to make it easy for parents to let go a little and have the amazing dopamine hit of look what my kid did. He returned his toy, he got an ice cream, she went, you know, she went to the bathroom and the restaurant without me. He walked home, he was scared of the dog, but now he likes the dog. My kid organized three kids together and they had a game at the park just like I did. I am so happy. These are the experiences that rewire parents that our culture of fear has leached out of us and leached out of the kids that Let Grow tries to bring back through one free school program called the Let Grow Experience. Let me plug here for a second.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

That just is a homework. Okay, thank you. It's it's a homework assignment. Kids once a month get a homework assignment that says go home and do something new on your own with your parents' permission, but without your parents. And there's a list, and every month there's a a theme. Do something in your community, do something with a friend, do something for your parents, whatever. You know, walk the dog, climb a tree, wash the car, do the dishes. Anyways, what we keep hearing is that this parents just keep saying, I can't believe I didn't do this sooner. I'm so proud of my kid. You should have seen her. She came home so excited, so proud. I mean, I don't want to sound cynical, but it's because I'm not. I'm like bullish on this thing, but they all sound the same. They sound like they're waking up from a coma. Like, I can't believe it. How come I never knew this before? How come I didn't realize I have a very thriving, smart, bubbly eight-year-old, or a mulish, you know, generally a little nervous nine-year-old who now sleeps in his own bed because he got to walk home from school today. I mean, it's just so transformative that independence is being studied by therapists, by psychologists, as possibly therapy for children with anxiety, because it was just something that kids all needed. We took it out of their lives, they drooped, and all you have to do is put it back in. And to a certain extent, it's this miracle vitamin that just perks the kids back up and and and your kid is happy, you're happy.

SPEAKER_00

That's that's amazing. So I love what Le Grow is doing, and I know Lec Grow is is not only offering free programs, but you are active and trying to make changes because sometimes the fear comes from a place of there are laws around neglect. And there have been some cases that we have seen that are tragic where you could argue that it wasn't, in fact, neglect, it was just a kid being a kid and a parent having some trust. And I know you're doing some work around that. Could you talk to some of the things that are public and available to be talked about in that category?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, sure. I mean, what's great is that uh at this point, 13 states, and I I think it covers more than half the population in America, because some of the states are really big, like Texas. 13 states have passed what we call a reasonable childhood independence law. And that law simply says that neglect is when you put your kid in serious and obvious danger. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants you leaving your kid for a weekend in the house with no food and a and a screaming baby, right? Right. So so actual, you know, I would call that abuse at that point. But neglect is when you put your kid in serious, obvious danger, not just any time you take your eyes off them. And the reason it's passed in all those states, usually with bipartisan sponsorship and often unanimously, is because nobody wants to have to second guess their decision to let their kid walk to the store or, you know, or go to grandma's or stay home while you go and pick up the milk. I mean, these things are just the normal parts of childhood. You remember them from being a kid. I certainly remember them from being a kid. And they became criminalized only because of what we've been talking about this whole time, which is this delusion that any time a child is unsupervised, they're automatically unsafe. And of course, if you're putting, you know, and who would leave a child who's on, you know, who would put a child in an unsafe situation, only a horrible parent, let's go get them.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

So I'd say that, you know, we have another three or four states that are considering these laws right now. If you go to letgrow.org and you look under where the little tab that says states or laws or something, um, you can see what what your state, if your state has passed one of these laws so far. Um, but hopefully by the end of this year, by the end of this session, um, we'll have another, you know, two to four states that also pass this law. And then hopefully, you know, someday it will be a national law that just says independence is good for kids. Yeah. Right? And parents know and love their children best. So the idea of some caseworker knocking on your door and saying, uh, your child was reported climbing a tree, you know, that has got to end, right? The land of the free, home of the brave, that has got to end.

SPEAKER_00

Right. That's that's so helpful. And I love the work that you're doing. Now let's go a little bit deeper with Let Grow. If a parent or uh educator or a policymaker even is listening right now, how what are some of the very next steps that they can take to implement Let Grow in in their school or even in their community?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, thanks for asking. Um, so schools, as I said, we have this free program. Um, if you go to letgrow.org, whether you're a teacher, a principal, a counselor, counselors love us, um, you know, you click on let grow and you click on the uh the let grow experience for schools, and the materials are free on how to start this once a month. It's so simple. It used to be when in my book, I used to be a tabloid writer, so I I put things quick, you know. It might seem uh uh unfathomable now because all I do is chatter, but I try to make things short. And and so the let grow experience, I think, is just like have the kids go home and do something new without their parents. But we do have all the materials, a letter to send home to the parents and a and a list of activities, et cetera, et cetera. And also how this combines with other social emotional things that the school might be trying to do. Um, so that's there. And also we have uh materials for schools that want to keep the school open for what we call a let grow play club, which I know Kevin Steinhart was explaining to you, where there's mixed-age kids just playing outside. There's cardboard boxes, there's hula hoops, there's uh, you know, uh an ancient suitcase, and and kids just make their own fun while uh uh an adult crouches in the corner with an epi pen. You know, that person is not doing anything. They're just there for emergencies. So that's there for schools. For individual parents, it's the same idea. It's it's often hard to be the only person sending your kid outside or to the counter because you don't want the glares of other parents. And also if your kid goes to the park, there's nobody there, that's boring. But so do these things with somebody else. Uh we have four weeks to a let-grow kid with like one week they're getting to know the neighborhood, one week they're talking to people, one week they're doing something else, like organizing picnics. I can't remember anything except that one of the one of the things they can choose from on our list is um, I guess it's to get you used to talking to people, is order fries from a human being.

SPEAKER_00

There you go.

SPEAKER_01

So not from a robot. Right, right, right. By the time you're in college, maybe you'll go down to the to the dining hall. And then we also have an independence kit for parents that is the same thing, but with more suggestions. And then if you're a legislator, um, if you click on that state laws tab, uh we have a toolkit for how to introduce this law in your in your state and you know, arguments for it, and examples of um, you know, testimony, et cetera.

SPEAKER_00

That's fantastic. And I hope that people take you up on that opportunity. And one thing that you said that I think is so important is it's hard to be the only parent doing whatever you're doing. And so find some other parents because I think more people are are receptive to it than than you might be aware of. I I have two more questions uh for you. One, there's obviously people that push back, right? There not everyone's a huge, huge fan. So when someone is uh you know pushing back against let grow, what would you say is the number one because normally they they push back and then they leave. If you could tell that person, that naysayer, like what what would you be your counterargument to the biggest objection you typically get with let grow?

SPEAKER_01

Well, usually I say like I ask people to remember their own childhood and then they get this hazy, faraway look, and they remember, oh my God, we had so much fun. There was this one couch we all sat on in the neighborhood, it was at the curb, and everybody would gather there and blah, blah, blah. Um, or I loved walking to school, it was my most fun time. I made up people in my mind, whatever it is. And then they say, but times have changed. And I agree, times have changed. Um, but in terms of crime, times have changed in in a good direction. Crime was going up in the 70s, 80s, it peaked around 93, 94. It's been going down with some blips um ever since. The I was just reading uh last week in the week. Uh the murder rate today in America, the American homicide rate today is the equivalent of how many years ago? And this will this shocked me. I mean, I should I should hold the magazine next to me. How many how how many years ago did we have this murder rate?

SPEAKER_00

I have no clue.

SPEAKER_01

I'll tell you. It starts with a one.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Does that help? No. Okay. It's it's 125 years. Wow. Back to the murder rate of 1900. It's it's impossible to believe. But I read it, right? And it's FBI statistics. Um, the other thing I would say is that, you know, parents today are very concerned about uh their kids' mental health. And uh, you know, whatever risk there is to, you know, waiting at the bus stop, the risk of not letting your kids do anything on their own is that this anxiety will not abate. The only thing that changes anxiety, as I said before, is action. And then third, I and I don't know how many people are watching this versus hearing this, but I'm going to hold up a graph and then I will explain it to you. But the the graph shows the answers from uh, this is a Harris poll, from kids ages eight to twelve when asked, How would you like to spend free time with your friends? And the choices were this um free play, old fashioned, old school, like we're talking about, um, in an organized activity run by an adult like soccer or ballet or chess, or online. And online could be anything from you know social media to video games. And the big reveal is here's the graph, and I will explain that there's one giant line, and it's like it's like the three bears. There's a big line, there's a middle line, and then there's a small line. And the biggest line is Can you read it?

SPEAKER_00

I can't read it. Let's see. Free play. Free play.

SPEAKER_01

Free play. Middle is organized activity. Right, and the bottom is on online. Okay. So we keep worrying about kids spending their lives online. Kids don't want to spend their lives online. They're they're there by default, not by desire. Their desire is to hang out with their friends and just make something happen. And so if you want mentally well kids, I think you got to give them what they know in their hearts they need and want, which is some free, unsupervised time.

SPEAKER_00

That is so powerful. That's a powerful graph and a powerful story. I'd love to close with this last question before we uh let people figure out how to get in touch uh with you and with Lecrow. Is there a story or a person that you're you're willing to share that you've just seen the transformation and the power of what we've been talking about?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, not only is there a story, I have such a great photo, but not with me. Okay, I'll just tell the story. So, so the Lec Row experience, kids have to go home and do something new on their own without their parents. Uh so this one mom in Connecticut, her name's Annie, uh, her son's 10, and she lets him, okay, you can write your she she's so she's so nervous that it sounds unbelievable, but I will tell you how nervous she is. Before the when the doorbell rang, she would tell her kids, get down, get down, like like lie down on the floor so that when the when the bullets start coming through the door, you know, hopefully they will miss you. So she was a nervous mom. She admits it, she laughs about it, but she admits it. So she lets her kid, 10 years old, walk ride his bike up and down, up and down the block. And finally he says, Mom, can't I please go around the corner? And she's gotten used to him riding up and down the block. Okay, go around the corner because that's where his friend is. So he goes around the corner and he gets his buddy and they start riding around. And then they get another buddy and another buddy and another buddy. And I can't even say this many buddies, because by the summer, there's 10 kids. They call themselves a biker gang. She sends me a photo of them all. They're all in their helmets. It's so adorable. But what was really great is okay, that's the summer. Then she sent me a picture. Oh God, I can't remember what month, but it was cold. Uh it was below freezing. And she sent me a picture. There weren't 10 anymore. I mean, I don't think that one's died, but there weren't 10 anymore. There were, there were six. But they were still so bound and determined. She said, and now what happens is this kid who had been pretty, pretty nervous and a little ADHD-ish, you know, runs home, throws his backpack down, you know, slams down his snack, and runs outside to be with his buddies and his life, his life is transformed, but her life is transformed because now she doesn't lock the door because the kids are coming by all the time. And it's just, you talk about going from anxiety to trust. I mean, the that's it. You can look her up. She's Annie. I guess you can't look her up. We I did a I did a webinar with her, so if you go to Let Grow and somehow you find our webinars, look up the one where I talk to parents who have changed. She's one of them.

SPEAKER_00

I love that story, Lenore. Thank you for sharing Annie's story. I would love uh for you to kind of tell people how they can get in touch with you. I know we talked about some resources already on Let Grow, but uh is there any other way that people can find out more? Uh watch your TED Talk, buy your book, anything that you'd like to share?

SPEAKER_01

Uh I think you just said it. Watch my TED Talk, buy my book. But Let Grow is where everything is sort of concentrated. It's where all the free materials are. Stories, I write a blog. Um, you know, that's where you'll find your local laws. And if you scroll to the very bottom, uh there's a tab called crime statistics, and you can see all these graphs, but I'm not making them up. Crime goes up, 93 starts coming down. So I'd say go to Let Grow, which people never get. They think it's Let It Go, Let It Grow, it's Let L E T Grow G R O W.org.

SPEAKER_00

That's wonderful, Lenore. Well, thank you so much for being on the Ryan Vet Show and to everyone listening, Inspire Forward.

SPEAKER_02

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Ryan Vet

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