Kids Need Freedom, Too

In 2018, Utah passed the first free-range parenting law, which prevents investigating parents for neglect if they allow their children to play outside or engage in similar independent activities, like walking to school or staying at home without supervision. They also protect low-income parents without the means to provide their children with constant supervision—like the Ohio mom arrested for leaving her 10-and 2-year-old kids home because she had to work an evening shift at a pizza shop.These recent successes are hopefully just the start. The parents win, the children win—and so does America.Lenore Skenazy is the co-founder and president of Let Grow and the author of Free-Range Kids.For your security, we need to re-authenticate you.Click the link we sent to , or click here to log in.I completely agree with the attitude expressed here by Ms. Skenazy and have advocated for it for many years (our oldest is pushing forty). And by "small" I mean minuscule, but if we don't take account of that in advance, we'll find ourselves confronted with people saying "See what happens when you let kids roam free?!"We have to be prepared to answer a parent who has suffered an unspeakable tragedy and asks "Was it worth it?" that "Yes, yes it was worth it." Of course I mean that rhetorically -- it would be cruel to say it to this hypothetical parent.