Let Them Grow: Why Kids Need Independence - Lenore Skenazy

0:00Hunter Clarke-Fields:Hi, it's Hunter Clarke-Fields, author of Raising Good Humans. If you've ever thought, I wish I could help other parents the way I've been helped, this is for you. The Mindful Parenting Teacher Certification Program is now open for enrollment. You'll deepen your mindfulness, learn to lead powerful parenting groups, and join a supportive, heart-centered community. Are you ready to make a difference? I only take a very limited number of people into this program, so apply now. Visit mindfulparentingcourse.com slash teach.

0:31Hunter Clarke-Fields:Welcome to the Mindful Mama podcast. Here, it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you cannot give what you do not have, and when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clark-Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children. I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting course and teacher training, and I'm the author of the international bestseller Raising Good Humans, Raising Good Humans Every Day, and the Raising Good Humans Guided Journal.

1:11Hunter Clarke-Fields:All right, all right, I think we are here live. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Mindful Mama podcast, and a big welcome to anyone who is new. So glad you're here, so glad you're here um if you're here live say hello in the chat say hello to me and i'm live and uh i'm here with lenore skanezi who she's coming back on the mindful mama podcast not a newbie right she's one of my heroes and she is she is infamous after she let her nine-year-old ride the subway alone she created kind of a media firestorm and she wrote the great book which i love and recommend free range kids and now she's the president of the non-profit let grow and it promotes childhood independence um that's so yes um so here we are okay awesome uh lenore i'm so glad you're here and i'm reached out to you because there are some new laws and things happening things are happening yeah before we get to that i want to congratulate you on a very very cool milestone i'm totally in awe you got shouted out your book got shouted out by dunesbury comic strip oh that's right that's right yeah that was very cool on mother's day yeah yeah yeah it's like we're raising free range kids what's that you should do it too it's fun or something it was it was very positive yeah it was pretty pretty amazing yeah there's this one poor kid who was like i can't go into the woods to do anything and and and this kid was like, yeah, my mom says we're free range.

2:45Hunter Clarke-Fields:Anyway, it was great. It was like, I was like, oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. I was so excited. I feel like every couple of years, there's like some cool cultural milestone. A couple of years ago, I was on vacation and people started texting me. I was a Jeopardy clue. That was exciting. You know, she let her son ride the subway at nine years old and started what movement or, and started this movement. And it's like, what is free range kids? And the guy got in 14 seconds. I was like, yes. Oh, wow. Wow. That's amazing. That's really something. That's so cool. Okay. And Free Range Kids came out a while back.

3:19Hunter Clarke-Fields:So long ago. So long ago. The nine-year-old who rode the subway is 28. Okay. It's been a minute. It's been a minute. And things have been shifting. So I wanted to reach out to you because there are some new laws that are in the legislatures. So you've been talking about this for years, kids needing independence. And so tell us about kind of what's going on right now that feels different culturally and politically. Okay, I can tell you the great stuff and I can tell you the stuff that makes me go, I can't believe it. the great stuff, start with that, is that since 2018, excuse me, Let Grow has helped pass what we call reasonable childhood independence laws.

4:08And at this point, it's 13 states. And the laws say, like everybody else, we hate neglect. You cannot neglect your kids. You cannot leave them at home for a weekend with nothing to eat but heroin. You can't let your three-year-old hitchhike home from preschool along, you know, I-85. But there's a difference between real neglect, which is bad, and trusting your kids with some unsupervised time. And whether you're doing that because you're a free ranger or because you're working two shifts at McDonald's and you can't get home till your kid has, you know, come home from school and made herself a snack, that's not neglect.

4:44That's just making life work for you. That's poverty. That's not neglect. And so what's great is that our law, which states that neglect is when you put your kid in obvious and serious danger, not just any time you take your eyes off them, has had bipartisan sponsorship in almost every state. and it's been passed unanimously by, I'm trying to remember, six or seven states because nobody wants their parenting second-guessed by, you know, some outsider, especially some outsider with, you know, the power of the government to, you know, take away your kids. And so right now, what happened last week, which perhaps you're referring to is, or maybe not, is that, once again, bipartisan, a representative, this happened in Congress.

5:33So Representative Blake Moore, who's a Republican from Utah, and Representative Jennifer McClellan, who's a Democrat from Virginia, and then late addition, Virginia Fox, who's another Republican, are co-sponsoring what they call, and I wrote it out someplace here because it's such a long name, the Promoting Childhood Independence and Resilience Act of 2026. It does not trip off the tongue. But it is basically the same thing that we've been passing in the States. It just says that, you know, independence is actually good for kids. So parents shouldn't have to second guess themselves when they're ready to let their kids, for instance, go into Chick-fil-A, like the famous video from last year, or walk to school.

6:15I don't know the Chick-fil-A video. Oh, please tell me. It's so great. I was just watching it yesterday. So this was a mom who read The Anxious Generation, which is by Jonathan Haidt, who is my co-founder of Let Grow, one of my three co-founders. And in it, it pushes for the whole Let Grow agenda, which is to give kids more independence and to just stand back a little so that you can see what your kids are actually capable of. So this mom read it, and she asked all her kids what they wanted to do, something new on their own without mom. And her seven-year-old said, I want to go into Chick-fil-A by myself and get food.

6:51So she's like, okay. And so the video picks up. Yeah, it's so great. So we see her in the car with the, you know, doing a sort of selfie Instagram video. And she's just barely holding it together. She's like, okay, he's in there now. I can't see him. I can't see through the window and, you know, can't see through the door. I'm just waiting here. He's in there by himself. But he really wanted to do this and I hope it's okay. and, you know, I love him so much. Basically, she's just on the verge of falling apart because she doesn't see him for about five minutes, right? And then, there he is! And he's coming out and he's holding the, you know, the bags and the drinks and he comes in and she says, you did it, buddy!

7:41You know, that's so great! She said, how was it? He said, I was so scared, my legs are still shivering, which I thought was just so cute. And then he said, but I want to do it again. Oh, yay.

7:57Hunter Clarke-Fields:And this is like, and you're right, like Jonathan Haidt is promoting this in the Anxious Generation. You're promoting this kind of thing. You coined that phrase in some ways, free range parenting, but people, this kind of thing and the idea of this triggers some really strong reactions in people. So what do people misunderstand about a situation like this? Well, one of the reasons, so Free Range Kids grew into Let Grow, this nonprofit that I started with, Jonathan Haidt, and a man named Daniel Schuchman, who used to be the chairman of FIRE, which fights for free speech on campus, great organization, and Peter Gray, whose work you're probably familiar with, yeah, who is a Boston College professor of psychology, who has spent his life studying the importance of what happens when kids are just playing, not for a team, not for a coach, just for themselves on their own.

8:54And the name is Let Grow as opposed to Free Range Kids because sometimes people thought that Free Range Kids were like feral kids, kids that nobody cared about. And of course, that's not what I meant. I just sort of meant like even Free Range chickens are not roaming you know, the earth. They are in a larger space than a self-contained little cubicle, but they're still, you know, watched after. I was going to say loved and watched after. I don't think I want to go too far with the free-range kids analogy. Yeah, yeah, the free-range chicken analogy could be tough. Then what? Then what happens in the end?

9:27Then it's Chick-fil-A. So forget that. The point being that it was a name that was open to misinterpretation, whereas let grow, well, Well, people keep getting it wrong. They think it's let it go, let it grow, let's go. It's just plain old let grow. But the original name when we conceived of it was let go and let grow. Because our slogan is when adults step back, kids step up, even like the seven-year-old ordering the food by himself. So independence is having its moment, thank God. and it's even being studied now as therapy for kids with a diagnosis of anxiety. And one story from a therapist last week is that the kids have to do something new on their own every day for like four weeks.

10:16That's what the therapy is. That's literally what the therapy is, which is very let grow. Anyways, one of the kids told her parents, who then told the therapist or who told the therapist directly, that she went into Dunkin' Donuts to order something for herself and for her brother. And when she got to the front and they asked, what do you want? She was like, and she couldn't say anything. She was so nervous. She's talking to an adult. Everybody's watching. What if I screw up? It was just an excruciating, excruciating moment. And she paused. And then she told them I would like two donuts. And she got the two donuts.

10:55And what she said, just like the Chick-fil-A kid is like, I can't wait to go back. And when you think about what that means in psychological terms, that is confronting your monster, your phobia, your worst fear, and not even succeeding at first, right? But then being okay enough that suddenly you're free. This thing doesn't have power over you anymore. You have power over it. It was scary. I did it I'm ready to do it again it's like jumping into the pool it's like asking a girl out I mean all these things that are important and very daunting turn out to be your oyster once you've done them and what a what a what a rush for the kid and for the parent when that happens and so that's why I keep saying independence is not just a not just something we used to have and it's kind of nostalgic, like banana bikes.

11:53It's really, it's a part of growing up.

12:01Hunter Clarke-Fields:Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break. If your intense kid has just had a freak out and you're having a thought like, is my experience normal? Or am I the only one going through this? or what are other parents doing about this kind of thing? This is a wonderful use of Reddit. I love Reddit. I mean, I love Reddit for things like, you know, getting advice on what TV show to watch or what music to listen to, or, you know, when I was traveling to look for some kind of off the beaten path tips. But for parents, it's so helpful to learn about real experiences, not polished content, but you can get pretty unfiltered opinions about things like mental health experiences or school stress or am I overreacting to something?

12:56Hunter Clarke-Fields:Often like so much more honest than what you're going to get on social media or influencers or things like that. And if you have like a niche like, you know, gaming or coding or whatever it is, you can really find these amazing subreddits. If you're new to Reddit, think of it as thousands of topic-based communities. There's so many good ones for parenting where you can ask, you know, is this toddler sleep regression normal and get answers from parents who've been there just like five minutes ago. Reddit gives you a space to ask questions, share stories, and connect with parents who actually get it.

13:35Hunter Clarke-Fields:Parenting doesn't come with a manual. Find real advice from real parents on the Reddit app. Download the Reddit app and check it out today. Those banana bikes had comfortable seats though, man. Yeah, they were good. Yeah, why did that get so? It was a comfortable seat. I don't know. I don't know. My new bike seat is not nearly as comfortable as a banana bike. But let's rewind. Yeah, let's rewind a little. We've been talking about independence in a lot of different ways here on the Mindful Mama podcast us for a decade. But let's, I'd love for you to rewind us a little bit and talk to us about how we got to the point where, and this is a legitimate, it is a legitimate fear for parents that they could be investigated if they let their nine-year-old kid walk to the park by themselves.

14:26Hunter Clarke-Fields:So how did we get to that point? Oh, well, it's a long and shaggy tale, But the gist of it is that things really changed in the 80s. And a couple of things happened in that decade. One is we got cable television, which gave us the 24-hour news cycle. Believe it or not, there was no 24-hour news cycle. You were never pinged until it began in that era. You got CNN and just the idea that there's always something so important and so terrible going on in the world, and you must know about it. Otherwise, you're in danger of not realizing what could kill you or your kid. And so that started rewiring us.

15:03The way the brain works is it takes in stories, and the easiest stories for it to retrieve, which are always the scariest, saddest ones generally about kids, when something is easy for your brain to retrieve, it's available. And there's a term called the availability heuristic, which nobody uses except in air quotes on podcasts like this. But the point being that the simpler it is for you to remember a story, the more relevant and common you think it is. And so our brains started getting filled as never before with tales of there was someone in Idaho and there was someone in Maine and there was someone in Tennessee.

15:38And these stories could be years apart. They could be, you know, tens of thousands. They could be thousands of miles apart. But they're all presented as very relevant and very immediate to you. So that began the sort of polluting of our minds with fear. And then a couple of other things happened in the 80s, too. One was there were two very high-profile kidnappings. One was of Eitan Pates in New York City, where I live. That was actually 79. And then Adam Walsh, who was taken from in front of a Sears in 82. And his dad, John Walsh, started America's Most Wanted. So that sort of elevated the idea of missing children to a national worry that should be top of mind.

16:20And then to make it even more top of mind, the milk cartons started featuring. Yes. Do you remember the milk cartons?

16:27Hunter Clarke-Fields:I used to eat cereal and look at those milk cartons. So tell your listeners what you saw on those milk cartons. Well, I was like ages 2 to 12 through the 80s. And yeah, and it would be a kid's face. And it would be somebody who was missing and we should be looking for this kid. Right. And what was missing from the missing kids pictures was an asterisk that sort of said, I was taken in a custodial dispute between my divorced parents. Or I ran away because my mom married a guy and the stepfather was a real jerk and I had to leave. But without explanations, the assumption and understandable was that, oh, I guess these kids were just taken willy-nilly off the streets by some nefarious guy to rape and murder them.

17:18And so it really started feeling like the minute you walked out the door, that guy in the white van was going to pass by and you would never be seen again. And then, you know, perception sort of becomes reality. Then there were all the, you know, don't forget stranger danger, take a bite out of crime, you know, this could happen to you. And I actually...

17:38Hunter Clarke-Fields:There's like, Cindy Lauper was like in a commercial on TV that said, you know, it's like 10 o 'clock, do you know where your kids are? Right. That was a big thing. Yeah. I want to do something like that where maybe it's Cindy Lauper, maybe it's Taylor Swift. She might be into it. That'd be great saying, it's 4 p.m. I hope you don't know where your kids are. That would be amazing. Wouldn't that be great? Yeah. Wouldn't that be great? And she could write a little song. Is that too much? Is Taylor listening? Right. Kids just want to have fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Right, right, right. Shake them off.

18:11Shake it off. Yeah, yeah, I love it. So anyways, it started seeming prudent to watch your kids every single second. And then over the decades, there were more ways of doing it to the point where today, kids are in after-school activities that are adult-run. They're generally taken there by an adult. And then the adult takes them home and then oversees the homework and the reading log and everything else. And when they're not literally figuratively having an adult, like a coach or a parent or a teacher watching them, now we have electronic surveillance. So you must know this, like kids are carrying, whether it's a phone or a watch or another device that enables tracking.

18:55And then like the kid is walking home and then he sees a squirrel and it's like, oh, I wonder where the squirrel lives. You follow the squirrel for a block and it's like, because you've gone beyond the fence, the geocached fence that your parents have set for you. Oh, really? Honey, why are you going in that direction? Who are you with? What's happening? And the Gizmo Watch, which I think of as evil, has a device where if I'm mom and I call you and you don't pick up, then I press pick up anyway. There's a certain word for it. I can't remember what it is. And it will listen to what you and your friends are saying.

19:29Oh. Oh, wow. Wow.

19:31Hunter Clarke-Fields:That's kind of, yes, it's pretty high surveillance, I guess it's fair to say. It's very high level of surveillance. Yeah. So kids are, so, okay. So we didn't want stranger danger. We got really worried about our kids. And so now it's like, we are thinking that we need to, this is something that we need to do because the world is so dangerous. But then there are also parents who are wanting to give their kids freedom. A, some of us have the problem that there's no other kids around to play with because everybody else is inside. But also, maybe you send them out with a sibling and then they get picked up by the cops and then suddenly Child Protective Services is knocking on your door.

20:21How did that piece? I'm going to get to Child Protective Services in a second. I wanted to say something to parents who are worried about sending their kids outside because I understand. We've just talked about you've had, you know, 46 years at this point of being told that the minute your kid walks outside, they're in danger and you're a bad parent if you're putting your kid in danger. And for the reasons we discussed earlier that the bad stories become so embedded in our brains and so salient, we can remember them, we can tell you the details about them, that it feels too scary to send the kids outside.

20:54I have two pieces of information that may be helpful if you're really scared like that, having said that I do understand the fear. One is just a nice statistical fact, which is that I asked, do you know this one?

21:11Hunter Clarke-Fields:This is the one that I quote from you maybe more often. I quote it wrong and I look it up so I get it right. But the like, if you put your kid out like on the streets of New York, wanting them to just be randomly of type, how long would it take? And Lenore, I'm going to guess. Let me see if I can get it right. It's something like 75 ,000 years or something like that. You're off by a factor of 10, but yeah. And also it's not just New York. It's if you wanted your kid to be. Wait, 750 ,000? It is 750 ,000 years. It's sort of like how many Powerball tickets would you have to buy? so that you'd be statistically likely to win.

21:48I mean, the point is this is such a rare crime in real life and such a common crime on law and order. And on the news, or it's the anniversary or something. Somebody wrote to me the other day. I was saying, well, kids need independence. And somebody wrote, yeah, well, what about Eitan? And I'm thinking Eitan Pats was taken in 1979. He'd be like a middle-aged guy with a beer belly at this point. And then I did the numbers there too, and it's like 160 million American children have been born since then. And we don't always say, Lenore, what about child number, you know, 75922? What about him? Well, he's fine.

22:22He's an accountant. You know, he went to school every day and nobody snatched him. It's just so hard to counter fear. The only thing I've seen that actually does change a parent is actually letting their kid go and do something on their own. But the other thing I wanted to say about fear is that we do spend a lot of time worrying about kids outside. on their own, doing almost anything. The statistic of the week for me was a study by the Institute for Family Studies that found that the majority of kids age 14 are not allowed off their block. Really? 25 ,000 parents, American parents, were surveyed.

23:06So that's just a very, to me, it's an amazing statistic. 14, you're not allowed off your block. 55 % are not allowed off their block. Wow. Right. But so, yes, I'm sure there is some danger to letting your kid go off the block. They could get hit by a car, you know. However rare it is, there could be, you know, a nefarious stranger. But there are dangers that are lurking that are really obvious that we're all talking about these days, which are the mental health of our young people, which is, you know, one in three have an anxiety disorder or are depressed. I don't even have the numbers. I don't even think I need the numbers because we all know that this is sort of the number one worry and concern.

23:46right now when it comes to kids.

23:49Hunter Clarke-Fields:Suicidal ideation has gone up, cutting has gone up, anxiety has gone up, depression has gone up. It's gone up enormously. And we've been talking about it here on the podcast, but yeah, I think we're all right. So it's not like we're saying, you know, keep your kids safe inside or put them in danger. It's like put them in an extremely, you know, unlikely remote chances of danger. You could keep your kid out for 750 ,000 years, and it still wouldn't happen. Or, you know, trade-offs with another danger, which is your kid's self-worth and love of life and feelings of competence and confidence. And so there's no choice that has zero risk.

24:35And I think letting kids have some more independence shifts the risk in a good way. You're addressing something that is quite likely to happen, as opposed to trying to prevent something that wouldn't happen anyway.