Free Range Kids

Celebrating the end of the PMOEC season, my wife, my newborn and I have come to our family reunion on the sunny shores of Myrtle Beach, SC. While nursing my first day's sunburn under my uncle's 'EZ-Up' tent on the beach, I have been devouring 'Free Range Kids' by Lenore Skenazy. Yes, it is a laugh out loud dissection of our collective hypochondria and fear mongering as a society, but it is also a vehicle for operations like ours. Just like Louve's 'Last Child In the Woods' it challenges us as parents to take the bumpers off of our world and let kids be kids- to discover the world on their own terms and to take ownership of it as well. Of course, the challenge facing a center like ours is to do this while maintaining the safety of every client we have. despite this quandary that it raises for me professionally, it got me thinking and, for any other new parents out their who feel as clueless as I do facing the next 18 years of a child's life, I recommend both books. Excellent guides.