Late in 2025, my buddy Jim from AK sent me a link about helicopter parents. It’s a topic I’ve thought about for decades, especially after I had my own child. I wrote about it here in 2012, when my kid was obviously much younger. As I noted: “I find myself regularly conflicted between safety and a more laissez-faire attitude.”
Jim’s email hightlighted Lenore Skenazy, who famously, in 2008, wrote a piece in the New York Sun about letting her nine-year-old son ride the subway alone. She is the author of Free Range Kids: How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow (2015). At the end of last year, she wrote a piece called 10 Times That 2025 Tried To Stop Kids From Growing Up.
She noted, “A March [2025] Harris Poll surveyed more than 500 kids ages 8 to 12 and found that most have never walked or biked somewhere without an adult.” This pains me, as I know of kids who were driven to school from three or four blocks away.
I don’t think it’s just nostalgia that that I recall growing up in Binghamton, NY, cutting through Spring Forest Cemetery to play baseball at Ansco Park, for hours, promising to be home by a certain time.
“At least 45 percent said they ‘have not walked in a different aisle than their parents at a store.” As I wrote to Jim, “I stood in a line at the local CVS this past autumn when a mom freaked out about her kid, a boy about 9, being 10 feet away and gave him the ‘you don’t know what people will do!’ speech.” Most of the time, he was visible to her when she looked away from the counter. I was exhausted listening to her, because it was not a single admonition, but multiple scolds.
Playing in the park
Snenazy: “When asking about 1,000 parents what they thought would happen if two 10-year-old children were playing at a park without adult supervision, another Harris Poll found that 50 percent thought it was ‘very likely’ or ‘somewhat likely’ that the children would be abducted. As I explain in my TED Talk, that calculation is off by about 99.99 percent.”
When I’ve watched some of my nieces when they were over five years old, I might be 20 feet away in a park, still having them in sight. Yet, I heard the voices of some of their parents in my head, them worried about “bad” people.
“Free-range parents may remember 2025 as the year that proved just how hard it still is to give kids any independence. There were arrests, investigations, panics, and new rules that seemed designed to keep childhood on permanent lockdown. But mixed in with the overreactions and worst-case-scenario thinking were a few welcome reminders that common sense can still prevail.”
Limiting the devices
Jim shared this antidote/anecdote: “This reminded me of a field report’ by a parent, who DID limit use of an iPad. There is no need to view the video – see summary – but if curious go to 53:20. The youngsters are 6 and 8. Policy WAS 15-minutes/day AFTER homework. Then, “the son got in trouble”. Policy then became ZERO USE. What do the little darlings now do? THEY READ! When flying to New York (from Florida) they brought A BOOK.”
I’m pleased that school districts and parents are attempting to limit the use of smartphones. Even some students are finding the restrictions oddly liberating. But knowing that school shootings is a leading cause of death for those under 20, I’ve become a big fan of dumb phones. It may alleviate the stress of the parents being able to reach their kid, Just In Case.
My CVS is closing. The store at 1026 Madison Avenue, an anchor of that part of the Pine Hills neighborhood, will soon be defunct. My wife learned this from an employee who told her it would be shuttered on September 26 because of a dangerous structural problem in the basement. It will not reopen. I am bummed.
The expanding universe of the self-checkout register shows up more in my Facebook feed than almost any topic. In general, these are not complimentary observations.