Reviewed By Corinne Edwards

I heard some buzz about Free Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts With Worry (Jossey-Bass/ 2009) by Lenore Skenazy a while ago, and I knew it was something that would interest me.

This is not your average parenting book. It's not really "un-parenting" either - it's about taking the nitty-gritty of parenting seriously, but knowing when your job as a parent is to just let go and let your children do things on their own. It's about giving your kids skills and then letting them actually use those skills in the real world.

Lenore Skenazy is all about the real world.

She lays all the facts out on the table, and in a zany and humorous way, she lays many parenting, nay, societal myths onto the chopping block. She tackles everything from the safety of Halloween candy to educational DVDs to, yes, the infamous scenario of letting her nine-year-old ride the subway alone.

What she hammers into us (and yes, it's sometimes a bit repetitive) is that the world is not really a completely unsafe place. Through the media and our own collective, technologically advanced fear, we have convinced ourselves that all horrible things that could happen have a very good chance of happening to us, at any moment, and our sureness of this fact has really hampered our ability to teach our children confidence, competence and independence.

I know that's a really long sentence. But I'm kinda thinking it works.

I enjoyed reading Free-Range Kids. The reader was pretty hilarious - the book has a really conversational tone and does a great job of giving baby step tips on how to start giving your children small bits of independence, some of which I've already started trying at home. I think, if nothing else, this book offers a great second opinion on so so many of the issues out there - and makes you stop and think: what if maybe I don't REALLY have to be so terrified about "blank?"

It's worth reading, I do think. I really do want to raise confident and independent people and this book is certainly a good place to start.

LENORE SKENAZY is a syndicated columnist, humorist, and founder of Free-Range Kids. She has written for periodicals from Reader's Digest to The Times (of London) to Mad magazine, and been a commentator on CNBC, the Food Network, and NPR. Her books include The Dysfunctional Family Christmas Songbook and Who's the Blonde That Married What's-His-Name?  You'll find the author online at www.freerangekids.wordpress.com

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