How to raise confident, self-reliant kids with Lenore Skenazy

Lili and Scott sit down with parenting guru (and Lili's parenting crush), Lenore Skenazy, for a fascinating, funny, and practical tip-filled conversation on raising children to be strong, confident, and unafraid of the world that awaits them. Lenore is the president of Let Grow, the nonprofit promoting childhood independence, and the author of Free-Range Kids, and she has been extolling the virtues of opening your door and letting your kid run out to play for over fifteen years. Lili fan-girled out a little, we're not gonna lie.

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Transcript

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All right, Lily, I'm excited. I'm excited too. So excited about this one. I know you're more excited than me. I when we we have a guest today. And when I first brought up this guest to Lily, I think I heard an inhuman squeal come out of her. She was so thrilled. I might have swayed a little. She was so excited. And it turned out that this woman was someone that had been essentially part of Lily's, parenting style. Her pretty much her entire parenting life. And, that's so we're so excited that she's here. So normally we would do all of this. Oh, what is our parenting fails. Whatever. We are successes this week because we have Lenore Skenazy on with us today. So back in 2008, there was an article that she had written. She had a column that came out, and it was about letting her kid take the subway by herself. We're going to talk to her about that. But in 2008, my kids were one year old, and I, my my ex-husband found this story and was like, this is what we need to do. Her kid took the subway. Everybody's freaking out. It's not a big deal. And so I've known about her since my kids were babies and really looked to her singular experience as a guidepost to like, ooh, should I let my kid go to the store? Should I ask my kid go to pick up milk for me? Can I let them take the train by themselves? Can I, you know, make sure that they're getting on the city bus and off the city bus without a cell phone by themselves? She is literally, the person who I would think of in those situations when I had questions about my own parenting. So I'm super, super excited to talk to her. And I do feel like this is this conversation is important to any parent, especially important to single parents. Like we need self-reliant kids. Well, let's let's let's bring her on. I'm Lily, single mom to teen twins. Father. I'm recording in here, and I'm Scott, single dad to a pre-teen boy. It's under the sink. We're two old friends trying to navigate single parenting and spending the whole time thinking, I hope I don't fuck this up. Please welcome Lenore Skenazy, president of Let Grow, the nonprofit promoting Child and Independence, and the author of Free Range Kids. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Thank you for identifying me also with free range kids. So today I was dealing with the trademark office. I accidentally let the trademark protection for free range kids, which I got long ago slip. And so now I have to prove it. And they wrote me back saying no. And then they gave me all these references to free range kids in the media. And it's like everybody uses that phrase. I'm like, but it doesn't mean like, do you notice any when they're talking about when they say that phrase? So now I have to like, gather all the information and prove that I started it. Well, if they need any witnesses, we are happy to call. There we go. Right. Do you mind? Do you mind going down to D.C.? Is that too much to ask? I am on your podcast for I. You know, it seems fair. You have been doing this for a while. Yeah. Tell them that. Yeah, tell them. Yeah, exactly. Mr. bureaucrat, and it's interesting because I think you've seen change and not change. So 2008, write the column that you wrote. Would you mind telling us, or telling our audience about about the column? Sure. I wrote a column, called why I let my nine year old Ride the subway alone. Because I had let my nine year old ride the subway alone here in New York City, where we live, after he had been asking me and my husband for weeks or months, you know, can you please take me someplace I haven't been? Let me find my own way home. It was his dearest desire I. One day I did it, and then, he got home, obviously. And I didn't write a column about it immediately because it did strike me as a big deal. But a couple months later, when I had nothing to do, nothing to say actually for and a deadline looming. And I think you guys have been in the media long, we know that that means I'll write about anything. So I said, yeah, I write about is he taken the subway by himself? And my editor said, oh, sure. And so I wrote it. And then two days later I was on the Today Show, MSNBC, Fox News, and NPR, and I got the nickname America's Worst Mom. And I started a blog that weekend, and I called it Free Range Kids. And then about, I don't know, seven years ago, Jonathan Hite, everybody loves Jonathan, including me, who wrote The Anxious Generation, and Daniel Shukman, who used to be the chairman of fire, which fights for free speech on campus. We're both worried about kids on campus, first of all, falling apart and feeling fragile, but secondly, mistaking, feeling, uncomfortable with, you know, new ideas, new people, new thoughts, you know, you know, new political parties. Yeah. But they were mistaking, feeling uncomfortable for literally being unsafe. And, Dan and John said anything we do with college kids is a late stage intervention. What if we try to aim to create kids who are more, you know, robust and resilient, open minded, eager to engage with new and sometimes, you know, dead, I guess unfamiliar and maybe even a little bit scary circumstances or ideas. And so John had read Free-range kids, and so he came to me and said, let's start, let grow. And I said, okay. But we had to add one more person. And the other person that we added, as a founder was Peter Gray, who I highly recommend for your podcast, who wrote the book Free to Learn. And he's a psychology professor at Boston College who has spent his whole life studying the importance of kids together of all different ages, just playing and making their own fun and all the important child development. And I'd say human development that goes on when kids don't have somebody organizing their play dates and soccer games. It's funny, you know, I have an only child and, he's 11, and so I have tried to send him out. Like, I'm big believer in what you're talking about. And we used to get sent out to play. Why were our kids not sent out to play? And thankfully, I live in a somewhat of a neighborhood, so it's not quite as hard to do. And yet, what I've come up against is he goes out to play and nobody else is there. There's nobody, and he'll knock on a door and they'll be, we have a lesson. We. Oh, no, he's he's well, he has his friends and neighborhood and the things that are in his way. It's over scheduling. It's, honestly, there's some issues where, like, you know, he's an 11 year old boy, and he has some friends that are like, nine year old girls, and he wants to play with them. And their parents aren't always comfortable with that. And there's just. And over and over, it's like we have our fears at home. I know especially is my son is like the, you know, there's the poster child for the for playing well with others, but it's like it's not even our fear that we're up against. It's the fear of our community. And like, how do you overcome that? Thank you for teeing that up for me. First of all, I'm like, I've been doing the same thing for 16 years, but I still write down ideas on my hand. As I was walking to the park today. And one of them that was that somebody had said this to me the other day, which is and go outside, not online. And I thought that's an interesting way to frame it, because if we had everybody going back outside, your son would immediately find some other kids at the park or ready to come outside because their parents are like, yeah, I go outside and and the other thing, which isn't quite on UN point for this question is assume competence. Yeah. A lot of times parents think like, well, I can't let her cross the street. How would she learn that? I'm like, I don't know. Did you ever learn how to cross the street? Were you 32? Yeah. You know, so, I and I really I just got an email this morning from a conference that's going to be happening in Argentina about childhood mobility, specifically in urban settings. And they did a survey and they found that it is not fear of crime. And it is not fear. It is not thinking that their kids are too young as the reason. At least the Argentinian parents are sending their kids to the store, to the park. It's because they literally think their kids can't do it. Yeah, like, oh, they'll be, you know, they'll be lost. They'll be confused, they'll be sad, they'll be lonely. They'll they'll get it wrong. They'll get hurt, they'll fall behind. I'm not with them to teach them every second. And so what I'd written on my hand is, a phrase that I've heard from the autism world, which is assume competence just because somebody can't communicate or can't do something. I mean, that's in the autism world or sometimes the disability world. But it's the same thing with youth. It's just assume that, you know, they can. Maybe they can't. Right? The second. Maybe they need a little experience or practice, or encouragement, but to always assume that, like, oh, I better do that for my kid. I mean, there's the delight, you know, there's there's the drop off line at the morning at schools, and sometimes the parents are running around and opening the door for the kids who are in the back. And like, you just got to assume that they're more competent than that. Well, it's just as competent as you, for sure. And they're how do you expect them ever to learn? This is a thing that I've always done with my I mean, I had twins, which complicates parenting infinitely right from the jump. But part of the thing that happened because of that is I had to let them be on their own, because there was only one of me and there was two of them. So what I did my son, was the much more, adventurous baby, and he would climb on anything. And my daughter was happy to, like, lag behind. And so I knew that I couldn't constantly be there to protect him. So we just taught him like, this is how you climb and like, you know, gradual stages. But I remember being at playgrounds with the two of them, and they were 2 or 3 years old, and he would go running up to climb the high thing. And I knew he was fine to do it. But the amount of parent reaction that I got from like, oh, watch the baby, watch the baby when he's 2 or 3, he's a toddler at a playground. This is what you're supposed to be doing. That's why they have playgrounds. Yeah, it's really so shocking. Why did they put that thing with all the pipes up there? I know they're going to climb on it. All right. So, so so back to your actual question, which was your kid goes outside, there's nobody to play with. Of course, they make a hairpin turn and come right back in. And then there's somebody you play with online or, you know, anything to do other than playing outside. So. So when we founded like grow, I said, you know, I, I've been a thought leader for a long time. Yeah. Right. And and I, I'm sick of it. I, you know, I leading thoughts doesn't help because I can lead them so far. Oh yes. I remember my childhood. It was so great. We played outside till the street lights came on. But if I let my kid do that, what if something bad happened and I could never forgive myself? I'd have to kill myself. And that would be the end. No. So thoughts keep going in circles, and the circle that it goes in these days is I can't let my kid do anything by themselves because if something bad happened, I would never forgive myself. It's just a phrase that keeps coming up. And so what change is people is not thinking. It's doing. And, one of our phrases is action breaks the cycle. So how do you get parents used to sending their kids outside when they've never sent their kids outside? Yeah. You have to push them to do it before they're ready and gently push. And you have to push collectively. Because John. Right, always says a collective problem needs a collective solution. So if a school assigns what we call the let grow experience, which is free, and all our materials are free, it's a homework assignment that they give the kids that says, go home and do something new on your own without your parents, with your parents permission, but without them. And then we have a giant list of things. And of course, it doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of all the things they could do. They could, you know, climb a tree, kill a bird that's not on the list. And it's only because it's not obvious, because you have birds behind you. I have the never mind. Climb a tree, run an errand. You know, make a cake. But the put the cake in the oven and take it out using mitts. Of course. And, you know, do something new that you feel ready to do. And it's only after the kid does that. And either they went to the store and they get they got, you know, the stick of butter, the carton of milk, and, yeah, a loaf of bread. Right, right, right. It's either after they've. Right, right. So they've, they've done it successfully or they totally, you know, they hope they don't have it up, but they forgot to get the change or they got, you know, the, the chocolate milk or just soy milk or, you know, any of the milks that I didn't grow up with that I disdain, you know, oats, almonds, nothing. I like milk, but anyway. So say they come on and they got lost on the way. Either way, you are so excited that they did something on their own. And if they screwed it up, that's great in another way because it's like, look, it wasn't the end of the world. Yeah, you got lost. It was scary for a bit. And then you ask somebody and now you're back home. So no matter what, when a kid does something on their own, it's the only way to rewire a parent because they are so proud to see that their kid did something on their own that now I've taken to asking, and I will ask both of you to tell me a time that you were most proud of your kid or kids like, tell me a time that like, your heart was just bursting. Like, look at my kid. Just one. Just asking that question, Lenore. I just started getting choked up just thinking I meant so. I'm sorry. I'm an emotional phase of my life right now. I see that, but I think it's exactly what you're describing. It's. I am always most proud of my kids when they do something I cannot imagine doing myself. And that's true in both of them. So am I true? Yeah, that's a neat one. Yeah. My son is a musician and he writes his own music and he performs it, and he's never been afraid to get up there and just let something of his own creation in front of public be out there in the world. And like, I remember being that age and embarrassed and shy and but like, his kind of confidence of saying, like, I'm going to take this step and do this thing that I want to do is the most inspiring thing in the world. And my daughter and I had a very similar thing this summer. You know, she, you know, they're teenagers, so they're taking the subway. Obviously, for a long time. We started out on the busses in middle school. They went on the bus by themselves. But like this summer, she was go. She got invited to do, a writing class at NYU, and she didn't know what she was doing and she didn't know where she was going. And she's a nervous kid by nature. So we were like, well, you're going to have to figure it out, like here, you know, we'll we'll go look at the maps and figure out the building, and then we'll figure out how to get there and you'll be fine. You've got your phone, you'll figure it out. And she was so excited, like the end of those few weeks, like to have done this thing and be a part of the world that, you know, she'd be part of the world. Yeah, she and she is on her own, but it's in a very safe, you know, it's a familiar environment, like a repeated, you know, travels on a daily basis. But this was something wildly new for her. And that is exactly the kind of thing that I came away from. Super, super proud of her. That we didn't fix it in any way. Building got changed. One day. She had to figure out the classroom, where to get to, and this is just life. Like, she's a very competent kid and I know she could do it, but her own confidence in that was like, what made me so excited? I here's are so like so big and so small. Well, my son made my son made breakfast, he made breakfast and I was. But it was a he made a bacon, egg, bacon and egg sandwich. And so he had to make the scrambled eggs. He had to he had the microwave. We microwave the bacon for that. So the microwave is going to smell like bacon for the rest of your life. Yeah. Which is not a problem. I know it's not a problem. Yes, I know, but, and the only thing I was worried about, we have a gas stove, so I was always going to burn down the house. But. So I was right around the corner, kind of peaking, but not walking in. So I kind of cheated, I guess. But he made the whole thing, and he was so proud of it. And as a single parent, I was also selfishly happy. And then like, this is something they can do because I think that's what I've been noticing with him. When you're, you know, as a single parent, you need something that maybe has you know, if you've got two parents you don't need as much like you need that autonomy even more in you because you know, yeah, for sure in your kid because you don't have the time to do it. Like I have a my first, my first gig every, you know, twice a week

I have something at 7: 16:00

30 a.m., he's got to get himself off to school because I'm working. And so like, it's like the pride in knowing that he can do it. But also I have a necessity that a lot of the community of his parents that his friends parents don't have. So I've been forced to make him, be more self-reliant because otherwise I would go crazy. And, and I think that's the bit that, I would love to be able to communicate to these other parents. It's just like, you will feel better. It's not just that your kids will feel better. You will feel better. You will. You will have more time. You will have more faith. You. This is good for you to, to give them this, this foundation of self-reliance. And that, I think has been interesting because they hear it, but then have the fear. You just see the fear behind their eyes. But what if but what if but what when? I will say I'm an anxious person, the clinically anxious person by nature. And so for me, no, you stop it. I don't know, I just I never believe it. I find it incredibly well. And I feel like, you know, what the what the thing that has happened, like everything that we've mentioned makes sense and like, it seems like such baby steps that we would be proud of our kids for doing things on our own as you know, grown adults. But I think that that as a generation, you know, we were the feral kids who are left in the backyards and for good and for ill, like good things happen, bad things happen. But we figured it out. We mostly lived. And the thing that is so weird to me now is that that generation, those we wild children, are now the ones who are so remarkably anxious and oversaturated with, you know, media telling us all these scary things that might happen or could happen and I'm really interested in, some of the stats that you had on your site talking about actual crime stats, actual, actual, you know, can I give you my favorite stat, by the way we looked? We were looking through them this stat I love. So I'm going to tell you probably only what I have memorized, but go on. Oh, I'm sure it is. It's so well put that I'm positive this is the one. It was the one that, Warwick, I don't know how to say. It's like. Yeah, Warwick cares. Yeah. Karen's, you know, from How to Live Dangerously, where he says if for some strange reason you wanted your child to be kidnaped by a stranger, how long would you have to keep them outside unattended for this to be statistically likely to happen 750,000 years? I mean, such a stark number. I mean, it it really brought to light when I read that it was just, you know, that your fear is unfounded. You know, you see some of these other statistics. He. That was such a great way to. Yeah, I know I love that statistic. Right. And as I like to point out, after the first hundred thousand years, they're not a child anymore. Oh, right. Right. Yeah. And yeah, what I think is interesting about this and I was, I was just, you know, my, my, my girlfriend is off buying lottery tickets right now. So she is buying 30 lottery tickets because she has 29 friends, and they all buy a lottery ticket,$2 each, and then they pool them all. And if any of those lottery tickets wins, they'll split it. Statistically, they have just as much chance of winning if they all pooled $0.05 and bought one lottery ticket, why are they? Why are they buying 30? Because emotionally, you're right, it feels like they have a better chance. Very likely. Yeah. Even though statistically it doesn't. So I see it. They do know it is so 30 times more, instead of it being 0.00000001, it's quite 0000003. I think that's what we call a statistical insignificant that there actually is a phrase it's called de minimis. Right. Yeah. But but I mean but it speaks to like probably one of the big issues here, which is we have these statistics. Yeah. But but they don't emotionally fit. Right. Right. Which is why the let grow experience is so key. Because if your mind is thinking, well, you know, it could be okay. But you know what? If they get killed and well, it's not likely that, you know. But what if they do? You still won't let your kid do something, which is why you need the push. So if you have, I just got a note from, my my friend in Chicago, my best friend in Chicago. Her niece's family is doing the let grow experience because, shout out to Deerfield, Illinois. All the schools there are doing it. And, the mom wrote that the kid just, made breakfast, and now he's planning to make a dinner, like, I guess, during Christmas break. And it's the same thing. It's like even you said it and you said it jokingly, but it's so interesting. You said I. You know, I worried he could burn down the house. I hear that from kids a lot like they're, they're they want to bake cookies, but they don't want to burn down the house. They want to make scrambled eggs, but they don't want to burn down the house. And at first, you know, when when the Lego project began, years ago, we used to call it the project. I thought it was kids sort of being dramatic saying that. And then I realized, no, they're saying it all around the country, and they think that there is a chance. And I don't even think they're thinking statistically. They just think that there's a chance that fire equals burned house. Right? Just like walk outside equals white van. Never seen again. And the only thing that rewires both generations is reality. Reality is more mundane and more cheerful and sometimes more boring. I'd say often more boring than being, you know, kidnaped and thrown in a trunk or burning down your house. Yeah, I'm okay with that. The yeah, yeah, worrying is like wrecking their life. And, you know, the mind works like Google, so if you ask it, you know, is there a good taco stand near me. Up come 30 choices, you know, ranked or whatever. Because I live in a neighborhood where there's a lot of tango stance. True. And then, but if you ask them, is my kids safe at the bus stop and up comes a ton Pates from 1979. Boy taken from a bus stop literally 45 years ago, I guess. And then, you know, up comes Jaycee Dugard, also taken from a bust up at this two kids over the course of basically 50 years and about over 300 million people born between then and now. And so it's it's really too bad because once these, you know, once you ask a question and you get the results in your brain, which are just the stories that have been told a million times and that were very salient and emotional because they have a, you know, it's a tragedy and you've seen the video and you've heard the story over and over again and in television and podcasts and, and whatever, books often. So you can't really ask your brain a question about safety and expect to get something that is truly helpful. Yeah. In general when it, when it, when it's about an everyday childhood activity and also one of the things you said Lily interesting me you said like we were we were wild children and it's like they you only seem wild in retrospect. You were like normal children. You were just something. Yeah, right. So why do we say wild? I mean, I don't think I was particularly wild, but I rode my bike and I went to the library by myself and I, you know, wandered through the woods without people. So we really sort of rewrite our expectations by framing the olden days as, you know, benign neglect. It wasn't neglect, right? It was trust. Yeah. So we really have to flip it. And the only way you flip it is through the actual experience of letting go. Well, there's an interesting thing I was just thinking about in, like, you thinking about talking to you where my mother, you know, she who is greatest generation, bordering on Boomer. She always says, who has these days? Oh, you know, you kids are also independent. I made you that way. And I wish you weren't now. So, like, there's an interesting thing that happens that when I thinking about that is like, oh, what she's asking for is connection. She, you know, she did make us very independent. And she was a single mom, you know, after I was 7 or 8 years old, too. So it's necessary additionally for her. But because we are so independent, I think she's longing for that connection now. And I was wondering if some of what parents are doing now because they're fearful and they have all these these different idea of what parent, a parent child relationship looks like is like not letting go because of that emotional connection. And this would be, you know, beyond the purview of what you're doing here. But I was wondering if you had any thoughts about, like, what parent child dynamic has done to have the effect that it's had on, you know, creating independent kids? That's a that's a lot of different questions. But I think we all want to have a great relationship with our kids. And I don't think it depends on whether you spend, you know, one hour a day with them or 7.5 hours a day with that. I think it depends on who your kid is, who you are, you know, and all the relationships change over the years, too. Yeah. And so I don't think it's I don't think it was because your mom let you have independence that she's mad, that you don't call her more often. I mean, you probably. That's you. That's I think you're not calling your thing. Right. All right, fair enough. Enough. But, but one of the things is that, this is something that I'm just starting to talk about, and it's really amorphous at this point. But I think one of the things that's been undermined in our generation, and actually, we're younger than me, generation is that we've been sort of told that the parent child relationship is tenuous and that you must reinforce it with texts during the day and with interest in the lunch, and you better be at the bus stop to wave goodbye, or they'll feel bereft. And it's like, I don't know. I remember when my kids were growing up, there were nannies whose kids were back in Jamaica, who felt extremely close to those kids and couldn't wait until they moved here at age 14 or whatever. And then they were they continued their family in person. But the, you know, those are the two extremes. But the studies show that parents are spending way more time with their kids today than they did a generation ago. And a lot of the times actually, as car drivers, really, and that, I think that's one of the unspoken reasons that the surgeon General's report, you know, parents are going crazy today and he talks about, you know, a need for cheaper daycare, which I agree with, and time off and this and that and health care and whatever. But really, what we also need is time off from our kids. And if the expectations are that here's my husband home safely. Yeah. Not your job I know. Right. Right right. Good job good buddy. Right. You didn't take the candy, right? Look, I'm given free Medicare from a white van. Don't take it. Don't take it. Really? I've got some right. Prozac. No. That's right. Anyway, the point being. The point being that, there's a there's demands on our time that are excessive and boring, and they don't make us necessarily closer to our kids, but they do make us further from happiness to. Right. You know, that's an interesting because I was thinking about that when we talk about tech, because some of the issues with some of the things around, like why I let my, my son play games online and things like that, a lot of that's for me. It's not for him. It's so that I can get some time, you know, it's just him and me. I'm a full time single dad, so I have him. I have him 98% of the time. And so I when I need a break, the, you know, the best time. You know, he's an only child. There's nobody else to play with. All the kids are inside refusing to come out to play. Sometimes the only thing he can do is call up a friend and play Roblox over the phone. And, you know, I know there's a lot fraught with that. And I'd rather he be outside playing. Right. But the other option is he's outside playing with me and, you know, and I don't have the mental capacity to be his constant playmate. I will the in the interest. Yeah. Yeah. That's that so and so I know I'm see I know you you, you have a lot of, you know, you're a lot of, a lot of your platform is get away from the tech and get outside, which makes a lot of sense. But how do you how do you balance that? How do you feel we should make that? My platform isn't get away from tech John Heights platform is get away from tech is focused on independence and free play. And I take responsibility. So we're sort of tech neutral. But in that event, you still want your kids to have somebody to play with and a chance to develop all those social emotional skills you get from you know, organizing a game of soccer or, or whatever. But Foursquare a so in addition to the Lego experience where kids get their homework assignment go up, you know, go do something by yourself so that the parents get used to letting go. We also recommend that schools do the Let Grow Play club, and that is simply having time before or after school as much as possible, hour before school, couple hours after school, or less. If you can't do all that, where the school stays open for mixed age, no devices, free play, and there is an adult there because of liability issues. Really. But they're in the corner. They're looking through their phone, their whatever, that they've got an EpiPen, right. And maybe a cigaret one is for sure the kid one is not. And they are not organizing the games. They're not solving the arguments. When kids come and say, like I was supposed to go and he said the ball was in, you say, is this a kid problem or an adult problem? Well, it's a good problem. It's like, okay, well then I bet you could solve it because I'm an adult. So it just works so beautifully. And it's a way of giving your kid Scott. What I hear you longing for, which is a chance to just be playing with other kids. Yeah. After school without it being a big hoo ha. Without the uniforms, without the astroturf, without the trophies just playing. And so it's really it's just a way to recreate a bit of what we grew up with, which was time with kids, with nothing riding on it and no scores, no nothing, just just kids. And we recommend that the schools allow for, loose parts, which are just everything from, you know, the traditional, you know, ball and the hula hoop as well as a suitcase and, you know, cardboard boxes. So it's just sort of like in the neighborhood where you found something and like, hey, let's do this. And and it really, I've watched videos and I've been to places doing this and it is it is beyond fantastic and heartening. And I just wish everybody would go see these. You just like see the kids going, all right, you're going to do this and then I'll do this. And what are they doing? They're taking turns punching a piece of cardboard. You know. Well, one mom told me that she stood back. Her kids were playing, and she wasn't going to get them. Bob, what are we doing today? Our board and children. You guys figured out, and they were over on a, part of the playground where there were slats of wood. And in between the slats were growing up, little pieces of grass right poking out, and they were pretending to be lice sucking at the root of the hair, like, oh, this is so. Oh, man. But, you know, that's that's not a game I would have come up with. No, no, thank God, we don't need we don't need more than one person coming up with that game. One thing in the world, I mean, that's the I know it's so true what you do. Right? And there's so creative. And what if we would have said, no, it's soccer time. You know, there's no creativity there for sure. And it's something that, you know, without having done the studies myself, are you just parenting by instinct? One of the things that I've always really advocated for in my own kids is boredom, because I think that there's so much play, there's so much creativity that can only happen when you have unscheduled time, that there isn't a way to do that. If you're going here is that's why I don't let Girl play. Club is scheduled time for unstructured free play, and when it's in middle school, it's not always play. It can be just hanging around and talking to your friends, but it is a place. It is a sanctuary without phones, with a lot of other kids. I mean, that's actually you got a time, you got a place and you have other kids. That's those are the three magic ingredients. And if you have no phones, it's even better because then everybody is relating to each other and not someplace else, even though they're physically together. Do you feel there's a way to do that? If more of a community, I guess right now. Right. Because right now school is community because it's probably easiest for you to figure that out. It's good because it's like, you know, everybody is there. But yes, we've heard from many a parent who has started what they, you know, whether they call it a let girl play club or not, doesn't really matter. But they, you know, they they texted other parents in the neighborhood or they put little notes in the mailboxes and said, look at on, you know, Friday afternoons I'm going to be outside sitting on the stoop or sitting on the lawn or watching from my window because it's freezing and I don't want to be outside. And if your kids want to come over, that's great. Or, you know, they can go to the park or my kid's going to be at the park, and maybe your kids will join them there. And we've heard it working. It's a and so John likes the idea of free play. Friday because it's you remember it's alliterative and it's the it's it's the gate to the weekend. Right. So if you don't get on Friday and you don't have the homework because I think the homework bit is, yeah, organized activities. Why do kids play so much when they're at campsites? You know, when you're at a, RV site and it's like you're you're surrounded by strangers who have vans, right? And yet now you're letting your kids play outside. You know, it's for them, right? Everybody's drinking according to this. And there's a fire, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we still, on Fridays, like, it was a natural evolution of gathering our kids together. But we used to had this thing called toddler pizza, where it was just that, like, after school, after work, we'd pick a house every. I mean, it was from toddlers and onward, but all the kids would just get together. We'd order a bunch of pizzas, the parents would sit together in the dining room or wherever, have wine with our pizza and bitch about everything, and then they would all ruin whatever home we were in together. And it was I think it's it's tapping into exactly what you what you're recommending. And it was a relief for everybody. I love that idea because they're already doing it, because we have this green area that people go to and, you know, they go out there to meet and stuff. But I do love the idea of communicating that it's I mean, the hump is all right. Well, what if nobody's there and my kids alone and like, that makes me nervous. Or what if this, like all the little things I love the idea of communicating this is here. Use it or not, but it's here, right? They say that we should do this. What I miss is our. We share a driveway with my neighboring house, and during the pandemic, there was a kid his age in that house, and they would just run back and forth all day long. And it was great. It got us through the pandemic and it was the best. And they're still great friends and stuff. But I miss that because that was just knock, knock, knock. Oh look, you know, here's Cole ready to play. And that to me is like that's how it was when I was a kid. It was knock knock. Ready to play and you know how to competitive that right. Yeah. Yeah. Well it's gone weird in that it feels odd to say Can Betsy come out and play? Whereas that should be the most natural question to ask in the world. And so that's what I actually have three Betsy. Right. Yeah, I know that. But, I had one last question, where I think getting to the end of don't want to use up your whole day. So, you know, your column was back in, you know, your first 2000 and 2008. I think it's now 2000. Well, so be 2025 when this comes out. I mean, do you feel that it's getting better? It's getting worse. Like, how do you feel? How do you feel it's changed because you've been watching it this whole year. And I have been watching a couple things. Worse is that phones allow us to track our kids, and because we can, it now requires opting out in a way to say no, I trust my kid even without watching them from afar. And so I think that adds this new level of vigilance that wasn't happening in 2008. The I think the iPhone came out in like 2010 or 2011. So, on the other hand, nobody was talking about this very much back then, and I think it is like a pretty fever pitch recently that people are recognizing that independence is not met when it comes to kids and child development, that it is something significant. And of course, you know, you don't want to celebrate. Yay! The mental health issue is so enormous, but it is an enormous concern. And there's a recognition now that when you take out all the independence, all the accomplishment, all the confidence, all the conflict, all the, you know, slight risks and the exhilaration of doing things by yourself with your friends, without an adult always helping, take that out of kids lives and to it shouldn't surprise anybody that the kids are drooping, right? They just don't have the chance. The the the the nutrients. You know, wow, that was hard. But I did it. That was scary and fun. Or let's try that again. And and so kids are dropping, as the surgeon general noted, and parents are drooping, as the surgeon general noted. And it's like, maybe there's a reason. Yeah. Right. And maybe we all need a little more space for our own worlds. Like you were talking about, Lilly, even with the with the toddler pizza. And once you you know, once you say that it's not bad parenting and it's not wasting our kids potential, the time that we're not with them helping, assisting and teaching, then, yeah, study just proved it. When parents start to realize that letting kids do things on their own is education. You know, we think education is only when they're sitting in a chair or when we're reading to them, but education is doing anything right, even, you know, drawing or playing or climbing. And so once parents realize that, then they actually intervene half as much. That's what the Yale study found, half as much. So I think that people are recognizing that independence is important now when they realize it's not just important, it's educational. I think we're going to, you know, I think we're going to soar. Well, why don't we leave it with that? Because that I think that's a great way to end the conversation. But it's such a delight having you on and I'm so glad I know all about you now. I feel so nice stalking me many times, but, but, but but thank you. This was this was, you know, such a great conversation and we really appreciate having you on. So listen, get the Westport schools or you know, any other schools in Brooklyn to do the let grow experience. It's free. The all the materials for setting up a let girl play club also free. You just have to have somebody staff it. And then you can really start flipping around your kid's childhood and your own time. Absolutely. Thanks for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. Leave a like or a crazy comment. 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