Let Go with LetGrow

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Personal accountability, freedom, independence, free play, anxious generation, let grow, free range kids, parental fear, childhood independence, risk-taking, self-confidence, nature vs nurture, cultural change, hero's journey, educational resources.

SPEAKERS

Terri Novacek, Lenore Skenazy

Terri Novacek
Imagine your children returning home from a day of free play feeling a great sense of pride and confidence, not the kind of pride that comes from generic praise like Good job buddy, or the type of confidence that comes from knowing you can call your parent when you need help or want to go home, but the type that comes from overcoming challenges and figuring things out on your own, your self confidence cannot be taught. It must be experienced. We learn from success when we experience success, real success, not the type of success fabricated by adults. When I conduct workshops on what it means to find your element. We discuss personal accountability and freedom. More and more I'm seeing kids feeling uneasy with freedom because the personal accountability that goes with it is just too uncomfortable. While personal accountability can lead to freedom and choice, it also means risk, risk you will fail, be laughed at or ostracized. And the older the kids, the more fear I'm seeing that they seem to feel, and the more fear they feel, the more they crawl back to their safe place away from the real world, and so to practice what I preach about personal accountability, I ask myself, what are you going to do about it? Terry, how can little old me be a catalyst for change and shift this anxious generation to the courageous generation? One of the things on my can do list is to connect families with resources, and today, I'd like to connect you to let grow.org

Terri Novacek 
In the last couple episodes, I've been referencing Jonathan heights, latest book, The anxious generation. Jonathan and today's guest Lenore scannese, along with Peter Gray, have developed a program which provides free resources and ideas to support parents and teachers in building independence in their children. Lenores book free range kids is chock full of inspiration and ideas for ways to let go and let grow as well. Let's meet Lenore.

Terri Novacek
Lenore, this is such a treat for me. I hear about your association with Peter Gray, who is, you know, I consider a friend of our organization. He's been a former guest on our podcast. We're doing workshops with our families, and, you know, not not trying to do it as a preaching thing, but just an awareness gives us something to think about. And so I have, it's an amazing it's an amazing moment. I have to say, it's very cool. Well, first, I would like our audience to understand where the idea of you being the worst mom ever came from. So can you tell us a little bit about your background and how that came to be sure I got the America's worst mom. I've never used this word out loud. So briquette,

Lenore Skenazy
Let's put it that way, many years ago, when our younger son was nine and he wanted to have us take him someplace he'd never been before and let him find his own way home by the subway here in New York, where we live. And so we said yes, and one sunny Sunday, I took him to Bloomingdale's fancy schmancy store where I do not shop. And although, Boy, I've given a lot of publicity over the years, and I left him there, and I said, Okay, today's the day. In fact, he found his way home by subway and bus. Came into our apartment so proud, and I wrote a column, why I let my nine year old ride the subway alone? And two days later, I was on the Today Show, MSNBC, Fox News and NPR, defending myself, got that weird nickname of America's worst mom, and proceeded to start a blog and then write a book that I called Free Range kids. And the whole idea behind free range kids was that our kids are smarter, safer and stronger than our culture gives them credit for, and that somehow I came to the attention of John height. I don't even know how, but he's here in New York too. Jonathan Haidt, and about eight years ago, he came to me and said, Let's start a nonprofit promoting your ideas, because I believe in free range kids. I think our kids need more independence and free play and responsibility. So he and I and a man named Daniel Schuchman. Who used to be the chairman of fire, which fights for free speech on campus, and then Peter Gray, who is the psychology professor at Boston College who wrote free to learn, who talks about how much kids learn when they're engaged, especially when they're playing. The four of us founded the nonprofit that we now call let grow, not let's go, not let it go, not let it grow, which is weird. It's let grow. And our goal is to make it easy, normal and legal, to give kids back. I would guess the kind of childhood you had. Terry, right, right.

Terri Novacek 
Yeah, I one of the things I remember from your book is the Well, now I forget the numbers. It was like 70% of moms used to play outside as kids. But, oh yeah, only, like 30% of them allow their kids to play outside, really. So my kids were born in 95 and 97 and I just like mine, yeah. So I'm, I'm right there in it. I lived it. I struggled with it, because I did have a very independent childhood. So I completely understand what it's like when society is coming at you and telling you if you don't do this and if you don't do that, you know, the whole Bad Moms thing. So now, you know, fast forward all these years. I'm kind of preaching what I didn't practice. Oh, and I was not at that end of the spectrum. But, like I said, I did have some of that. But, I mean, my kids have turned out fine, but I work in education, and I the inability to do anything for themselves, the anxiety, I mean, it's just so overwhelming and and I just work with a lot of parents that can even recognize I know I shouldn't do this. I know that I am not going to live with them forever, yet they can't let go. So that's what I was hoping you could maybe help in with today.

Lenore Skenazy 
Yeah. First of all, what you're seeing is confirmed by this amazing study that was done by the University of Michigan last year. They asked parents questions about their kids and what they let their kids do, and first of all, the majority of parents said exactly what you're saying. They want their kids to have some independence. They recognize that this is important for their confidence, for their fun, you know, for their development of just everyday skills. You know, able to talk to a waitress, able to walk to school, but also, the majority cannot let go. And I for this, I don't blame them. I mean, we've already talked about the fact that it is a culture that has trained us to think in terms of worst case scenarios, if you ever let go of your kid, not only are you a terrible mother, something terrible will happen to your child. Either they'll be kidnapped, raped and eaten, or not get into Harvard, either way, a tragedy that we don't want to befall them. And so that same University of Michigan study found that the majority of parents of kids aged nine to 11, which I would call tweens, won't let them play at the park with a friend, not even just by themselves, with a friend, won't let them walk to a friend's house, won't let them stay at home for, I think, more than half an hour by themselves. And then 50% of those parents, 50% of all the parents of kids age nine to 11, won't let them go to another aisle at the store. So that is a level of fear, and I'd say catastrophizing, and, you know, tight holding of their kids, that is, I'd say, almost unprecedented in the world. I mean, because children have always had time that they were with their parents, but then time when they weren't with their parents or with adults at all, and they were either playing or running errands, doing chores, they were trusted with some autonomy, and having taken all of that out of our kids lives to the point where sending them to another aisle at the store seems like shipping them off to Nam is really a weird moment, and I too, would feel anxious if the people who love me most don't think I'm I can make it to the, you know, to aisle four to get that can of bees and back again safely and successfully without them there. So let grow. When we founded, let grow John Hite and Peter Gray and this other man, Daniel shockman And I said, we're forget, forget thought leadership. Everybody is listening to some of us. They all hear this story. Even the people who were, you know, studied by the University of Michigan said, we do want to give kids independence so the thoughts are already there. What about action? Only? Action changes. People, me, my statistics, my speeches, my books. John Peter, you know, books get ideas out there, but you need a push to actually take the action of letting go of your kid. And as John keeps saying, even in the anxious generation, a collective problem needs a collective solution. Um, so our collective solution is to have the the schools send kids home with a homework assignment that says we don't care what you do, but you have to go home and do something new on your own, with your parents permission, but without your parents. And we give a let grow. This is all free. We give a long list of things that kids can do, everything from walk to the store, make pancakes, climb a tree, walk the dog, babysit, bake. You know, it doesn't really matter what the thing is, although I like it better if it's outside the home. But once kids do that, and they do come home with the, you know, the loaf of bread, the stick of butter and the carton of milk, like from the classic Sesame Street thing when they do or if they come home with a loaf of bread, a stick of butter and a puppy I mean, it really doesn't matter if they've done it right or wrong, either way, the parent is so proud that my kid went out there and she, you know, she she did it. You know, she's like a grown up. Or look at this funny, weird way, she she screwed up, or she really screwed up. She forgot to get the change. But that's okay, because it's just part of life, and life doesn't have to be perfect. What's really great is seeing my kid in the world brave and bold and alive. That rewires the parent. And having rewired the parent, the kid gets rewired because they have more and more opportunities to keep doing things on their own. And the reason this works so beautifully when a school recommends the let grow gives kids this let grow experience to take home, is that you're not the crazy parent. You're not the one person sending your kid to the park. You're not the one parent who says, I can send my kid to the other aisle at the store. Everybody's doing it. So the parents are comparing notes, the kids are comparing notes, and the teachers keep hearing these stories. It's like, oh my god, you learned how to ride a bike this weekend I was I was recently at a school down in Virginia that was doing the let grow experience. And when a kid finishes their first experience, and there's like, one a month, we recommend, but it could be more, it could be less. Doesn't matter. They they fill out a little piece of paper that's shaped like a leaf. And there were so many of them on this tree that was taped in the hallway that said, I learned how to ride a bike. Well, if that's not the most liberating part of childhood, I mean, you know, the bikes actually changed the history of the world it was like the first time you could get somewhere without a horse and not just using your walking. So really, to see them all learning how to ride bikes and making brownies and and this tastes good, and I'm surprised I can do it, and parents saying I had no idea my kid was ready for this. I'm so proud. That's all it takes, and that's that's why I'm on your podcast, because something that is this simple, straightforward and free can really change the culture and the kids and the families and there was even a pilot study done to see if independence might work as therapy for kids with a diagnosis of anxiety. And the results were so positive that, you know, it just worked fantastically. Kids just doing all sorts of new things on their own that they wanted to do that. I got this email this morning that looks like it's likely that the psychologist is going to get a big grant for a randomized control study. So, you know, it's sort of like if you took all the nutrients out of a kid's life, and then it turned out that giving kids like, you know, a delicious chicken dinner with some broccoli and some quinoa, and now they're better off. Well, what a surprise. Took all the food out of their life, and now you're giving it back, and they seem to be thriving. That's all I'm saying. Just give them back one of the fundamental parts of childhood, which is getting out there and doing some things on their own.

Terri Novacek 
Yeah, you talk about baby steps, brave steps and giant leap. Yes, I do give me an example of that. Well,

Lenore Skenazy 

Baby step is something that I'm not even sure I endorse anymore, because really, there's so much that that kids can do that. When I was talking to the psychologist, his name is Camilo Ortiz, who did the study of independence in kids as a way of fighting their anxiety. And he found that the four kids that this was the he did the study with, where he had them do something new every other day for a month, he found that their anxiety went from they were worried most of the time to worried a little bit of the time. And when I talked to him about what the kids did, what worked, seemingly the most dramatically was, I'll give an example. One kid was afraid to sleep in her own bed. She was nine years old, and she did a bunch of things. She decided she wanted to sell bracelets at school she might have been the kid who wanted to go to the park and play chess with you know the people in the park here in New York City. But one day, she wanted to take the bus by herself, regular city bus, and she's on the bus, and she's looking at her phone to see, you know, where she could get off. And something went wrong with the phone. I don't know if the phone was not charged, or if it just wasn't pulling up the maps or whatever, but like, Oh my God. Now what she didn't have, this was screwing up, right? And so. So she ended up, like, turning to the lady next to her and saying, I don't know where I'm supposed to get off. And the lady pulled up her phone and said, Oh, you know what, you missed your stop. You got to get off at this next one. You got to walk two blocks the other way, and then you'll be where you want it to be. And so the kid did. And that night, according to Camillo, she slept in her own bed without even mentioning it, without even thinking about it, because something had clicked in her. So how does this deal? How does this relate to baby steps or, you know, bigger steps or giant leaps? It's the it's the bigger steps that make the bigger change. And many a time I've heard of kids doing projects for for their let grow experience that I don't think are going to move the needle. Oh, I folded the towels, which I'd never done before, after the laundry was done or i i made toast. Actually heard from a woman two days ago when I was at I was giving a lecture, who said that her kid had made toast. So there's something to it, but when you do something a little bolder, it rewires you. I think it does rewire you. I'm not sure. Making Toast rewires you or your parent. But if your parent has seen and if you have seen that out in the real world without a net, something goes wrong, and you can deal that is a liberation like nothing else, and you're not going to get it from folding the towel. So folding the towel is good. You're learning a new skill. You're becoming important to your family, fine, but you really baby steps are kind of fake, so really you have to Gird your loins. I mean, there was one kid who did a let grow project for his experience, which was he decided to go to the store by himself and get the ingredients for dinner. And I think he was like 10 or 11 years old. This was in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and he went to the store and he got almost all the ingredients, but then he couldn't find one. And I never asked what it was, so I'm just going to pretend like it was taco seasoning, and he's looking around, he can't find it, and then he realizes to find it, he's going to have to talk to an adult, like, look like an idiot to somebody who's going to disdain him. And It's so humiliating, so terrifying, that he ran out of the store and left his his cart there. He literally, like, bolted from the store because, no, I can't do it. It's too much. And then he's looking back at the store. He's in the parking lot, and he goes back in and he asks, where's the taco seasoning? And the clerk says, It's over there. They don't say, you idiot, you stupid little boy. No, you know, it turns out that he can handle this. And the reason I believe so much in just giving kids these experiences is because we all know about the hero's journey. It's Odysseus, it's Star Wars. You're facing something. You don't want to face it. It's too hard. You can't handle it. You don't have a choice. You face it, and the world is yours. That's the opposite of anxiety. Anxiety is thinking you can't handle something if you try, you'll be humiliated or hurt. If you are, you'll be embarrassed or hurt or, you know, look, hate yourself for the rest of your life. And so you don't try, right? You just stop. And as a culture, we keep telling kids to stop. We don't push them at all to try anything. We don't push the parents to let go. And so you have the parents of, you know, 11 year old kids who won't let them go to another aisle at the store. That's a culture that is is stymied with fear, and the only way to break through fear is action, not thinking about things in your head, not thinking, Oh, if I let her go, it'd be great, but what if something bad happens and I couldn't live with myself? No, I won't do it. That's usually the the trip that parents take in their brains, because that's what has been, you know, sort of forced upon us by a fearful culture. I don't think we innately think that way. I think that's our culture making us think that way. So the only way to break through is action. Action breaks the cycle, and the let grow experience is a free, simple, fast, and weirdly enough, fun way to start reversing this crazy culture and give kids back their their faith in themselves. Yeah, you know

Terri Novacek
When, when we hear all these stories just talking, when you were talking about the person at the grocery store, I was thinking, How ironic, you know, he was so fearful of, you know, looking stupid that he didn't ask a question. But how did he think he looked when he ran drop a carton didn't do anything at all. And, and, you know, tying, yeah, yeah. And, you know, the the child that the parent doesn't want to send them two aisles over to get something. In some ways, things become this self fulfilling prophecy. You know, you've waited so long and and coddled your child so much that they probably did have a bad experience when they went two aisles over and they panicked and they came back in tears. And now you're able to say, See, I told you, so, you know. And there

Lenore Skenazy 
There is an interesting study about that at the. Georgetown University which was there's three psychologists there who are concerned that kids are getting their independence so late, like the ages from five to 12, your body actually develops less quickly than it does up until five, and then obviously when puberty hits. And you know, maybe the crackpot theory, but the theory is that that those are the years that something else really important is going on which is becoming part of the world. You know, learning how to run errands, cross the street, deal with an argument with a friend, find something, you know, get over frustration. You know, compromise with your friends so you can have a game. All these things are happening, and that's when you are building through everyday experiences over and over again, your internal sense of not just street smarts, but sort of risk ometer. You know, what is truly dangerous, what is just annoying, what is just scary, what is easy once you do it the first time. And the theory of the Georgetown professors is that kids are getting their independence so late that they are they're starting to calibrate when it's a little late, sort of like learning a language after 12 is harder than learning beforehand, learning what is risky and what is not starting at 12, because until then everything has been supervised is harder. And the the pilot study they did for that was just asking college students in Russia and Turkey versus Canada and America, you know, to, you know, different cultures, let's say, describe a dangerous situation. And the kids in Russia were saying, you know, when some drunk guy is lurching after me at night on the streets, you know, Moscow holding a, you know, broken vodka bottle, and the kids in America were saying, taking an Uber or sitting in a cafe by myself and and you don't want, you don't want that Very screwed up perspective to be your child's. And like I said, you can learn a language after age 12, and you can become more bold. But why wouldn't you want your kids to be getting their sense of what they're capable of and what the world is really like at the time when when Mother Nature expected that to be happening, right?

Terri Novacek 
Do you have any thoughts that you'd be willing to share on how much of our disabilities and anxieties might be something natural that we're born with or something created by our parents? Lennar,

Lenore Skenazy
Why don't you figure out nature versus nurture? We have a few minutes. It is a podcast. Come on. No, I don't know, and I not to undercut my own message, but I think there's so much that is nature and not nurture. I think there are kids, you know. You know this yourself, if you have more than one kid, or if you have a brother or sister that you're very different from, you know, and you had the same parents, so obviously there's great variation in nature and and the nurture thing. I'm not even interested in individual families and how they, you know, raise their kids. I'm interested in a culture that is, you know, cutting off our balls. Isn't that a nice way to put it, I'm interested in a culture that has told us that it is best to be fearful and hyper cautious and catastrophizing whenever it comes to our kids, and whether you listen and try these things that I'm suggesting and it changes your whole family. I don't know, but I do know that if we did this culture wide, it would be a different culture. So that's I can't I can't say that if you have an anxious kid and you send her to the store for the loaf of bread, you know she's going to come back and and Pippi long stocking is born. I wish it was that simple. It's not that simple, but I can tell you that, as an entire culture, we know that this generation is more anxious and more depressed than earlier generations, and it's not just since the iPhone and it's not just since COVID, it's decades Peter Gray, who we both love, has a piece in The Journal of Pediatrics that ran last year that showed that over the decades, as kids, independence, free play and to a certain extent, responsibility, have been going down, their anxiety and depression have been going up. So if that's on a culture wide basis, then you have to reverse engineer it. And if taking away their independence and free play has made an entire generation more anxious, you have to give them back more independence and free play. So let me mention free play for a second here, which is Peter's contribution to let grow was to say, why don't we also ask schools to stay open for free play before and after school, and by free play, he meant mixed ages, no devices, loose parts. And by loose parts, it can be anything from a pebble to a ball to an old suitcase to chalk. It doesn't matter. And then there's an adult there because of litigious reasons, and but they're standing in the corner like a lifeguard. They don't organize the games, they don't solve the arguments. And I was just talking to a lady who was running one in San Jose yesterday, and the first few times, you know, kids come up and argue, it's like it was my turn, but she said it was her turn. And she said, Well, is this a kid problem or an adult problem? And they're like a kid problem, like, well, then your kids, why don't you figure it out? And they did, and they've stopped bothering her, because kids are innately able to make things happen, because they are so eager to get back to the fun, they will solve the problem or and she was telling me about a case where everybody was arguing about who was allowed to sit around the quote, unquote bonfire, which was just a bunch of sticks and and since they were all arguing, they just decided, let's do something else. And they went did something else for a while, and they just resolved their differences. These things are not you know what's going to happen in Gaza? This is who's going to sit in front of a pile of sticks for five minutes. They can figure it out. And to keep insisting that, like, Well, how about you get a turn, we're going to divide ourselves into three groups, and the first group is going to sit there first, and then the second group goes in, and the third group, it's like, they don't need us. There's not there's an adult solution to kid problems. Is, is overkill. Let the kids solve their problems, and then they'll learn how to solve their problems. So nature nurture. All I can say is, step back a little and let nature take its take its course.

Terri Novacek
I agree 100% and I'm sure there are people thinking, but what about when it comes to blows? When you know they start

Lenore Skenazy
Those I mean, actually, at the electro play club. We have one. We have two rules for kids. One is, you're not allowed to physically hurt someone. If you do, you have to take the rest of that day off. You're not part of play club anymore, but you can come back the next day, because it's not draconian, it's not life sentence, right? And then you're also not allowed to leave without telling somebody, because you don't want to have the, you know, the adult saying, you know, where's my kid, and I don't know, so that's it, and parents have to sign a little pledge as well that says, I recognize my child will not be happy every second of play club, because that's one of the reasons that schools are afraid of starting something as simple and normal as giving kids back some free play time. What if the parents are mad that their kid comes home and said, I didn't get to go first, or the ball was in, and she said it was out. It's like, that's part of life, and I'm not. I'm not a hard ass person. I hate conflict, but there's going to be some frustration, some boredom, some unfairness on the playground, as in life, and your kid is fully equipped to deal with it, until you say they're not. So give them a chance to deal that's

Terri Novacek 
Great, wonderful. Thank you. Anything on the horizon for you, anything we should be looking out for?

Lenore Skenazy 
Yeah, a couple things. One is, you know, we've had, I've got about 1000 schools doing the let grow experience and or the let grow play club now. And as I said, all our materials are free, so let's make that 5000 this year. I mean, really, it's once it happens, it's so easy, and people realize, Oh, why don't we do this sooner? The parents realize, like, realize it, and the schools realize it. Two is, we're trying to change laws. We've changed the laws in eight states so that neglect, which is sort of this amorphous thing, oh, you have to, quote, unquote, properly supervise your kid. That's what most of the laws in the states say. It's like, well, what's proper? So instead of that which is so open to discretion, and you know, people deciding that's not how I would raise my kid, let's make it so that neglect is when you put your kid in obvious and serious and likely danger, not anytime you take your eyes off them. That's what our law says. It passed unanimously in five states. It passed, it passed with bipartisan support, I think, in seven of the eight states. So it's a very popular law, and this year we're trying to pass it in another six states. So if you go to let grow.org and you click on state laws, you can see what your state laws are, and there's a little thing you can sign up. I want to get involved in changing my law, if your laws, and change debt. And then also, I'm giving a TED talk, which is just terrifying me, because even in this conversation, I think, like, Oh, I better put that in my TED talk. Oh, I better put that in my TED talk. And I have 10 minutes. I'm like, a short TED Talk. I'm a I'm not a TEDx talk, but it's just they, they give some of us shorter time. So wish me luck.

Terri Novacek 

Oh, I definitely do, and I look forward to seeing it. When is that happening? That happens in April. Okay, well, good luck with that.

Terri Novacek 

I love Lenores, reference to the hero's journey. Childhood really is like a hero's journey, like the hero stepping into the unknown world. Children begin in a familiar place, their home. They face trials like learning, Relationships, Rules, societal pressures and expectations. They. Encounter mentors, their parents, teachers, even their peers, and then ultimately gain wisdom and independence, returning home stronger and wiser. Now if the hero took off into the unknown, with everything laid out and done for him, he would return unchanged. And so it is the same for our children. The more we control our children's lives, the less they will believe that they can our challenge for this episode is to visit the let grow.org website and select the parent drop down menu from the top bar, select at least one resource from the section, review it and put it into use, then post about your experience on the Element. Is Everything, podcast page on YouTube. Let's see if we can get a support group going, sharing our trials and tribulations as we create a community of families raising the courageous generation as we let go so that they may grow, they will, in turn, find their element.

Terri Novacek 

I hope you found some value in today's episode. If so, please take a moment to leave a positive review on the podcast. Platform you use and share the episode on social media, if you visit the Element is Everything website, you'll find additional resources on today's topic. Invite friends and family to join our community of listeners as we ponder science perspectives and strategies around personal accountability, courageous learning and clear decision making for a sense of connection to ourselves, others and life you.