March 11, 2025 • 10 mins
When Lenore Skenazy let her nine-year-old ride the subway alone, she was dubbed "the worst mother in the world." In this preview of Saturday's interview, discover why preparation beats protection and how trusting kids with real responsibility helps them become capable adults. Plus, learn why the illusion of control might be holding our children back.
Quote of the Episode: "If you want responsible kids, you have to give them responsibility"—Alfie Kohn
Key Insights:
- Preparation matters more than protection.
- Trust builds capability and confidence.
- Control is ultimately an illusion.
- Mistakes are learning opportunities.
- Clear boundaries enable independence.
- Practice builds competence.
- Real-world experience teaches responsibility.
- Consequences should lead to learning, not restriction.
Resources Mentioned:
- Let Grow movement
- Lenore Skenazy's work
- Jonathan Haidt's research
- Happy Families
Action Steps for Parents:
- Prepare Rather than Prevent
- Practice skills before independence
- Provide necessary tools and information
- Create clear safety guidelines
- Build Trust Gradually
- Start with small responsibilities
- Allow learning from mistakes
- Maintain open communication
- Focus on Growth
- Use setbacks as teaching moments
- Celebrate increased independence
- Balance freedom with preparation
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
A little while ago, I had a conversation with a
woman who has literally been labeled the worst mother in
the world. Her name is Leonor Skanazi. She is the
founder of the Let Grow movement, and a few years
back she allowed her nine year old son to catch
the subway in New York City home alone. Hello and
(00:31):
welcome to the Happy Families Podcast, Real Parenting Solutions every
day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin
and Kylie Coulson. Kylie, you've been to New York City,
You've ridden the subway. Would you let your nine year
old child catch a train on the subway? Solo? I'm
putting you under the microscope here. You're looking at me like,
(00:53):
why do you have to ask that question? That's not
what you'd read on It just popped into my head.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
So, having done it a number of times now, I
would say that depending on what station I was dropping
my child off at and what station they were getting
off at would make a difference to my answer.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Would being with them also make it?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Nine's pretty young, and yes I know that as a
forty five year old woman, I was pretty nervous getting
on and off those trains and trying to work out
lines and following colors, and it was a lot to
take in.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, I mean, obviously you're not familiar with it at all,
and the Skinnazi has lived in New York City and
so therefore it wasn't nearly as scary for them. But
I got the chance to talk with her. This is
one of the most influential women in parenting in the
world these days. She's done some great work with Jonathan
Hate and his work around the Anxious Generation. And I
(01:50):
asked her when she wrote this article about the decision
to let her nine year old do it and was
subsequently labeled the worst mother in the world, I just
kind of said to it, well, putting a kid on
a subway in New York City feels risky. So I
asked to give us the setup for how she let
him do it.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Some kids love certain things, like there are kids who
love cars or dollars or whatever. He loved the subway
loves you know, he loved public transportation. But we wanted
to make sure he understood that. You know that you're
reading the map and the green line, which is the
line that he was going to have to take. That's
the four, five, and six train. For anybody who's been
to New York City, that that was the train you
would have to take, and you know this is the
stop you get off on. And then of course we're
(02:31):
always on that extremely slow bus, so he knew that
he would have to wait for the bus at the
bus stop. I don't recall telling him this that time,
but I've always told my kids that you can talk
to strangers, you can't go off with strangers. So if
you if you need help from somebody, certainly you can
ask a question of somebody, but you can't get into
somebody's car. You can't go off with somebody. And other
than that, we prepared him with a couple of things.
(02:53):
We gave him a subway map twenty dollars just in
case he needed something went really terribly wrong and needed
take a cab or something quarters because there were still
some pyphons in the subway, and a Metro card, which
is the card that you slide through the entryway to
get into the trains to pay your fare. And so
(03:14):
I'd say that we didn't think we were crazy because
we were preparing him and because it wasn't something that
he was saying no, Mom, I don't want to do this.
This was his idea and something that we had all
discussed and decided he was ready for.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
So when you listen to her, it's clearly obvious. Number One,
they use the trains regularly. This is not something that's
new to him, and he loves public transport. And number two,
the thing that really stands out to me is he's
a mom who's absolutely pre armed her son with everything
that he needs to be safe.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
He's prepared, she's prepared, They've walked him through it, they've
done dry runs, practiced.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
And the thing that stands out to me, having done
that and having had my own personal experiences that have
not ended up that way, is he, as a nine
year old, walks out that door with more confidence and
feels empowered because somebody believes in him. Somebody believes that
he's actually capable of doing that, and that that's the
(04:19):
power in what she's given him.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
So there's a lot of noise being made, and I'm
one of the people making noise about it. Is we've
got to help our kids to take more risks, to
be engaged in risky play. You keep unrolling your eyes
when I say it but I'm going to say it
again right now. Anyway, our children need to be able
to do things that could land them in hospital if
they go wrong on at least a weekly basis, whether
it's climbing a rock wall, which is what one of
our kids do, or going for a bike ride, or
(04:43):
just doing stuff that could land you in a little
bit of strife. The whole thing here is that children
do better and feel better about life when we expressed
confidence in them and set them up to go and
do it. Our job is to make ourselves redundant and
(05:05):
to give our kids the opportunity to push against those boundaries.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
You did something similar to this in Parental Guidance a
couple of years ago, and what I found really really
interesting was how each of the kids handled themselves to
the point where one of them actually stopped at mac
has brought himself, missed a couple of buses, but he
wasn't fame.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I can't remember how old he was, but I think
he was maybe eleven, and he had to catch a
bus from Brisbane to like forty minutes down the road
to Logan home. It was a lot a big deal.
It was a big deal, and he's just gone and
brought himself from Jakdoms and it was great. So lanoscan
as he is, is, like I said, super influential. We're
going to play the entire interview on Saturday, but I
(05:47):
just want to play this as well, because this really
stood out to me when I interviewed her. I said
to her, people always say, but what if things go wrong?
What if you'd put him on the train and there
was an emergency? Things played out friendly. I mean, it's
great that he was okay, but what if, what if?
What if? This was her response.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
First of all, you can never say you're going to
be fine, because that's that is the idea of control.
I mean, the illusion that we can control for every variable.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It leads to bureaucracy, yes.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
And I think it leads to extreme nervousness on the
part of parents because there's no there's no acknowledgment that like,
we can't control everything. We aren't God, you know, we
think we are. We have the phones, we can track them,
we can see who they texted, we can you know,
there's cameras everywhere. But in fact we're not in complete control.
And you know, if you think you are, you will
(06:40):
never be able to let go at all, because you
will think if anything bad happens, there will be no grace.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I remember, as a fourteen year old catching a bus
for the very first time. Public transport had never done
it before. My friend was going to the movies and
she asked me to meet her, so I caught the
Great City Circle bus. I didn't know what that meant
at the time, but I was to find out later
that if you catch a Great City Circle bus, you
(07:07):
catch one number two your destination, but you have to
catch a different number back because it gets to the
halfway point and then as it does a turnaround, it
does a big loop around the city, so it gets
to the halfway point and then it changes numbers. So
it was a five nine eight bus on the way in,
and I had to catch the five nine to nine
on the way out right. My parents had told me
(07:29):
that I had to come home straight after the movies,
so I jumped out of the movies and I ran
to the bus and my bus was there, the five
nine eight right. I didn't think to ask anyone. I
jumped on the bus makes sense, and before I knew it,
I was half an hour in the wrong direction. At
the end of the day. So I got off the
bus and I was like, this is where I should be.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Oh, you got off the bus.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I did get off the bus, but then I checked
the sign and it told me that this bus would
take me. So I didn't ask anyone. I just got
back on the bus. I ended up another half an
hour down the road. So by the time I finally
asked somebody, they explained what I'd done wrong, and I'd
actually reached the halfway point by then, so I could
stay on the bus and wait until they did the
(08:14):
turnaround to go back.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
But because it was now so late, I wasn't going
to make it home.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
And in the days before my bill fasten.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yes, so my parents were very stressed. But the reason
this story stands out to me and what Lenor has done,
is that because of that experience, I actually never caught
another bus. Oh, I wasn't left feeling empowered. I wasn't
there wasn't an opportunity for me to learn for getting
it from my mistakes. Yeah, and so I just love
(08:45):
that here's this mum that has not only shown belief
in her son, but has given him everything he needs
to be successful.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Alfie Kohane said to me once, if you want responsible kids,
you have to give them a responsibility, which.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Means they're going to stuff it up correct and they're
going to get it wrong.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
And his whole argument was when they get it wrong,
you don't say, well that's it, You're not going to
do that again. Can't trust you what you do? Instead?
Did you sit down and say I trusted you with
something it didn't work out. Let's understand what went wrong.
Do you think that if I trust you that you
can get it right this second time? And so by
giving kids more responsibility, that's how they learn to be responsible.
(09:23):
Beautiful time with Lenore's message, we are out of time.
I wish we could play the whole interview right now instead,
because there's so much great stuff that she talks about.
We're going to play the entire conversation for you on Saturday.
We'll linked to her websites and her Free Range Child
book and all that sort of stuff on our show
(09:44):
notes as well. But we really would encourage you to
have a listen to what Leonore has to say. That's
on Saturday Today's sneak peek, giving you a sense of
just some of the really cool stuff that she's going
to talk about. I can't wait for you to hear
the whole conversation. The Happy Families Podcasts is produced by
Just Didn't Rule On from Bridge Media. More information and
more resources about strengthening, supporting, and making your family happier
(10:07):
are available at happy families dot com dot au
A little while ago, I had a conversation with a
woman who has literally been labeled the worst mother in
the world. Her name is Leonor Skanazi. She is the
founder of the Let Grow movement, and a few years
back she allowed her nine year old son to catch
the subway in New York City home alone. Hello and
(00:31):
welcome to the Happy Families Podcast, Real Parenting Solutions every
day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin
and Kylie Coulson. Kylie, you've been to New York City,
You've ridden the subway. Would you let your nine year
old child catch a train on the subway? Solo? I'm
putting you under the microscope here. You're looking at me like,
(00:53):
why do you have to ask that question? That's not
what you'd read on It just popped into my head.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
So, having done it a number of times now, I
would say that depending on what station I was dropping
my child off at and what station they were getting
off at would make a difference to my answer.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Would being with them also make it?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Nine's pretty young, and yes I know that as a
forty five year old woman, I was pretty nervous getting
on and off those trains and trying to work out
lines and following colors, and it was a lot to
take in.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, I mean, obviously you're not familiar with it at all,
and the Skinnazi has lived in New York City and
so therefore it wasn't nearly as scary for them. But
I got the chance to talk with her. This is
one of the most influential women in parenting in the
world these days. She's done some great work with Jonathan
Hate and his work around the Anxious Generation. And I
(01:50):
asked her when she wrote this article about the decision
to let her nine year old do it and was
subsequently labeled the worst mother in the world, I just
kind of said to it, well, putting a kid on
a subway in New York City feels risky. So I
asked to give us the setup for how she let
him do it.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Some kids love certain things, like there are kids who
love cars or dollars or whatever. He loved the subway
loves you know, he loved public transportation. But we wanted
to make sure he understood that. You know that you're
reading the map and the green line, which is the
line that he was going to have to take. That's
the four, five, and six train. For anybody who's been
to New York City, that that was the train you
would have to take, and you know this is the
stop you get off on. And then of course we're
(02:31):
always on that extremely slow bus, so he knew that
he would have to wait for the bus at the
bus stop. I don't recall telling him this that time,
but I've always told my kids that you can talk
to strangers, you can't go off with strangers. So if
you if you need help from somebody, certainly you can
ask a question of somebody, but you can't get into
somebody's car. You can't go off with somebody. And other
than that, we prepared him with a couple of things.
(02:53):
We gave him a subway map twenty dollars just in
case he needed something went really terribly wrong and needed
take a cab or something quarters because there were still
some pyphons in the subway, and a Metro card, which
is the card that you slide through the entryway to
get into the trains to pay your fare. And so
(03:14):
I'd say that we didn't think we were crazy because
we were preparing him and because it wasn't something that
he was saying no, Mom, I don't want to do this.
This was his idea and something that we had all
discussed and decided he was ready for.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
So when you listen to her, it's clearly obvious. Number One,
they use the trains regularly. This is not something that's
new to him, and he loves public transport. And number two,
the thing that really stands out to me is he's
a mom who's absolutely pre armed her son with everything
that he needs to be safe.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
He's prepared, she's prepared, They've walked him through it, they've
done dry runs, practiced.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
And the thing that stands out to me, having done
that and having had my own personal experiences that have
not ended up that way, is he, as a nine
year old, walks out that door with more confidence and
feels empowered because somebody believes in him. Somebody believes that
he's actually capable of doing that, and that that's the
(04:19):
power in what she's given him.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
So there's a lot of noise being made, and I'm
one of the people making noise about it. Is we've
got to help our kids to take more risks, to
be engaged in risky play. You keep unrolling your eyes
when I say it but I'm going to say it
again right now. Anyway, our children need to be able
to do things that could land them in hospital if
they go wrong on at least a weekly basis, whether
it's climbing a rock wall, which is what one of
our kids do, or going for a bike ride, or
(04:43):
just doing stuff that could land you in a little
bit of strife. The whole thing here is that children
do better and feel better about life when we expressed
confidence in them and set them up to go and
do it. Our job is to make ourselves redundant and
(05:05):
to give our kids the opportunity to push against those boundaries.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
You did something similar to this in Parental Guidance a
couple of years ago, and what I found really really
interesting was how each of the kids handled themselves to
the point where one of them actually stopped at mac
has brought himself, missed a couple of buses, but he
wasn't fame.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I can't remember how old he was, but I think
he was maybe eleven, and he had to catch a
bus from Brisbane to like forty minutes down the road
to Logan home. It was a lot a big deal.
It was a big deal, and he's just gone and
brought himself from Jakdoms and it was great. So lanoscan
as he is, is, like I said, super influential. We're
going to play the entire interview on Saturday, but I
(05:47):
just want to play this as well, because this really
stood out to me when I interviewed her. I said
to her, people always say, but what if things go wrong?
What if you'd put him on the train and there
was an emergency? Things played out friendly. I mean, it's
great that he was okay, but what if, what if?
What if? This was her response.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
First of all, you can never say you're going to
be fine, because that's that is the idea of control.
I mean, the illusion that we can control for every variable.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It leads to bureaucracy, yes.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
And I think it leads to extreme nervousness on the
part of parents because there's no there's no acknowledgment that like,
we can't control everything. We aren't God, you know, we
think we are. We have the phones, we can track them,
we can see who they texted, we can you know,
there's cameras everywhere. But in fact we're not in complete control.
And you know, if you think you are, you will
(06:40):
never be able to let go at all, because you
will think if anything bad happens, there will be no grace.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I remember, as a fourteen year old catching a bus
for the very first time. Public transport had never done
it before. My friend was going to the movies and
she asked me to meet her, so I caught the
Great City Circle bus. I didn't know what that meant
at the time, but I was to find out later
that if you catch a Great City Circle bus, you
(07:07):
catch one number two your destination, but you have to
catch a different number back because it gets to the
halfway point and then as it does a turnaround, it
does a big loop around the city, so it gets
to the halfway point and then it changes numbers. So
it was a five nine eight bus on the way in,
and I had to catch the five nine to nine
on the way out right. My parents had told me
(07:29):
that I had to come home straight after the movies,
so I jumped out of the movies and I ran
to the bus and my bus was there, the five
nine eight right. I didn't think to ask anyone. I
jumped on the bus makes sense, and before I knew it,
I was half an hour in the wrong direction. At
the end of the day. So I got off the
bus and I was like, this is where I should be.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Oh, you got off the bus.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I did get off the bus, but then I checked
the sign and it told me that this bus would
take me. So I didn't ask anyone. I just got
back on the bus. I ended up another half an
hour down the road. So by the time I finally
asked somebody, they explained what I'd done wrong, and I'd
actually reached the halfway point by then, so I could
stay on the bus and wait until they did the
(08:14):
turnaround to go back.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
But because it was now so late, I wasn't going
to make it home.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
And in the days before my bill fasten.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yes, so my parents were very stressed. But the reason
this story stands out to me and what Lenor has done,
is that because of that experience, I actually never caught
another bus. Oh, I wasn't left feeling empowered. I wasn't
there wasn't an opportunity for me to learn for getting
it from my mistakes. Yeah, and so I just love
(08:45):
that here's this mum that has not only shown belief
in her son, but has given him everything he needs
to be successful.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Alfie Kohane said to me once, if you want responsible kids,
you have to give them a responsibility, which.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Means they're going to stuff it up correct and they're
going to get it wrong.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
And his whole argument was when they get it wrong,
you don't say, well that's it, You're not going to
do that again. Can't trust you what you do? Instead?
Did you sit down and say I trusted you with
something it didn't work out. Let's understand what went wrong.
Do you think that if I trust you that you
can get it right this second time? And so by
giving kids more responsibility, that's how they learn to be responsible.
(09:23):
Beautiful time with Lenore's message, we are out of time.
I wish we could play the whole interview right now instead,
because there's so much great stuff that she talks about.
We're going to play the entire conversation for you on Saturday.
We'll linked to her websites and her Free Range Child
book and all that sort of stuff on our show
(09:44):
notes as well. But we really would encourage you to
have a listen to what Leonore has to say. That's
on Saturday Today's sneak peek, giving you a sense of
just some of the really cool stuff that she's going
to talk about. I can't wait for you to hear
the whole conversation. The Happy Families Podcasts is produced by
Just Didn't Rule On from Bridge Media. More information and
more resources about strengthening, supporting, and making your family happier
(10:07):
are available at happy families dot com dot au
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com