May 21, 2025 • 37 mins
In this episode, we explore how modern culture has stripped childhood of the freedom it needs to thrive—and what can be done to bring it back. Our guest is Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids and co-founder of the nonprofit Let Grow, launched with Jonathan Haidt, Peter Gray, and Daniel Shuchman to champion independence, resilience, and real-world learning.
Together, we unpack how fear, measurement, and control have come to dominate parenting and education. From the rise of isolated family units to the spread of enrichment culture, today’s children are surrounded by adults who often confuse supervision with support. The result is a generation of kids with less room to explore, solve problems, and grow on their own.
We talk about how Let Grow is working to change this—by making it normal again for kids to walk to the store, play unsupervised, and take age-appropriate risks. Lenore shares the story of a high school that gave students one week of unstructured play, and the surprising transformation that followed. The spark of self-direction wasn’t lost—it was just waiting for space to reappear.
Visit letgrow.org to explore free programs, school initiatives, and policy work that supports childhood independence.
🗓️ Recorded May 13th, 2025. 📍 Budapest, Hungary
🔗 Connect with Lenore Skenazy
- https://www.facebook.com/lenore.skenazy
- https://www.instagram.com/lenoreskenazy_freerange
- https://x.com/freerangekids
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/lenoreskenazy
- https://letgrow.org
- https://www.freerangekids.com
PODCAST INFO
Podcast website: http://theconrad.family/podcast
YouTube Full Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/theconradfamily365
Apple Podcasts: https://www.theconrad.family/apple
Spotify: https://theconrad.family/spotify
RSS: https://theconrad.family/rss
SUPPORT & CONNECT
Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Theconradfamily
Share a review: https://www.theconrad.family/review-our-podcast
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theconrad.family
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theconradfamily
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theconradfamily
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jesper Conrad (00:00):
Today we are together with Lenore Skenesi,
and she is from Let Grow and Iwould love to hear more about
that.
But first of all, welcome.
It's good to be together withyou today.
Lenore Skenazy (00:11):
Thanks, same, happy to meet you both.
Jesper Conrad (00:15):
We have had the pleasure of interviewing Peter
Gray a couple of times and nowwe are together with you and you
are involved in a project he'salso involved in.
If we could start with that, ifyou can tell about the project
for people who don't know aboutit?
Lenore Skenazy (00:31):
Sure, I wrote the book Free Range Kids about
how kids, I think, need moreindependence and free play and
free time and trust.
And because of the book, peterGray wanted to meet me and we
met many years ago and thenabout eight years ago he and I
and Jonathan Haidt and DanielSchuchman two other big thought
(00:54):
leaders here in America starteda nonprofit called Let Grow to
make it easy, normal and legalfor parents to give their kids
back some independence and freeplay and responsibility, and
really everything that Petersaid in his book Free to Learn
and everything that I've heardhim say whenever I hear him give
(01:15):
a talk, I find myself I justhave to write down everything
again, because I find himbrilliant and insightful and
those have been the watchwordsfor us at Let Grow when it comes
to what kids really need.
Because I was just talking to awoman who works at a private
school here in New York and shegave the high school students
they could do anything theywanted for their one week of
(01:36):
sort of spring break within theschool and there were field
trips and there were specialclasses, interesting people, but
she got the group of kids whowanted to play and she said it
was the greatest week ever.
And what she was surprised byis that when they were playing
these are 15 and 16 year oldswho haven't had a lot of free
play for a long time.
They've been very scheduled,they've been structured.
(01:56):
There's a lot of academicpressure on them.
Nonetheless, given a week tojust play, she was shocked by
how good they were at organizinggames.
And then they decided no,that's not fun, let's change the
rules this way.
And they made the teams.
And then originally they weregoing to say each time one
person gets sort of thrown offthe island, and then they
decided no, we don't want anyonethrown off the island.
(02:17):
So they changed the rules againand I said it just sounded like
what you did was you releasedthem from the bondage that is
the rest of the year and therewas still this spark of life in
them that could make thingshappen and have fun and
compromise and be creative.
And she showed me these graphsof.
She had interviewed the kids.
(02:38):
She'd given the kids the weekbefore that, the week of play, a
little survey how stressed areyou, how lonely are you?
And it was off the charts.
And then during that week, ohmy God, the joy just went up and
it's like everything is pingingat nine and 10 on her chart.
That had been practicallynon-existent the week before.
And it's what are we doing?
(02:59):
I realized that not everythingis about joy.
But if you have kids and they'respending most of their time
feeling stressed, lonely,anxious, sad and worried, and
then you give them back someself-direction in the form of a
week without classes and a weekwhen they have to fill their
time, nonetheless, they have todo something.
(03:19):
They're not just all lying onmats taking naps all day.
Suddenly they came back to lifeand you think don't you want
kids with that spark in them?
Don't you want kids who come upwith things to do and make
friends?
Another question was did youmake any new friends?
And these are kids who have beenat the school forever and they
still made new friends, becauseit's so easy to make friends
when you're playing, and some ofthe days they'd start off
(03:43):
playing sort of separately andthen gradually, you'd just watch
them like magnet filings, cometogether and have more fun
together.
And isn't that the skillthey're going to need when
they're adults getting buy-inand working together and
compromising and makingsomething happen.
And yet that the other 51 weeksof the year are not dedicated
(04:03):
to that at all, in fact, sort ofthe opposite.
So I learned to see all thatfrom Peter, who just talks about
.
When kids are self-directed,when they're doing something for
its own sake, because it's sointeresting to them, they focus,
they learn to toleratefrustration and they make things
happen because it's thisintrinsic motivation.
(04:23):
We've pretty much leechedintrinsic motivation out of most
kids' lives and it's amazingthat it just doesn't die out.
It's in there.
Jesper Conrad (04:33):
Lenore, I am curious about why you think this
has happened.
What is it in society that havemade us confine the lives in a
way where one week of free playa year sounds like amazing?
What if?
Lenore Skenazy (04:51):
we only fed our kids one week a year.
Look how much more excited theyare.
They seem to be standing upstraighter.
I think it's from goodintentions that just got sort of
derailed.
The model of school that wehave I know everybody talks
about it comes from the 1800sand it had to do with preparing
people for factories.
But most of, I'd say, thebiggest misperception that
(05:15):
regular schooling gave all of usis that if five hours a day are
good, six hours a day is betterand seven is great, and 10 is
ideal and 12,.
Imagine how intelligent they'dget if only we gave them more
schooling.
And the anthropologist DavidLancey, who's somebody else you
either might want to talk to orhave spoken to he works with
(05:37):
Peter as well.
He just pointed out somethingonce that blew my mind, which is
that ever since we startedhaving formal schooling sort of
popularized throughout theWestern world and then the rest
of the world, it changed ourperception of how kids learn,
because we knew that schoolswere places of learning.
We started thinking that placesoutside of school were places
(05:57):
where kids weren't learningunless there was something that
looked a lot like school goingon.
There was a class, there was acoach teaching kids and it even
it seeped into family life.
And then it was aided andabetted by all these parenting
books that say don't waste anyof your child's potential.
When you're sitting there atthe dinner table, count the
number of tines on the fork, orpoint out that bread starts with
(06:21):
B and remember as you'reslicing.
It mentioned that slicingrequires physics and sharpness
or whatever.
It's just.
Parents were told that theirjob is to be a teacher, and
without them recognizing thatwe're always teaching and we're
always learning.
And so then they became sort ofdidactic, like a teacher,
turning everything intosomething that looked like a
(06:42):
lesson, as opposed to the waykids have learned throughout all
of human history, which is justcopying, listening, exploring,
trying.
And my main nemesis in the worldtoday is Parents Magazine.
I get their Parents Magazinejust the most popular parenting
magazine anywhere ever and theysend out sort of daily bulletins
(07:04):
.
I don't have any of themprinted out right now, but they
will tell you things like how tohave a wonderful and enriched
reading session with your child.
And it says, when you sit downwith your child might just want
to look at the pictures.
Yeah, maybe that's why they'recalled picture books, but that
would be leaving potential onthe table.
And so remember to point outthat this is the title of the
(07:25):
book.
Count the number of words inthe title Pat the Bunny, that's
three words.
And so that's not how anyonegets any enjoyment out of life.
It's not only, it's theopposite of, it's the opposite
of learning, it's the oppositeof fun.
And, frankly, learning and funare usually together, because
you want to learn something,because it is fun or you're
interested.
That's why people talk aboutgoing down the rabbit hole,
(07:47):
which I'm always down on mycomputer, but that's because I'm
like oh, that looks like aninteresting article, oh, that
referred to this study, andpretty soon I'm down there.
Is that a stupid waste of timeor is that curiosity?
And maybe it's both, but wesort of seem to think that
anything that isn't directlyrelated to something that you're
(08:07):
supposed to be learning is thiswaste of time.
And it's like that's how welearn is by being curious and
wasting our time learning more.
So it's just, how did we get tothis point?
We believed that more is better, we believe that boring is
serious, and we believed thatteaching is dull.
I'd say I'd boil it down thatway.
Cecilie Conrad (08:29):
I'm just wondering, you are preaching for
the choir here, yeah.
I'll say there's just no reasonfor me to say I agree with
everything.
But I'm thinking about how.
I'm thinking about two things.
So one is cultural difference,as we are Scandinavian and it
looks different where we comefrom.
You're Scandinavian, where areyou guys from?
(08:51):
We are from Denmark, oh, lucky,yeah.
and childhood looks different inDenmark than it does in the US
so it's going in the wrongdirection, but it's still very
good compared to other places.
Yeah, but that's one thing andI think we could maybe dive into
that and maybe it is actuallypart of my other question, which
(09:12):
is just how did we get to here?
When did the fear take over?
Do you think there's an elementnot just of the school growing
and the school lacking a wordsort?
of the model or the yeah, themodel but also the way we think
and the way we speak aboutchildhood becomes this very
(09:32):
focused on results and methodsand all these things.
But also I think there's anelement of fearfulness, and
maybe the fearfulness combinedwith parental responsibility
that we think we're bad parents.
Lenore Skenazy (09:46):
The focus on results is interesting because
you can focus on results oncethere's a way to measure results
, and I think that themeasurement might have come
first.
I don't know, I don't knowenough about this history, but
the fact that we can measure andcompare means that then you
start sort, measure,self-direction.
You can't measure joy ofgetting up in the morning, so
(10:17):
you can measure how manyspelling words they know or what
their math tests are.
So I think measurement itselfsort of contorts what we think
of as important.
They say there's a phrasethat's really clever, that I
can't remember, but basicallywhen what you can, whatever you
can measure, becomes important,and you can't measure a soul,
but you can measure thegeographic knowledge or whatever
(10:39):
, and then the fearfulness comesfrom so many places.
Just even as I glance at mydesk, I see the word amygdala.
I'm always thinking about fear,because there's a bunch of fears
going on.
One is the fear that ourchildren will fall behind, and
if your child falls behind, thatthey will have a rotten life.
And I can understand that fear,I'm not immune to it.
And so if you think that theonly way to keep your child on
(11:03):
the straight and narrow, so thatthey'll be able to lead a
healthy, happy life in the greatbeyond, which is the great
beyond college.
Then a lot of your focusbecomes getting them into
college.
In America we have just a vastarray of colleges and some are
considered tippy top andguarantors of joy and success
and the others aren't, and sopeople just set their North star
(11:25):
there.
I actually understand it sowell in some of the Asian
countries where either you getinto the college and the
university and you go on andyou're able to get a decent job,
or not.
It is pretty stark here.
We feel like that, but it's notthe same truth.
So part of the fear is economic.
Part of the fear is that you'rein an arms race.
When I was growing up, there'sa test that you have to take to
(11:46):
get into college called the SATshere in America and we went and
took the SATs some weekend dayin our senior year of high
school.
But now everybody getspreparation.
They take a I don't know fiveor a 10 week class to prepare
you for the SATs and you doendless drilling and frankly, I
(12:07):
sent my kids to that because noweveryone's sending it.
So it's a little bit of an armsrace If you walked in like I
did, with no preparation.
You would be behind all thesekids who get like a 200 point
boost from going to this franklyexpensive class.
Cecilie Conrad (12:22):
So it looks like , yeah, I want to ask a question
, because this is like the otherend of childhood are you
talking about't know, I'mtalking about the whole thing.
I'm just curious.
I'm cute, I want to be curiouswith you.
I'm not, and I have right now.
Half of my kids are exactlythere, so we need to see how do
(12:43):
we get them into this universityin our end.
And they've never been toschool.
So I and I understand the painpoint, because it's a thing, but
I think it's very differentfrom keeping track of what an
eight year old is spending hisor her time doing.
Oh yeah, and I'm just wonderingdid it just spiral down from
(13:05):
the university idea or is itcoming from something else?
No, it's not just theuniversity idea.
Lenore Skenazy (13:11):
No, it's not just the university idea.
The idea of success, buildingon success, is certainly there,
with perhaps the university as aspecific goal or just thinking.
I don't want my eight-year-oldto be a bad student.
But when you're talking aboutfear, it's not just fear that
your child won't succeed.
I mean, we're stewed in fear,at least here in the United
States.
(13:31):
Fear that if your kid iswalking to the bus stop they
will be kidnapped.
Your fear that if your kid isplaying a game with a friend
without you there, he might beupset or bullied or get into an
argument and that he won't beable to handle it.
And that it is our job asparents to be watching almost
everything that our kids do tomake sure they won't be hurt and
(13:53):
won't fall behind.
And I think that starts veryyoung.
It starts young with they won'tfall behind.
You get them these educationaltoys Tomorrow.
I'm going to I don't know somekind of convention and there's
going to be a person there who'sCEO of this company that sends
parents the developmentallyappropriate toys every month or
every two months, so that yourkid doesn't waste their time
(14:13):
spent with last month's toyswhen they're ready for this
month's toys we're talking abouteight months old, solid
business plan.
It's so solid.
I, if I weren't me, I'd saylike, why didn't I do that?
Cecilie Conrad (14:23):
well, I'm in on it man yeah, yeah and they don't
say.
Lenore Skenazy (14:27):
My family member gets them and they're beautiful
, they're expensive, they'renice, there's nothing wrong with
the toys.
Gets them, and they'rebeautiful, they're expensive,
they're nice, there's nothingwrong with the toys.
And in a way, parenting is soboring now because we think we
have to spend every singlesecond with our child either
making sure no potential is lefton the table or making sure
they're safe, and so having anew toy is almost like good for
me, like I'm not so boredbecause oh, there's this new toy
(14:50):
and when I see her playing withthat I realize that she's
understanding spatialrelationships or that he's
starting to learn cause andeffect or eye movements.
Maybe it's more interesting forthe parent because, like a
scientist or an anthropologist,they're watching their kid and
maybe that's fine.
I personally worry that kids arejust kids and treating them
(15:11):
like these big projects thatcould get derailed or that can
be slightly pumped up seems tobe a lot of pressure on the
parents.
But I wanted to go back to moreof the fear, so that's back to
the fear of them falling behind.
But we really have thisextremely inflated fear that if
we're not watching them theywill be hurt and that means that
, like schools here in Americanot all of them, but many of
(15:33):
them won't let the kid get offthe school bus in the afternoon
and walk home from the schoolbus stop two blocks, two houses.
They make an adult wait therefor the child to escort them
home.
And I'm sure the school isafraid that something bad quote,
unquote bad will happen andthat they'll be sued.
And isn't that still theirliability if they let the kid
(15:53):
off the bus?
And so everybody starts sort ofdefensive parenting where
sometimes you're required towatch them and sometimes it just
becomes the social norm that ofcourse everybody waits at the
bus stop in the morning with thekids to put them on the bus.
And suddenly it becomes notsuddenly gradually, it becomes
weird to think that they couldstand at the bus stop and not be
(16:16):
lonely and not need a snack andnot need to ask you a question
and not feel abandoned and notbe in danger if you're not there
.
So the social norm changes tothe point of why aren't you
staying to watch the soccerpractice?
Everybody else is how comeyou're not at the bus stop?
Everybody else is how comeyou're letting them walk to the
park?
You could drive them and all ofthis stuff has to sort of be
(16:37):
reverse engineered, which iswhat Let Grow is trying to do,
to make it normal modern societywhere we live in these small
family units, alone in ourparenting and alone with our
children.
Jesper Conrad (16:47):
Yes, and I understand it can be boring if
(17:08):
you're only together with yourparents because children love
other children.
If you have a big group of kidsit might be a different thing
in your household.
So part of me is thinking ifthe move into society, towards
smaller family units that areliving more enclosed, is part of
(17:29):
creating a society where we arenot there.
Lenore Skenazy (17:36):
Yeah.
So first of all, I think you'reright and I think it does get.
It gets a little hothouse inthe house because it's just you
and your kids all the time.
But when we talk about what'sanother factor that's making
kids a little, I don't know.
Let's just go back to your wordself-directed Part of it is
it's the smaller families andit's more money.
We have often two workingparents and often a smaller
(18:01):
family, and that means there'smore time and money at least
more money to be spent on eachkid.
People always say, oh, whenpeople had 10 kids it didn't
matter if a couple of them died.
But now they're really worried.
I'm like I don't think it's.
They didn't matter if a coupleof kids died.
But when you had 10 kids, firstof all nobody expected you to
wait at 10 different bus stops.
(18:21):
You couldn't and you couldn'tsit there reading to each kid
and counting the number of wordsin the title if you had 10 kids
.
And then also your money wasspread out and so you couldn't
buy them a special new,developmentally enriching toy
box every month, because thatwas just impossible.
So I think there's theconnection between the smaller
(18:42):
families is not just that it'sboring and that we're more
atomized but that we live in aclever entrepreneurial world.
And somebody saw that if youonly have one kid and you have
two parents were earning aliving.
Why not fill up that house withthese toys every month?
And they came up with asubscription service.
Cecilie Conrad (19:03):
I'm just really wondering how we can reverse it,
because I think the whole thingis on a very deep level of not
trusting life as a process andthinking that this unknown that
the future will always be can becontrolled by setting up some
systems just yeah sure it's thatand the other and I really.
(19:26):
For me it's a long time ago,but it really was an epiphany
when I realized all the hoursthat I'm trying to control.
I will never know what wouldhappen if I let them do whatever
they want.
Lenore Skenazy (19:39):
I might you know , you would never let them know
what would happen.
You'll never know.
Cecilie Conrad (19:42):
If I control say I control 10, 12 hours of my
children's day by having myagenda, If you play with this
and you learn that and you eatthis and you go there and you go
to school and take a shower andevery morning at this time and
I just control all the hours Iam.
I know what they're doing and Iknow why they're doing it.
I have a goal with it.
Maybe I'm super efficient andthey spend speak 10 languages
(20:05):
before they are 12.
But I will never know whatwould have happened if I had set
them free.
Yeah, maybe they would playeight musical instruments, maybe
they would invent somethingepic, maybe they would be happy.
How do I know?
And I think this venturing intothe unknown, letting go of this
(20:26):
control response that fearalways will spark, it's a mental
exercise we really have to getparents on board with.
Lenore Skenazy (20:37):
Right.
First of all, I think you'recompletely right when you talk
about that.
At base, the issue is you cancall it control or you can call
it trust.
It's sort of the same thing andone of the things, as we got
smaller families and morewealthy, forget about families,
forget about our issue for aminute.
People are doing better, theythink it's all because of them,
(21:00):
that they made them succeed, andwhen people are doing worse,
it's like fate.
And in general, people arewealthier now and so it feels,
oh, we can control foreverything.
And that's a big lie and italso drives you crazy.
But most of the products andservices sold to kids, sold to
parents or things that parentsare encouraged to do, imply that
(21:24):
you can control everything.
If you have those 12 hours,first of all you sit down to
your perfect meal and it wasmade organically and it was
presented attractively and itwas discussed endlessly.
And then comes the reading outloud with the counting of the
numbers and the pointing out ofinteresting things and all the
teachable moments, and then youenrolled them in ballet and
Mandarin.
(21:44):
And you're right that.
The assumption is that if I amvery deliberate on everything
that I'm presenting to them andhaving them do, I will get the
outcome that I want and whenthere's any interstitial time I
will be watching from afar.
I will be tracking them andthen the schools comply.
The schools send home if you'rein a traditional school notices
(22:09):
generally about what grade yourkid just got on a test or even
a quiz, or sometimes it's theirbehavior that day, and usually I
can find it, but not that fast.
A friend told me her kid'spreschool sends a daily report
of 1027 am, 1102 am, 153 pm.
It's all the times that the kidwent to the bathroom and was it
just pee or pee and poop, andthen how many orange segments
(22:33):
they ate at lunch.
And we're going back to thisidea that if you can quantify
something, it's consideredbetter, but it is all under the
umbrella of control.
Somehow, if you have all thisdata, all this knowledge and all
this supervision and kids haveno free time to do anything
that's unscheduled orspontaneous or wasting time,
(22:56):
then you could create thisperfect kid.
So how do you reverse that?
I think the way you reversethat is by, like what I just
said, this one lady who did thisweek of free play at the school
.
The parents have to see thatthis was not a dumb week.
Their kids are happy andhealthy again.
Their kids are smiling again.
Their kids made friends.
(23:17):
I know that as worried as we areto make sure that our kids
succeed and don't waste theirtime, we're also very hardwired
for wanting our kids to be likeemotionally okay and also the
joy of seeing when they dosomething on their own.
They're picking up theinstrument, not because you're
saying you must learn violin ifyou want to go to Harvard, but
(23:39):
because they heard another kidplaying it and they want to try
it and so Let Grow.
The nonprofit that grew out offree range kids has two programs
, both free, and I realize it'sprobably speaking to the wrong
group here, because we try toget schools to do these two
things and you guys aren'tschools, but here goes anyway.
One is you can do this at homewithout a school.
(24:01):
A homework assignment that allthe kids get K through 12, that
says go home and do somethingnew on your own, with your
parents' permission, but withoutyour parents, something that
you feel like you're ready to door you want to do, but for one
reason or another you justhaven't done it yet.
And we give a giant list ofideas, but it's basically run an
errand, ride your bike, walkthe dog, go to the pet store,
(24:22):
whatever it is.
And then the reason we suggestthis is because when a parent
sees their kid leave, oh, theregoes my kid, is everything going
to be okay.
And then the kid comes home andthey had a great time.
Or they fell off their bike andthey limped home, but they did
it themselves, doesn't matter.
Just seeing your kid dosomething without you is what
(24:44):
rewires you.
It makes you realize control isnot the absolute end, all and
be all.
The real end, all and be all israising a kid who can do
something on their own.
And you just saw it.
In fact you allowed it tohappen and by rewiring your
brain that one time look what mykid did.
Or my kid screwed up, but it'sstill okay.
It allows you to let them goagain and again.
(25:06):
That's what that show World'sWorst Mom that I did that nobody
watched.
That's what it was about.
I would sit with very nervousparents and send the kids out to
go and get bread or go to yourfriend's house or go roller
skating and by the end of fourdays with these parents which
meant four different things, youknow go on an overnight, go
(25:28):
walk to school, take a bus.
The parents were unrecognizable.
Like they wrote to me monthslater and said you won't believe
it.
Now my kid's going to camp.
Now we stopped at this.
My kid went to the bathroom byherself at the rest stop and
she's only six.
It was just.
They were so freed and it wasso easy.
And it was not fake, becausehere they are writing to me
months later after the camerashave gone Right.
That it gives me hope.
(25:49):
If we could get everybody totry letting go a couple of times
, I think we would see a muchless anxious world and much
happier kids and much prouderparents, and so the fact that it
works for both generationsgives me hope.
So that's one thing that wewant.
Let Grow what schools to do orindividuals and the other thing
(26:09):
is you keep the schools open formixed age no phones, free play
and you've created a wildlifesanctuary for childhood, because
you got balls and chalk andsome cardboard boxes and an old
suitcase and kids will have fun.
Just like this lady said, theseare the most scheduled 15 year
olds in America are the kidsthat she just gave a week of
(26:30):
free play to, and when they gotto a place where there was
bricks and old pipes and piecesof fabric, they intuitively
still it had not been snuffedout.
They knew how to play, and sokids are on their phones all the
time or they're in organizedactivities all the time, but if
you create a place where theyhave other kids and time and a
(26:52):
place to play, they know what todo and they are healthier for
it.
So Let Grow's two ideas areboth extraordinarily
straightforward, simple.
All our materials are free, andthat's why I do this, that's
why I talk to podcasts, that'swhy I write every day, because
it's not that hard to changethings if we did those two
(27:15):
things.
So those are my two big, stupid, simple recommendations.
Cecilie Conrad (27:23):
Go do something on your own Play.
Jesper Conrad (27:26):
And the go.
Do something for your own is,for the sake of the parents, to
release and let their kids goand grow.
Lenora, how has this workaffected yourself?
Have you started to play more?
Have you let yourself grow?
Lenore Skenazy (27:43):
I don't actually think so.
I think I'm pretty cramped, I'malways talking about the same
thing, but I like it.
I wake up every day.
People write to me withinteresting questions and I
respond and I do my research andI'm always angry, but that's a
driving force in my life.
It's like I can't believe thisad shows a kid being kidnapped.
That's not fair.
(28:03):
And then I feel I must write.
It's propulsive for me.
But am I playing?
My playing is going to dinnerswith people, and that's what I'm
doing after this.
Cecilie Conrad (28:13):
We just discussed it today whether we
could start playing more, more.
I think having thisconversation with you today, in
this specific context where weare right now at the huge event
with a lot of traveling families, well it's so interesting how I
see how different Americareally is.
(28:35):
Yeah, tell me, I thought a fewyears ago I thought it was sort
of same culture as over here inEurope, but really it isn't,
because these things I think wehave the same problems on a meta
level and on the mindset level.
I think we have the sameproblems of control, of fear, of
(28:56):
being focused on results, allthese things.
Lenore Skenazy (29:00):
But what's the difference?
Cecilie Conrad (29:02):
they walk home from school alone.
They do that still, andteenagers are out in the nights
in the cities and it's justdifferent.
They do.
They track obviously in our thesocial circles.
We move in as unschoolers, soit's very different.
Lenore Skenazy (29:19):
Are the kids tracked by their parents?
Cecilie Conrad (29:31):
No, most of them have some sort of tracking on
their phones, but it's basicallymore as long as that tracking
gives me more freedom than ittakes away.
It's a safety thing.
The parents would not look atit all the time.
They would trust the kids to beall right, but in case they're
not, they can find them.
Jesper Conrad (29:43):
yeah for us.
We have it because we are afull-time traveling family and
we are in a new city, we don'tknow.
So if they go to a museum andwe go somewhere else, it's like,
how should we meet?
Can you see a location?
And then we find each other.
So it is less about control andmore would be like hey, can you
find us?
Cecilie Conrad (30:02):
I will say when the teenagers are out at night
and they don't have curfew andthere's no rule really.
Jesper Conrad (30:08):
I relax more as a parent.
Cecilie Conrad (30:13):
But they relax as well because they know they
don't have panicked parents athome.
They know that if they for somereason sleep over at someone's
place, they't need to have to.
They don't have to ping theaddress, they can just say I'm
sleeping at I don't knowcharlie's house and I can see on
the map where that is, in caseI need to pick them up.
So yeah, what they say is aslong as it gives more freedom
than it takes away, it's allright.
(30:34):
And the day my kids say I don'twant to, I don't want you to
track me, I'll turn it off,because that's cool.
Yeah, so it so.
It's just really, reallydifferent.
And what was I saying with that?
Lenore Skenazy (30:45):
America is not America.
Yeah, that's what I'm.
That's what I'm.
Cecilie Conrad (30:49):
I don't know, maybe come learn something over
here, yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (30:54):
America doesn't pay attention to anyone.
I don't know, but in theoryyeah.
Jesper Conrad (30:59):
At the same time, you have some of the biggest
fingers that a lot of us havebeen inspired by in the
homeschooling, unschooling,being free to play world that we
have.
So there's like a fun diversionbetween a lot of fear and a lot
of freedom.
Lenore Skenazy (31:15):
A lot of fear and a lot of people and a couple
of people saying wait.
Jesper Conrad (31:19):
Yeah, hey, wait, let's talk about it.
So one of the plays I wouldlike to round up about is why is
play so important?
Because even for unschooled,homeschooled families, who are
our listeners, are mostly in theself-directed realm.
Sometimes we maybe havedifficulties to understand what
(31:41):
play is for our kids, because itcan be on screens, it can be on
computers, etc.
So why is play so important?
You must have used a lot oftime thinking about this.
Lenore Skenazy (31:51):
I use a lot of time quoting Peter Gray.
Here's what I do.
So, I'll just talk about him.
What Peter made me see is thatplay is self-motivated, right If
it's not a team that you'resupposed to join because your
parents want you in soccer orsomething like that.
So you have to figure out whatto do with your friends and you
(32:13):
have to make it happen.
There will be arguments alongthe way, there will be confusion
, and so that means that you aredoing, you're coming up with an
idea.
That's you could call thatbeing alive, you could call that
entrepreneurship.
You're getting buy-in.
That's a social skill.
You're compromising.
You're going to have to do thatfor the rest of your life.
You're changing the rules.
That's called creativity,that's called pivoting, that's
(32:35):
called evolving and then all theother skills that you learn
from there.
When you're really interested insomething, you deal with the
fact that you just struck outright.
You deal with the fact thatit's boring.
You're in the outfield, butpretty soon it'll be your turn
again.
You focus because you reallywant to capture that ant or
whatever it is that you'resaying ant, because I want to
capture the ants right in mykitchen right now.
(32:57):
I want to kill them all.
They just have invaded.
I don't know what went on.
So when you're playing.
The fun is what Penny Wilson,who's the play worker in England
, always says is that MotherNature put this play drive into
kids so that they will learn allthe skills they need to do to
have to be a functioning humanbeing.
And the fun part?
(33:18):
Fun is the orgasm of play.
It's what you get to, but it'sall the stuff on the way there.
You are so motivated to get tothe fun that you do control
yourself, that you do agree totry again or take your turns.
Or if you're the dog and youreally want to be the mom, you
know that for the next 10minutes you have to go ruff ruff
(33:38):
, ruff, ruff, because dogs don'ttalk.
And so you're learning how tocontrol yourself, you're
learning executive function,you're learning all the things
that I hate having to talk about, because basically, that play
is fun.
And there's somethingpuritanical about my country, my
crazy country, that says fun.
That must be bad, that must bea waste of time.
But you're not.
You don't come from Puritanstock, do I?
(33:59):
But I'm in this country and sothere should be no prejudice
against play where you're from,because it's us that hate it
well, I wouldn't say everyone'sperfect over here, that would be
stretching it very far I feellike we're playing.
Cecilie Conrad (34:13):
Aren't we playing right?
Lenore Skenazy (34:15):
now?
Well, that's what I say like Idon't, you'll never see me
kicking a ball.
Cecilie Conrad (34:18):
I hate kicking the ball but it is play in a way
to produce a podcast and have aconversation with someone yeah,
yeah and to joke around.
Lenore Skenazy (34:26):
Joking around is , I guess, the most fun that I
have and eating dinner withpeople.
Eventually you evolve to sitdown and just eat and that's
really fun.
And talking to people, that'sthe rest of my day Perfect.
Cecilie Conrad (34:37):
We'll leave you to it, then I think.
Jesper Conrad (34:39):
Yes, but before we leave you to it, please
mention where people can findout more about the wonderful
nonprofit, so they know where togo.
Lenore Skenazy (34:48):
Okay, great, remember, everything is free, so
it's Let Grow, like you seedown there.
L-e-t new word grow but it'sall smooshed together when you
do letgroworg, o-r-g, and then,if you're parents, you click on
parents and if org.
And then, if you're parents,you click on parents, and if
you're a school, you click onschool.
In america, we have some crazylaws that seem to imply that if
you're not watching your kidevery single second, that's bad,
(35:09):
and so we've changed the lawsin eight of our 50 states so far
.
If, if there's laws in whereveryou live, that that strike you
as too, too easy to criminalizeparents who trust their kids,
take a look at the laws page.
There's a donation page, forobvious reasons, and that's it.
Let grow.
Jesper Conrad (35:29):
Fantastic.
We will put all the links inand ask people to go support the
wonderful course you are having.
Thanks a lot for your time.
It was a pleasure.
Lenore Skenazy (35:38):
Same Okay, go have fun yeah.
Today we are together with Lenore Skenesi,
and she is from Let Grow and Iwould love to hear more about
that.
But first of all, welcome.
It's good to be together withyou today.
Lenore Skenazy (00:11):
Thanks, same, happy to meet you both.
Jesper Conrad (00:15):
We have had the pleasure of interviewing Peter
Gray a couple of times and nowwe are together with you and you
are involved in a project he'salso involved in.
If we could start with that, ifyou can tell about the project
for people who don't know aboutit?
Lenore Skenazy (00:31):
Sure, I wrote the book Free Range Kids about
how kids, I think, need moreindependence and free play and
free time and trust.
And because of the book, peterGray wanted to meet me and we
met many years ago and thenabout eight years ago he and I
and Jonathan Haidt and DanielSchuchman two other big thought
(00:54):
leaders here in America starteda nonprofit called Let Grow to
make it easy, normal and legalfor parents to give their kids
back some independence and freeplay and responsibility, and
really everything that Petersaid in his book Free to Learn
and everything that I've heardhim say whenever I hear him give
(01:15):
a talk, I find myself I justhave to write down everything
again, because I find himbrilliant and insightful and
those have been the watchwordsfor us at Let Grow when it comes
to what kids really need.
Because I was just talking to awoman who works at a private
school here in New York and shegave the high school students
they could do anything theywanted for their one week of
(01:36):
sort of spring break within theschool and there were field
trips and there were specialclasses, interesting people, but
she got the group of kids whowanted to play and she said it
was the greatest week ever.
And what she was surprised byis that when they were playing
these are 15 and 16 year oldswho haven't had a lot of free
play for a long time.
They've been very scheduled,they've been structured.
(01:56):
There's a lot of academicpressure on them.
Nonetheless, given a week tojust play, she was shocked by
how good they were at organizinggames.
And then they decided no,that's not fun, let's change the
rules this way.
And they made the teams.
And then originally they weregoing to say each time one
person gets sort of thrown offthe island, and then they
decided no, we don't want anyonethrown off the island.
(02:17):
So they changed the rules againand I said it just sounded like
what you did was you releasedthem from the bondage that is
the rest of the year and therewas still this spark of life in
them that could make thingshappen and have fun and
compromise and be creative.
And she showed me these graphsof.
She had interviewed the kids.
(02:38):
She'd given the kids the weekbefore that, the week of play, a
little survey how stressed areyou, how lonely are you?
And it was off the charts.
And then during that week, ohmy God, the joy just went up and
it's like everything is pingingat nine and 10 on her chart.
That had been practicallynon-existent the week before.
And it's what are we doing?
(02:59):
I realized that not everythingis about joy.
But if you have kids and they'respending most of their time
feeling stressed, lonely,anxious, sad and worried, and
then you give them back someself-direction in the form of a
week without classes and a weekwhen they have to fill their
time, nonetheless, they have todo something.
(03:19):
They're not just all lying onmats taking naps all day.
Suddenly they came back to lifeand you think don't you want
kids with that spark in them?
Don't you want kids who come upwith things to do and make
friends?
Another question was did youmake any new friends?
And these are kids who have beenat the school forever and they
still made new friends, becauseit's so easy to make friends
when you're playing, and some ofthe days they'd start off
(03:43):
playing sort of separately andthen gradually, you'd just watch
them like magnet filings, cometogether and have more fun
together.
And isn't that the skillthey're going to need when
they're adults getting buy-inand working together and
compromising and makingsomething happen.
And yet that the other 51 weeksof the year are not dedicated
(04:03):
to that at all, in fact, sort ofthe opposite.
So I learned to see all thatfrom Peter, who just talks about
.
When kids are self-directed,when they're doing something for
its own sake, because it's sointeresting to them, they focus,
they learn to toleratefrustration and they make things
happen because it's thisintrinsic motivation.
(04:23):
We've pretty much leechedintrinsic motivation out of most
kids' lives and it's amazingthat it just doesn't die out.
It's in there.
Jesper Conrad (04:33):
Lenore, I am curious about why you think this
has happened.
What is it in society that havemade us confine the lives in a
way where one week of free playa year sounds like amazing?
What if?
Lenore Skenazy (04:51):
we only fed our kids one week a year.
Look how much more excited theyare.
They seem to be standing upstraighter.
I think it's from goodintentions that just got sort of
derailed.
The model of school that wehave I know everybody talks
about it comes from the 1800sand it had to do with preparing
people for factories.
But most of, I'd say, thebiggest misperception that
(05:15):
regular schooling gave all of usis that if five hours a day are
good, six hours a day is betterand seven is great, and 10 is
ideal and 12,.
Imagine how intelligent they'dget if only we gave them more
schooling.
And the anthropologist DavidLancey, who's somebody else you
either might want to talk to orhave spoken to he works with
(05:37):
Peter as well.
He just pointed out somethingonce that blew my mind, which is
that ever since we startedhaving formal schooling sort of
popularized throughout theWestern world and then the rest
of the world, it changed ourperception of how kids learn,
because we knew that schoolswere places of learning.
We started thinking that placesoutside of school were places
(05:57):
where kids weren't learningunless there was something that
looked a lot like school goingon.
There was a class, there was acoach teaching kids and it even
it seeped into family life.
And then it was aided andabetted by all these parenting
books that say don't waste anyof your child's potential.
When you're sitting there atthe dinner table, count the
number of tines on the fork, orpoint out that bread starts with
(06:21):
B and remember as you'reslicing.
It mentioned that slicingrequires physics and sharpness
or whatever.
It's just.
Parents were told that theirjob is to be a teacher, and
without them recognizing thatwe're always teaching and we're
always learning.
And so then they became sort ofdidactic, like a teacher,
turning everything intosomething that looked like a
(06:42):
lesson, as opposed to the waykids have learned throughout all
of human history, which is justcopying, listening, exploring,
trying.
And my main nemesis in the worldtoday is Parents Magazine.
I get their Parents Magazinejust the most popular parenting
magazine anywhere ever and theysend out sort of daily bulletins
(07:04):
.
I don't have any of themprinted out right now, but they
will tell you things like how tohave a wonderful and enriched
reading session with your child.
And it says, when you sit downwith your child might just want
to look at the pictures.
Yeah, maybe that's why they'recalled picture books, but that
would be leaving potential onthe table.
And so remember to point outthat this is the title of the
(07:25):
book.
Count the number of words inthe title Pat the Bunny, that's
three words.
And so that's not how anyonegets any enjoyment out of life.
It's not only, it's theopposite of, it's the opposite
of learning, it's the oppositeof fun.
And, frankly, learning and funare usually together, because
you want to learn something,because it is fun or you're
interested.
That's why people talk aboutgoing down the rabbit hole,
(07:47):
which I'm always down on mycomputer, but that's because I'm
like oh, that looks like aninteresting article, oh, that
referred to this study, andpretty soon I'm down there.
Is that a stupid waste of timeor is that curiosity?
And maybe it's both, but wesort of seem to think that
anything that isn't directlyrelated to something that you're
(08:07):
supposed to be learning is thiswaste of time.
And it's like that's how welearn is by being curious and
wasting our time learning more.
So it's just, how did we get tothis point?
We believed that more is better, we believe that boring is
serious, and we believed thatteaching is dull.
I'd say I'd boil it down thatway.
Cecilie Conrad (08:29):
I'm just wondering, you are preaching for
the choir here, yeah.
I'll say there's just no reasonfor me to say I agree with
everything.
But I'm thinking about how.
I'm thinking about two things.
So one is cultural difference,as we are Scandinavian and it
looks different where we comefrom.
You're Scandinavian, where areyou guys from?
(08:51):
We are from Denmark, oh, lucky,yeah.
and childhood looks different inDenmark than it does in the US
so it's going in the wrongdirection, but it's still very
good compared to other places.
Yeah, but that's one thing andI think we could maybe dive into
that and maybe it is actuallypart of my other question, which
(09:12):
is just how did we get to here?
When did the fear take over?
Do you think there's an elementnot just of the school growing
and the school lacking a wordsort?
of the model or the yeah, themodel but also the way we think
and the way we speak aboutchildhood becomes this very
(09:32):
focused on results and methodsand all these things.
But also I think there's anelement of fearfulness, and
maybe the fearfulness combinedwith parental responsibility
that we think we're bad parents.
Lenore Skenazy (09:46):
The focus on results is interesting because
you can focus on results oncethere's a way to measure results
, and I think that themeasurement might have come
first.
I don't know, I don't knowenough about this history, but
the fact that we can measure andcompare means that then you
start sort, measure,self-direction.
You can't measure joy ofgetting up in the morning, so
(10:17):
you can measure how manyspelling words they know or what
their math tests are.
So I think measurement itselfsort of contorts what we think
of as important.
They say there's a phrasethat's really clever, that I
can't remember, but basicallywhen what you can, whatever you
can measure, becomes important,and you can't measure a soul,
but you can measure thegeographic knowledge or whatever
(10:39):
, and then the fearfulness comesfrom so many places.
Just even as I glance at mydesk, I see the word amygdala.
I'm always thinking about fear,because there's a bunch of fears
going on.
One is the fear that ourchildren will fall behind, and
if your child falls behind, thatthey will have a rotten life.
And I can understand that fear,I'm not immune to it.
And so if you think that theonly way to keep your child on
(11:03):
the straight and narrow, so thatthey'll be able to lead a
healthy, happy life in the greatbeyond, which is the great
beyond college.
Then a lot of your focusbecomes getting them into
college.
In America we have just a vastarray of colleges and some are
considered tippy top andguarantors of joy and success
and the others aren't, and sopeople just set their North star
(11:25):
there.
I actually understand it sowell in some of the Asian
countries where either you getinto the college and the
university and you go on andyou're able to get a decent job,
or not.
It is pretty stark here.
We feel like that, but it's notthe same truth.
So part of the fear is economic.
Part of the fear is that you'rein an arms race.
When I was growing up, there'sa test that you have to take to
(11:46):
get into college called the SATshere in America and we went and
took the SATs some weekend dayin our senior year of high
school.
But now everybody getspreparation.
They take a I don't know fiveor a 10 week class to prepare
you for the SATs and you doendless drilling and frankly, I
(12:07):
sent my kids to that because noweveryone's sending it.
So it's a little bit of an armsrace If you walked in like I
did, with no preparation.
You would be behind all thesekids who get like a 200 point
boost from going to this franklyexpensive class.
Cecilie Conrad (12:22):
So it looks like , yeah, I want to ask a question
, because this is like the otherend of childhood are you
talking about't know, I'mtalking about the whole thing.
I'm just curious.
I'm cute, I want to be curiouswith you.
I'm not, and I have right now.
Half of my kids are exactlythere, so we need to see how do
(12:43):
we get them into this universityin our end.
And they've never been toschool.
So I and I understand the painpoint, because it's a thing, but
I think it's very differentfrom keeping track of what an
eight year old is spending hisor her time doing.
Oh yeah, and I'm just wonderingdid it just spiral down from
(13:05):
the university idea or is itcoming from something else?
No, it's not just theuniversity idea.
Lenore Skenazy (13:11):
No, it's not just the university idea.
The idea of success, buildingon success, is certainly there,
with perhaps the university as aspecific goal or just thinking.
I don't want my eight-year-oldto be a bad student.
But when you're talking aboutfear, it's not just fear that
your child won't succeed.
I mean, we're stewed in fear,at least here in the United
States.
(13:31):
Fear that if your kid iswalking to the bus stop they
will be kidnapped.
Your fear that if your kid isplaying a game with a friend
without you there, he might beupset or bullied or get into an
argument and that he won't beable to handle it.
And that it is our job asparents to be watching almost
everything that our kids do tomake sure they won't be hurt and
(13:53):
won't fall behind.
And I think that starts veryyoung.
It starts young with they won'tfall behind.
You get them these educationaltoys Tomorrow.
I'm going to I don't know somekind of convention and there's
going to be a person there who'sCEO of this company that sends
parents the developmentallyappropriate toys every month or
every two months, so that yourkid doesn't waste their time
(14:13):
spent with last month's toyswhen they're ready for this
month's toys we're talking abouteight months old, solid
business plan.
It's so solid.
I, if I weren't me, I'd saylike, why didn't I do that?
Cecilie Conrad (14:23):
well, I'm in on it man yeah, yeah and they don't
say.
Lenore Skenazy (14:27):
My family member gets them and they're beautiful
, they're expensive, they'renice, there's nothing wrong with
the toys.
Gets them, and they'rebeautiful, they're expensive,
they're nice, there's nothingwrong with the toys.
And in a way, parenting is soboring now because we think we
have to spend every singlesecond with our child either
making sure no potential is lefton the table or making sure
they're safe, and so having anew toy is almost like good for
me, like I'm not so boredbecause oh, there's this new toy
(14:50):
and when I see her playing withthat I realize that she's
understanding spatialrelationships or that he's
starting to learn cause andeffect or eye movements.
Maybe it's more interesting forthe parent because, like a
scientist or an anthropologist,they're watching their kid and
maybe that's fine.
I personally worry that kids arejust kids and treating them
(15:11):
like these big projects thatcould get derailed or that can
be slightly pumped up seems tobe a lot of pressure on the
parents.
But I wanted to go back to moreof the fear, so that's back to
the fear of them falling behind.
But we really have thisextremely inflated fear that if
we're not watching them theywill be hurt and that means that
, like schools here in Americanot all of them, but many of
(15:33):
them won't let the kid get offthe school bus in the afternoon
and walk home from the schoolbus stop two blocks, two houses.
They make an adult wait therefor the child to escort them
home.
And I'm sure the school isafraid that something bad quote,
unquote bad will happen andthat they'll be sued.
And isn't that still theirliability if they let the kid
(15:53):
off the bus?
And so everybody starts sort ofdefensive parenting where
sometimes you're required towatch them and sometimes it just
becomes the social norm that ofcourse everybody waits at the
bus stop in the morning with thekids to put them on the bus.
And suddenly it becomes notsuddenly gradually, it becomes
weird to think that they couldstand at the bus stop and not be
(16:16):
lonely and not need a snack andnot need to ask you a question
and not feel abandoned and notbe in danger if you're not there
.
So the social norm changes tothe point of why aren't you
staying to watch the soccerpractice?
Everybody else is how comeyou're not at the bus stop?
Everybody else is how comeyou're letting them walk to the
park?
You could drive them and all ofthis stuff has to sort of be
(16:37):
reverse engineered, which iswhat Let Grow is trying to do,
to make it normal modern societywhere we live in these small
family units, alone in ourparenting and alone with our
children.
Jesper Conrad (16:47):
Yes, and I understand it can be boring if
(17:08):
you're only together with yourparents because children love
other children.
If you have a big group of kidsit might be a different thing
in your household.
So part of me is thinking ifthe move into society, towards
smaller family units that areliving more enclosed, is part of
(17:29):
creating a society where we arenot there.
Lenore Skenazy (17:36):
Yeah.
So first of all, I think you'reright and I think it does get.
It gets a little hothouse inthe house because it's just you
and your kids all the time.
But when we talk about what'sanother factor that's making
kids a little, I don't know.
Let's just go back to your wordself-directed Part of it is
it's the smaller families andit's more money.
We have often two workingparents and often a smaller
(18:01):
family, and that means there'smore time and money at least
more money to be spent on eachkid.
People always say, oh, whenpeople had 10 kids it didn't
matter if a couple of them died.
But now they're really worried.
I'm like I don't think it's.
They didn't matter if a coupleof kids died.
But when you had 10 kids, firstof all nobody expected you to
wait at 10 different bus stops.
(18:21):
You couldn't and you couldn'tsit there reading to each kid
and counting the number of wordsin the title if you had 10 kids
.
And then also your money wasspread out and so you couldn't
buy them a special new,developmentally enriching toy
box every month, because thatwas just impossible.
So I think there's theconnection between the smaller
(18:42):
families is not just that it'sboring and that we're more
atomized but that we live in aclever entrepreneurial world.
And somebody saw that if youonly have one kid and you have
two parents were earning aliving.
Why not fill up that house withthese toys every month?
And they came up with asubscription service.
Cecilie Conrad (19:03):
I'm just really wondering how we can reverse it,
because I think the whole thingis on a very deep level of not
trusting life as a process andthinking that this unknown that
the future will always be can becontrolled by setting up some
systems just yeah sure it's thatand the other and I really.
(19:26):
For me it's a long time ago,but it really was an epiphany
when I realized all the hoursthat I'm trying to control.
I will never know what wouldhappen if I let them do whatever
they want.
Lenore Skenazy (19:39):
I might you know , you would never let them know
what would happen.
You'll never know.
Cecilie Conrad (19:42):
If I control say I control 10, 12 hours of my
children's day by having myagenda, If you play with this
and you learn that and you eatthis and you go there and you go
to school and take a shower andevery morning at this time and
I just control all the hours Iam.
I know what they're doing and Iknow why they're doing it.
I have a goal with it.
Maybe I'm super efficient andthey spend speak 10 languages
(20:05):
before they are 12.
But I will never know whatwould have happened if I had set
them free.
Yeah, maybe they would playeight musical instruments, maybe
they would invent somethingepic, maybe they would be happy.
How do I know?
And I think this venturing intothe unknown, letting go of this
(20:26):
control response that fearalways will spark, it's a mental
exercise we really have to getparents on board with.
Lenore Skenazy (20:37):
Right.
First of all, I think you'recompletely right when you talk
about that.
At base, the issue is you cancall it control or you can call
it trust.
It's sort of the same thing andone of the things, as we got
smaller families and morewealthy, forget about families,
forget about our issue for aminute.
People are doing better, theythink it's all because of them,
(21:00):
that they made them succeed, andwhen people are doing worse,
it's like fate.
And in general, people arewealthier now and so it feels,
oh, we can control foreverything.
And that's a big lie and italso drives you crazy.
But most of the products andservices sold to kids, sold to
parents or things that parentsare encouraged to do, imply that
(21:24):
you can control everything.
If you have those 12 hours,first of all you sit down to
your perfect meal and it wasmade organically and it was
presented attractively and itwas discussed endlessly.
And then comes the reading outloud with the counting of the
numbers and the pointing out ofinteresting things and all the
teachable moments, and then youenrolled them in ballet and
Mandarin.
(21:44):
And you're right that.
The assumption is that if I amvery deliberate on everything
that I'm presenting to them andhaving them do, I will get the
outcome that I want and whenthere's any interstitial time I
will be watching from afar.
I will be tracking them andthen the schools comply.
The schools send home if you'rein a traditional school notices
(22:09):
generally about what grade yourkid just got on a test or even
a quiz, or sometimes it's theirbehavior that day, and usually I
can find it, but not that fast.
A friend told me her kid'spreschool sends a daily report
of 1027 am, 1102 am, 153 pm.
It's all the times that the kidwent to the bathroom and was it
just pee or pee and poop, andthen how many orange segments
(22:33):
they ate at lunch.
And we're going back to thisidea that if you can quantify
something, it's consideredbetter, but it is all under the
umbrella of control.
Somehow, if you have all thisdata, all this knowledge and all
this supervision and kids haveno free time to do anything
that's unscheduled orspontaneous or wasting time,
(22:56):
then you could create thisperfect kid.
So how do you reverse that?
I think the way you reversethat is by, like what I just
said, this one lady who did thisweek of free play at the school
.
The parents have to see thatthis was not a dumb week.
Their kids are happy andhealthy again.
Their kids are smiling again.
Their kids made friends.
(23:17):
I know that as worried as we areto make sure that our kids
succeed and don't waste theirtime, we're also very hardwired
for wanting our kids to be likeemotionally okay and also the
joy of seeing when they dosomething on their own.
They're picking up theinstrument, not because you're
saying you must learn violin ifyou want to go to Harvard, but
(23:39):
because they heard another kidplaying it and they want to try
it and so Let Grow.
The nonprofit that grew out offree range kids has two programs
, both free, and I realize it'sprobably speaking to the wrong
group here, because we try toget schools to do these two
things and you guys aren'tschools, but here goes anyway.
One is you can do this at homewithout a school.
(24:01):
A homework assignment that allthe kids get K through 12, that
says go home and do somethingnew on your own, with your
parents' permission, but withoutyour parents, something that
you feel like you're ready to door you want to do, but for one
reason or another you justhaven't done it yet.
And we give a giant list ofideas, but it's basically run an
errand, ride your bike, walkthe dog, go to the pet store,
(24:22):
whatever it is.
And then the reason we suggestthis is because when a parent
sees their kid leave, oh, theregoes my kid, is everything going
to be okay.
And then the kid comes home andthey had a great time.
Or they fell off their bike andthey limped home, but they did
it themselves, doesn't matter.
Just seeing your kid dosomething without you is what
(24:44):
rewires you.
It makes you realize control isnot the absolute end, all and
be all.
The real end, all and be all israising a kid who can do
something on their own.
And you just saw it.
In fact you allowed it tohappen and by rewiring your
brain that one time look what mykid did.
Or my kid screwed up, but it'sstill okay.
It allows you to let them goagain and again.
(25:06):
That's what that show World'sWorst Mom that I did that nobody
watched.
That's what it was about.
I would sit with very nervousparents and send the kids out to
go and get bread or go to yourfriend's house or go roller
skating and by the end of fourdays with these parents which
meant four different things, youknow go on an overnight, go
(25:28):
walk to school, take a bus.
The parents were unrecognizable.
Like they wrote to me monthslater and said you won't believe
it.
Now my kid's going to camp.
Now we stopped at this.
My kid went to the bathroom byherself at the rest stop and
she's only six.
It was just.
They were so freed and it wasso easy.
And it was not fake, becausehere they are writing to me
months later after the camerashave gone Right.
That it gives me hope.
(25:49):
If we could get everybody totry letting go a couple of times
, I think we would see a muchless anxious world and much
happier kids and much prouderparents, and so the fact that it
works for both generationsgives me hope.
So that's one thing that wewant.
Let Grow what schools to do orindividuals and the other thing
(26:09):
is you keep the schools open formixed age no phones, free play
and you've created a wildlifesanctuary for childhood, because
you got balls and chalk andsome cardboard boxes and an old
suitcase and kids will have fun.
Just like this lady said, theseare the most scheduled 15 year
olds in America are the kidsthat she just gave a week of
(26:30):
free play to, and when they gotto a place where there was
bricks and old pipes and piecesof fabric, they intuitively
still it had not been snuffedout.
They knew how to play, and sokids are on their phones all the
time or they're in organizedactivities all the time, but if
you create a place where theyhave other kids and time and a
(26:52):
place to play, they know what todo and they are healthier for
it.
So Let Grow's two ideas areboth extraordinarily
straightforward, simple.
All our materials are free, andthat's why I do this, that's
why I talk to podcasts, that'swhy I write every day, because
it's not that hard to changethings if we did those two
(27:15):
things.
So those are my two big, stupid, simple recommendations.
Cecilie Conrad (27:23):
Go do something on your own Play.
Jesper Conrad (27:26):
And the go.
Do something for your own is,for the sake of the parents, to
release and let their kids goand grow.
Lenora, how has this workaffected yourself?
Have you started to play more?
Have you let yourself grow?
Lenore Skenazy (27:43):
I don't actually think so.
I think I'm pretty cramped, I'malways talking about the same
thing, but I like it.
I wake up every day.
People write to me withinteresting questions and I
respond and I do my research andI'm always angry, but that's a
driving force in my life.
It's like I can't believe thisad shows a kid being kidnapped.
That's not fair.
(28:03):
And then I feel I must write.
It's propulsive for me.
But am I playing?
My playing is going to dinnerswith people, and that's what I'm
doing after this.
Cecilie Conrad (28:13):
We just discussed it today whether we
could start playing more, more.
I think having thisconversation with you today, in
this specific context where weare right now at the huge event
with a lot of traveling families, well it's so interesting how I
see how different Americareally is.
(28:35):
Yeah, tell me, I thought a fewyears ago I thought it was sort
of same culture as over here inEurope, but really it isn't,
because these things I think wehave the same problems on a meta
level and on the mindset level.
I think we have the sameproblems of control, of fear, of
(28:56):
being focused on results, allthese things.
Lenore Skenazy (29:00):
But what's the difference?
Cecilie Conrad (29:02):
they walk home from school alone.
They do that still, andteenagers are out in the nights
in the cities and it's justdifferent.
They do.
They track obviously in our thesocial circles.
We move in as unschoolers, soit's very different.
Lenore Skenazy (29:19):
Are the kids tracked by their parents?
Cecilie Conrad (29:31):
No, most of them have some sort of tracking on
their phones, but it's basicallymore as long as that tracking
gives me more freedom than ittakes away.
It's a safety thing.
The parents would not look atit all the time.
They would trust the kids to beall right, but in case they're
not, they can find them.
Jesper Conrad (29:43):
yeah for us.
We have it because we are afull-time traveling family and
we are in a new city, we don'tknow.
So if they go to a museum andwe go somewhere else, it's like,
how should we meet?
Can you see a location?
And then we find each other.
So it is less about control andmore would be like hey, can you
find us?
Cecilie Conrad (30:02):
I will say when the teenagers are out at night
and they don't have curfew andthere's no rule really.
Jesper Conrad (30:08):
I relax more as a parent.
Cecilie Conrad (30:13):
But they relax as well because they know they
don't have panicked parents athome.
They know that if they for somereason sleep over at someone's
place, they't need to have to.
They don't have to ping theaddress, they can just say I'm
sleeping at I don't knowcharlie's house and I can see on
the map where that is, in caseI need to pick them up.
So yeah, what they say is aslong as it gives more freedom
than it takes away, it's allright.
(30:34):
And the day my kids say I don'twant to, I don't want you to
track me, I'll turn it off,because that's cool.
Yeah, so it so.
It's just really, reallydifferent.
And what was I saying with that?
Lenore Skenazy (30:45):
America is not America.
Yeah, that's what I'm.
That's what I'm.
Cecilie Conrad (30:49):
I don't know, maybe come learn something over
here, yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (30:54):
America doesn't pay attention to anyone.
I don't know, but in theoryyeah.
Jesper Conrad (30:59):
At the same time, you have some of the biggest
fingers that a lot of us havebeen inspired by in the
homeschooling, unschooling,being free to play world that we
have.
So there's like a fun diversionbetween a lot of fear and a lot
of freedom.
Lenore Skenazy (31:15):
A lot of fear and a lot of people and a couple
of people saying wait.
Jesper Conrad (31:19):
Yeah, hey, wait, let's talk about it.
So one of the plays I wouldlike to round up about is why is
play so important?
Because even for unschooled,homeschooled families, who are
our listeners, are mostly in theself-directed realm.
Sometimes we maybe havedifficulties to understand what
(31:41):
play is for our kids, because itcan be on screens, it can be on
computers, etc.
So why is play so important?
You must have used a lot oftime thinking about this.
Lenore Skenazy (31:51):
I use a lot of time quoting Peter Gray.
Here's what I do.
So, I'll just talk about him.
What Peter made me see is thatplay is self-motivated, right If
it's not a team that you'resupposed to join because your
parents want you in soccer orsomething like that.
So you have to figure out whatto do with your friends and you
(32:13):
have to make it happen.
There will be arguments alongthe way, there will be confusion
, and so that means that you aredoing, you're coming up with an
idea.
That's you could call thatbeing alive, you could call that
entrepreneurship.
You're getting buy-in.
That's a social skill.
You're compromising.
You're going to have to do thatfor the rest of your life.
You're changing the rules.
That's called creativity,that's called pivoting, that's
(32:35):
called evolving and then all theother skills that you learn
from there.
When you're really interested insomething, you deal with the
fact that you just struck outright.
You deal with the fact thatit's boring.
You're in the outfield, butpretty soon it'll be your turn
again.
You focus because you reallywant to capture that ant or
whatever it is that you'resaying ant, because I want to
capture the ants right in mykitchen right now.
(32:57):
I want to kill them all.
They just have invaded.
I don't know what went on.
So when you're playing.
The fun is what Penny Wilson,who's the play worker in England
, always says is that MotherNature put this play drive into
kids so that they will learn allthe skills they need to do to
have to be a functioning humanbeing.
And the fun part?
(33:18):
Fun is the orgasm of play.
It's what you get to, but it'sall the stuff on the way there.
You are so motivated to get tothe fun that you do control
yourself, that you do agree totry again or take your turns.
Or if you're the dog and youreally want to be the mom, you
know that for the next 10minutes you have to go ruff ruff
(33:38):
, ruff, ruff, because dogs don'ttalk.
And so you're learning how tocontrol yourself, you're
learning executive function,you're learning all the things
that I hate having to talk about, because basically, that play
is fun.
And there's somethingpuritanical about my country, my
crazy country, that says fun.
That must be bad, that must bea waste of time.
But you're not.
You don't come from Puritanstock, do I?
(33:59):
But I'm in this country and sothere should be no prejudice
against play where you're from,because it's us that hate it
well, I wouldn't say everyone'sperfect over here, that would be
stretching it very far I feellike we're playing.
Cecilie Conrad (34:13):
Aren't we playing right?
Lenore Skenazy (34:15):
now?
Well, that's what I say like Idon't, you'll never see me
kicking a ball.
Cecilie Conrad (34:18):
I hate kicking the ball but it is play in a way
to produce a podcast and have aconversation with someone yeah,
yeah and to joke around.
Lenore Skenazy (34:26):
Joking around is , I guess, the most fun that I
have and eating dinner withpeople.
Eventually you evolve to sitdown and just eat and that's
really fun.
And talking to people, that'sthe rest of my day Perfect.
Cecilie Conrad (34:37):
We'll leave you to it, then I think.
Jesper Conrad (34:39):
Yes, but before we leave you to it, please
mention where people can findout more about the wonderful
nonprofit, so they know where togo.
Lenore Skenazy (34:48):
Okay, great, remember, everything is free, so
it's Let Grow, like you seedown there.
L-e-t new word grow but it'sall smooshed together when you
do letgroworg, o-r-g, and then,if you're parents, you click on
parents and if org.
And then, if you're parents,you click on parents, and if
you're a school, you click onschool.
In america, we have some crazylaws that seem to imply that if
you're not watching your kidevery single second, that's bad,
(35:09):
and so we've changed the lawsin eight of our 50 states so far
.
If, if there's laws in whereveryou live, that that strike you
as too, too easy to criminalizeparents who trust their kids,
take a look at the laws page.
There's a donation page, forobvious reasons, and that's it.
Let grow.
Jesper Conrad (35:29):
Fantastic.
We will put all the links inand ask people to go support the
wonderful course you are having.
Thanks a lot for your time.
It was a pleasure.
Lenore Skenazy (35:38):
Same Okay, go have fun yeah.
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!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.