E181. Lenore Skenazy Describes The Passivity Problem Of Today's Children

Lenore Skenazy, co-founder and president of the Let Grow Project, joins Bridget to talk about the crisis of anxiety, depression, and passivity in kids today. Let Grow is devoted to giving kids back the independence they used to have before we had the ability to track their every move via an app. They discuss today's trend of rewriting all of childhood as if the kid is in extreme danger, why we have to recalibrate what we think kids can do, how the milk carton kids of the 80s warped the vision of childhood in America, and the incorrect idea that if you're always with your children or always supervising them then nothing bad can happen to them. They also cover the importance of free play in a child's development, kids feeling insulted, fragile, hurt and unsafe when they are simply uncomfortable and unused to dealing with these feelings, magical thinking vs. tragical thinking, the weird paradox of being entitled and infantalized at the same time, and the fact that when adults step back, kids step up. To learn more about the Let Grow homework projects, if you would like your school to implement the Let Grow Project or Play Club, and to find out about their speaking engagements, click the links below: 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHqU9r3f4NE&t=4s
 https://letgrow.org/program/educational-resources/
 https://letgrow.org/program/have-us-speak/