Mom Charges $350 To Let Kids Play Unsupervised in Central Park
‘Free range’ activist lets kids enjoy freedom from adults.
The latest in modern parenting comes from New York City, where former journalist and mother of two, Lenore Skenazy, offers a new activity that has many parents questioning her sanity.
Skenazy, who promotes a "free play" way of parenting and wrote the book Free Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry, (find it on Bing Shopping), is charging parents $350 to drop their kids off at Central Park – and then not supervise them.
Her website reads:
"My 'I Won’t Supervise Your Kids' class begins today (Weds., Sept. 12) at 3:45 in Central Park. We’ll meet at 85th and Fifth Avenue. Any parents present will sign a waiver, 'I don’t expect anyone — much less Lenore — to supervise my kids.' And then they leave, and so do I, and the fun begins."
"I'm always trying to figure out ways to get kids back outside playing with each other," she told ABC News. "It's a great thing that has sort of evaporated from the American landscape."
She encourages participating children to "make up a game, make new friends and learn something new" while they enjoy freedom from adult supervision.
Especially in larger cities like New York, Skenazy said fears of abductions and violence have encouraged parents to find indoor activities to occupy their kids. She calls these worries "misplaced" since crime has decreased overall since the 1970s and 1980s.
According to news reports, Skenazy took heat in 2008 for enabling her son, then age 9, to ride the New York City subway alone.
Tell us in the comments below: Would you let your child play at a public park unsupervised?
Photo: Noah Clayton/Getty Images
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