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Angela Hanscom – Balanced and Barefoot
Angela J. Hanscom is a pediatric occupational therapist and founder of TimberNook—an award-winning developmental and nature-based program that has gained international popularity. She is the author of Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children. Hanscom is also a frequent contributor to The Washington Post and in 2019 won […]
Angela J. Hanscom is a pediatric occupational therapist and founder of TimberNook—an award-winning developmental and nature-based program that has gained international popularity. She is the author of Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children. Hanscom is also a frequent contributor to The Washington Post and in 2019 won a Small Business of the year award for the State of New Hampshire.
Key Takeaways:
00:29 What is Timbernook?
03:52 What tips do you have for people who don’t have forests nearby?
07:23 Benefits of Play
11:46 What would a School Schedule look like to get maximum play opportunity?
23:07 What can you do with a smaller urban setting?
24:47 Timbernook Training and Outdoor Classes.
32:36 Forest School versus Timbernook versus Anji Play
35:25 Iconic Timbernook Experience
37:41 Metaphor to describe Timbernook versus Conventional School
Quotes:
“The occupation of a child is play and outdoor play has been incredibly at risk in the past 30 years to the point that’s affecting development in ways we never anticipated.”
“I still think it’s really important for kids to have outdoor play time, no matter what their environment looks like.”
“I would say after the pandemic, this work has moved from important to critical.”
“So I think for me, it’s critical to development. Like it’s affecting their senses and muscles and when we overly restrict their ability to play and move, that’s when we’re starting to see some issues. “
“The number one issue that we have to treat as therapists right now is balance. We’re seeing more and more kids uncoordinated and becoming clumsy.”
“It’s ideal to find a place where you can create an outdoor classroom and leave things out there.”
“Our mission is to get them playing in more advanced ways and to enrich that experience. “
Social Links:
Website- www.timbernook.com
Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/TimberNook.Camps
LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-hanscom-ab75147b/
Twitter- https://twitter.com/timbernook
Peter Gray – Learning Through Play
Peter Gray is the author of Psychology, an introductory textbook now in its sixth edition, and, most recently, Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life. It discusses how to bring more play into kids’ lives, the catalyst that led him to
Peter Gray is the author of Psychology, an introductory textbook now in its sixth edition, and, most recently, Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life. It discusses how to bring more play into kids’ lives, the catalyst that led him to explore play’s benefits, his theories on play as a primal mode of education, and advice to inspire play.
His past research had to do with basic mammalian motivational mechanisms, and his present research has to do with children’s play and its educative value.
Key Takeaways:
00:42 The origin story of Dr. Gray’s Career
15:13 Free Play
20:39 Fear on letting kids to play outside
39:14 Founding the Alliance for Self-Directed Education
49:36 Montessori – Work VS Play
53:04 Online Play
Quotes:
“I’ve always felt like I wanted to do things that would help make the world better.”
“With every 10 years, kids have less time to play than they did the previous 10 years.”
“Unfortunately, we set the pattern and it spreads. It starts maybe upper-class and it seeps down to affect everybody. I used to be able to say that working class people, and even people in some poverty, that the kids had more freedom to play in the United States than wealthier kids did, but I don’t think that’s true anymore.”
“The other thing that plays a role in why children aren’t outdoors playing is the fact that we developed a set of irrational fears about how dangerous it is outdoors.”
“When children are playing on their own, they’re making their own decisions about what to do. They’re solving their own problems.”
Social Links:
Blog: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn
Lenore Skenazy – Raising Free-Range Kids
Lenore is the Founder of Free-Range Kids and President at Let Grow, the national nonprofit promoting childhood independence. After her newspaper column “Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone” created a media firestorm, Lenore got the nickname “America’s Worst Mom.” She went on to write Free-Range Kids, the book-turned-movement. Second Edition coming in
Lenore is the Founder of Free-Range Kids and President at Let Grow, the national nonprofit promoting childhood independence.
After her newspaper column “Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone” created a media firestorm, Lenore got the nickname “America’s Worst Mom.” She went on to write Free-Range Kids, the book-turned-movement. Second Edition coming in June! She has been profiled in The New Yorker, and lectured everywhere from DreamWorks to Microsoft to schools across America — and let’s not forget the Bulgarian Happiness Festival. On TV, you may have seen her on The Today Show, The Daily Show or her own reality show, World’s Worst Mom (cancelled after one season, but suddenly available on YouTube!).
She lives in New York with her husband and beloved computer. Her kids are gainfully employed.
Key Takeaways:
20:18 Mad Magazine and World’s Worst Mom
25:00 Free-range Kids Blog
36:37 Exposure Therapy
38:52 Working with Dr. Peter Gray, Daniel Shuchman and Jon Haidt
53:02 The Free Range Parenting Bill
57:45 Advise to Scared Parents
01:01:21 Metaphor to compare Overprotection and Free-Range Parenting
Quotes:
“That’s like my giant psychological insight that I wish everybody shared because it holds the possibility of changing everybody really fast, making everybody much more lighthearted, much more calm, much more confident kids, more mature and grateful and parents more free time. And all it requires is letting go.”
“It’s almost like a part of the game. What’s the worst, the very worst thing that could happen?”
“Punishment was restricting your freedom and to preserve your freedom, you persevered, you discovered your own resilience, you held it in, you hid the scars in every which way. And, I think that’s what is missing from childhood that is hurting kids.”
“Overprotection is not an unalloyed good. It’s not like it keeps getting better, better, better, better, better. The more we protect, the more bumpers we put on everything.”
“Rather than changing minds, change behavior.”
“The Let Grow project is a revelation.”
Social Links:
Lenore Skenazy
Twitter – https://twitter.com/FreeRangeKids , https://twitter.com/LetGrowOrg
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/lenoreskenazy/
Let Grow
Free Range Kids
https://www.freerangekids.com/
I let my 9-year-old ride the subway alone. I got labeled the ‘world’s worst mom.’ Article