The secret to reducing childhood anxiety is actually quite simple: just let kids do more stuff on their own, says Lenore Skenazy, cofounder and president of Let Grow, an organization dedicated to normalizing childhood independence. In conversation with TED’s Whitney Pennington Rodgers, Skenazy discusses why parenting has become more demanding in our safety-obsessed world — and offers a more joyful, trusting alternative to helicopter parenting, with tangible steps for how to start safely (and sanely) letting your kids grow. (This conversation was part of an exclusive TED Membership event. TED Membership is the best way to support and engage with the big ideas you love from TED. To learn more, visit ted.com/membership.)TED Talks Daily is nominated for the Signal Award for Best Conversation Starter Podcast. Vote here!Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Full Episode
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. What happens when we let kids take risks and solve problems on their own?
This question led journalist and founder of the free-range kids movement, Lenore Skenazy, to embrace the title she had been given online of, quote, America's worst mom, after she shared the story of allowing her nine-year-old son to ride the New York City subway alone.
In a follow-up conversation to her 2025 talk released a few weeks ago, Lenore spoke with TED curator Whitney Pennington-Rogers to dig further into why it's so important to raise independent kids in today's tech-heavy, safety-obsessed age. There are so many thorny topics that we parents have to confront as we parent kids these days.
And that's why I'm really excited to mention another show I'm hosting called Raising Us. It's a podcast from a kid's company called A Kids Co. This is their first parenting podcast, and it's for parents to help us talk to our kids about topics like gaming, social media... puberty, the environment, democracy. Like I mentioned, a lot of thorny topics.
And all of these topics couldn't be better connected with the overarching point that Lenore Skenazy makes in her conversation with Whitney. Here they are.
You actually, you start your talk by mentioning that you have been called America's worst mom after you let your nine-year-old ride the New York City subway alone. And you embraced that title. After a while. Maybe not initially. But so, I mean, when you look back at that moment, what do you think struck a cultural nerve?
Yeah, I'm sorry. So he's 27 now, so I've been thinking about it for a while. And I think two things struck a nerve, because I looked at older columns of mine where I had let my kids play in the courtyard without me. I let them take elevators without me. I let them go. They're two boys. Let them go to the men's room without me, obviously. And nobody cared about any of those columns.
So I think by writing about my kid taking the subway by himself, it was basically the subway. New York City subway does not have a great reputation. And people think it's hell. And why would you send your kid?
down to hell at least without you and then um i think it wasn't just me saying you know kids need independence it was me actually doing it pedal to the metal and and the fact that he loved it i think was also um maybe just interesting it wasn't something that we did because he should do it he should learn he should be tough toughened up it was just he wanted to take the subway by himself and we let him it's like oh yeah kids have things that they want to do on their own and maybe we should listen to them and see what happens so
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