TED Talks Daily Why you should spend less time with your kids | Lenore Skenazy
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Aug 26, 2025 
Lenore Skenazy, cofounder of Let Grow and advocate for free-range parenting, tackles the anxiety crisis stemming from over-cautious parenting. She humorously argues for the benefits of giving kids more independence, sharing personal anecdotes like allowing her son to navigate the subway alone. Skenazy discusses how reduced parental oversight not only builds resilience but also fosters self-reliance in children, while encouraging a shift towards a balance between guidance and granting freedom.
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Nine-Year-Old Subway Adventure
- Lenore Skenazy let her nine-year-old ride the New York City subway alone and wrote about it in a column.
- The boy came home ecstatic, and the story exploded into national media attention.
Child, Adult, And Family Worlds Unbalanced
- Playtime used to belong to kids, adults had separate worlds, and family time was distinct.
- Phones and constant adult involvement have mashed those worlds together and reduced unsupervised kid time.
Shared Anxiety From Overparenting
- Both children and parents show rising rates of depression and anxiety in recent reports.
- Lenore links this mutual anxiety to over-parenting and lack of independent childhood experiences.
