PLAYBORHOOD.COM Archives

• Bright Spots

  • Camp Yale Epilogue
  • Camp Yale, Day 3
  • Camp Yale, Day 2
  • Camp Yale, Day 1
  • It Takes a Street to Raise Jacob
  • A Player’s High
  • A Society of Kids in the Woods
  • Investing in Kids’ Play
  • Streets are for Kids, Too!
  • Children’s Wild Fun: Do You Crave it or Avoid it?
  • The Paradox of Our Age
  • The Bleeding Edge of Play
  • Some Inspiration to Get Your Kids Outside Today
  • The Boundaries of Home for Kids
  • Play Day & Parent Seminar at the Playborhood!
  • Playborhoods are for Grownups, Too!
  • Our Favorite Toy Store is EBay
  • A Trampoline!!!
  • My Favorite Children’s Book About Neighborhoods
  • Buddies for Life
  • Can Young Children Experience “Flow?”
  • Still Buzzing the Morning After
  • A Play Day & Parent Seminar at the Playborhood!
  • San Francisco Chronicle Article on my Front Yard, Camp Yale
  • An Old Fashioned Capitalist Summer
  • My Three Sons
  • Making Digital Technology a Part of Outdoor Play
  • Front Porches Make a Comeback - Will Neighborhood Socializing Follow?
  • Seven Days of Neighborhood Play
  • Could “Playborhood” Become a Generic Term?
  • When Communities Take Over Their Own Streets
  • Learning Through Unstructured Play, part 1
  • High Gasoline Prices are Good for Children
  • Why Are Cruise Ships Better Communities Than Our Neighborhoods?
  • The Waters: Self-Selection and the Pioneer Effect
  • The Waters: How Town Planning and Architecture Help Create Community
  • The Waters: Kids’ Lives
  • The Waters: A Very Tight-Knit Community
  • Kids’ Outdoor Club:  The Next Best Thing to Neighborhood Play
  • One Person can Make a Playborhood
  • “A Kid’s Paradise” in Alabama
  • Hang-Out Fridays
  • The Woman of My Dreams
  • Kids at Play - A Christmas Miracle?
  • A Playborhood in Darien, Connecticut
  • First Playborhood Local Site Launched for Palo Alto / Menlo Park (CA)
  • Siena’s Contradas:  The Best Neighborhoods in the World
  • College Terrace (Palo Alto, CA) – what does it take to make a neighborhood family-friendly?
  • N Street:  Making it All Work
  • N Street:  Where Everyone Knows Your Name
  • A New Playmate for My Son Marco!
  • N Street:  Kids’ Lives
  • N Street:  An Introduction to Cohousing and “Retrofit” Cohousing

• Neighborhood

  • Children, Nature, and Neighborhoods
  • A Society of Kids in the Woods
  • The Boundaries of Home for Kids
  • Psychological Bullying in Our Neighborhood
  • Trick-or-Treater Index?  What’s Yours?
  • An Old Fashioned Capitalist Summer
  • Playborhood Signs Go on Sale!!!
  • Making Digital Technology a Part of Outdoor Play
  • Childhood Summers are Dead.  Let’s Bring Them Back!
  • Front Porches Make a Comeback - Will Neighborhood Socializing Follow?
  • Seven Days of Neighborhood Play
  • The Waters: Self-Selection and the Pioneer Effect
  • The Waters: How Town Planning and Architecture Help Create Community
  • The Waters: Kids’ Lives
  • The Waters: A Very Tight-Knit Community
  • The Woman of My Dreams
  • Kids at Play - A Christmas Miracle?
  • A Playborhood in Darien, Connecticut
  • Imported Playmates: Our Guest Worker Program
  • Siena’s Contradas:  The Best Neighborhoods in the World
  • College Terrace (Palo Alto, CA) – what does it take to make a neighborhood family-friendly?
  • N Street:  Where Everyone Knows Your Name
  • N Street:  Kids’ Lives
  • Halloween Street
  • Attention, Realtors!
  • The Importance of Parks
  • Why Your Neighbors’ Kids’ Schedules Are Your Business
  • Is Driving Your Kids Around Safer Than Letting Them Roam Outside on Their Own?
  • What Kids Want Most in a House Is Not in the House
  • Playgroups and Playdates vs. Playborhoods, Oh My…

• Nostalgia

  • Connections Between Generations
  • To Push Or Not To Push
  • Why Childhood Happiness is So Important to Me
  • Learning Through Unstructured Play, part 2
  • Less Pressure, Better Lessons
  • Warm and Fuzzies for Bill and Hillary as Kids
  • The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
  • My Own Childhood Abduction and Sexual Incident
  • A Suburban Childhood of Play in the 1960s and 70s
  • Play and Poverty in 1930s and 40s Pittsburgh
  • The Wonder Years: Nostalgia for the “Golden Age” of American Childhood

• Resources

  • The Paradox of Our Age
  • My Favorite Children’s Book About Neighborhoods
  • The Philosophical Baby: One of the Most Thought-Provoking Books I’ve Ever Read
  • San Francisco Chronicle Article on my Front Yard, Camp Yale
  • Life-Size Mazes
  • Handle With Care: Safe Sun Products for Kids
  • Planetizen Reports on Mike’s Front Yard
  • “Lincoln Logs” AND “Life Size”
  • Searching for Kid-Friendly Cities?  It’s a Waste of Time
  • Warm and Fuzzies for Bill and Hillary as Kids
  • The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
  • Idealism vs. Experience in Parenting
  • Creating Future Environmentalists: Let them Play in the Woods!
  • Learning Through Play: If Rats Get It, Why Can’t Kids?
  • First Canadian Local Site Launched!
  • Playborhood Survey IV:  School District and Type of Street are Most Important . . . Or Are They?
  • Playborhood Survey III: Parents Are Willing to Pay for Play
  • First Playborhood Local Site Launched for Palo Alto / Menlo Park (CA)
  • Playborhood Survey II:  Parents Just Want Girls (and Boys) to Have Fun
  • Playborhood Survey I:  Kids Aren’t Playing Much, and Parents Aren’t Happy About It
  • Playborhood Survey:  Who Responded
  • Please Tell Us What You Think in the Playborhood Survey!

• Solutions

  • Giving Freedom Incrementally
  • Camp Yale Epilogue
  • It Takes a Street to Raise Jacob
  • Children, Nature, and Neighborhoods
  • A Society of Kids in the Woods
  • Investing in Kids’ Play
  • Streets are for Kids, Too!
  • Give Mobile Phones to Tweens, Then Let Them Roam
  • The Bleeding Edge of Play
  • Imaginary Play to the Max
  • Play Day & Parent Seminar at the Playborhood!
  • Run a Neighborhood Summer Camp!
  • Our Favorite Toy Store is EBay
  • My Goal
  • A Trampoline!!!
  • “Free-Range” is Not a Viable Parenting Style. We Need One.
  • Parents Spend More Time With Their Kids Today: The Good News and Bad News
  • Psychological Bullying in Our Neighborhood
  • The Moments of Our Lives Should be at Our Homes
  • Social Isolation and Digital Technology: The Pew Study
  • Kids’ Lives & Microsoft Windows:  An Analogy
  • A Play Day & Parent Seminar at the Playborhood!
  • Our Back Yard: Open & Playful in a Land of Fences
  • Our Front Yard Family Room
  • Why Kids Need Hangouts, Real-World or Virtual
  • Should Adults Help Kids Play?
  • Playborhood Signs Go on Sale!!!
  • Video Games That Make You Run, Talk Face-to-Face, and Explore the Environment
  • Making Digital Technology a Part of Outdoor Play
  • Childhood Summers are Dead.  Let’s Bring Them Back!
  • Front Porches Make a Comeback - Will Neighborhood Socializing Follow?
  • Life-Size Mazes
  • Display Your Play
  • The Kindergarten Decisions:  To Redshirt or Not
  • Why I Love Tutoring
  • Enriching Rituals
  • Is there a Depression Epidemic among Today’s Youth?
  • Landscaping Parks for Play
  • The Kindergarten Decisions: Overview
  • The Power of Storytelling to Children
  • Nostalgic Childhood Stories: Can They Help Get Kids Outside Playing?
  • Making Do, part 2 (the shamelessly self-promoting sequel)
  • Making Do, part 1
  • Stick It To Ya
  • A Great Neighborhood Life for Your Kids?  It’s a Lot of Work, and It Begins When Kids Are Toddlers
  • Bringing Community to Your Front Yard and/or Sidewalk
  • When Communities Take Over Their Own Streets
  • Is Shunning Modern Technology Worth It?
  • Facilitating Character Development in Our Neighborhood:  A Different Approach to Parenting
  • Screen Time Might Be Good for Kids’ Brains, But You Should Still Pull the Plug
  • High Gasoline Prices are Good for Children
  • Reason #2 to Talk to Your Neighbors - Mindfulness
  • Reason #1 to Talk to Neighbors - It’s an Investment
  • Being a Weirdo Family - Is It Worth It?
  • The Waters: A Very Tight-Knit Community
  • Learning Through Play: If Rats Get It, Why Can’t Kids?
  • One Person can Make a Playborhood
  • “A Kid’s Paradise” in Alabama
  • Imagine There’s No Fences, It’s Easy if You Try…
  • Hang-Out Fridays
  • Event on Neighborhood Play in Palo Alto, CA
  • The Federal Government’s Role in Promoting Neighborhood Play
  • N Street:  Making it All Work
  • N Street:  An Introduction to Cohousing and “Retrofit” Cohousing
  • Attention, Realtors!
  • Solutions: An Overview
  • The Importance of Parks
  • Why Your Neighbors’ Kids’ Schedules Are Your Business

• Kidtinuum

  • To Push Or Not To Push
  • Why I Love Tutoring
  • Enriching Rituals
  • Just Play Kid: a few poems for kids and families
  • In Their Shoes, part 2: Young minds see things differently
  • In Their Shoes, part 1
  • Making Do, part 2 (the shamelessly self-promoting sequel)
  • Stick It To Ya
  • Razing Kids These Days
  • Compounding Our Mistakes
  • The Perils of Unstructured Play, part 3: Weirdness
  • Endangered Species
  • The Perils of Unstructured Play, part 2: Mayhem
  • The Perils of Unstructured Play, part 1:  Completing Tasks
  • Learning Through Unstructured Play, part 2
  • Learning Through Unstructured Play, part 1
  • Less Pressure, Better Lessons
  • A Child is a Person, Not a Product

• The Problem

  • Do Your Jobs, Parents!!!
  • Quality Time With Kids
  • Do Stressed-Out Childhoods = Bright Futures?
  • Children’s Wild Fun: Do You Crave it or Avoid it?
  • The Neville Chamberlain of Free Play
  • Why Has Michelle Obama Given Up on Free Play in Neighborhoods?
  • Self-Reliance as a Core Value of Parenting
  • Totalitarianism Makes a Comeback in Politics and in Parenting
  • Connections Between Generations
  • The Limits of Electronic Media Consumption
  • “Free-Range” is Not a Viable Parenting Style. We Need One.
  • Children’s Work and Play
  • Parents Spend More Time With Their Kids Today: The Good News and Bad News
  • The Moments of Our Lives Should be at Our Homes
  • Social Isolation and Digital Technology: The Pew Study
  • Why Kids Need Hangouts, Real-World or Virtual
  • Should Adults Help Kids Play?
  • The Mars and Venus of Parenting
  • Children Deserve the Promise of the Declaration of Independence
  • Pavers - Pretty, but Bad for Kids
  • Is there a Depression Epidemic among Today’s Youth?
  • In Their Shoes, part 1
  • Which is More Valuable:  A Happy Childhood or a Spot in an Elite University?
  • Razing Kids These Days
  • Searching for Kid-Friendly Cities?  It’s a Waste of Time
  • Compounding Our Mistakes
  • The Perils of Unstructured Play, part 3: Weirdness
  • Endangered Species
  • No Child Left Alone
  • The Perils of Unstructured Play, part 2: Mayhem
  • The Perils of Unstructured Play, part 1:  Completing Tasks
  • Playing Ball With No Adults Around
  • A Child is a Person, Not a Product
  • Screen Time Might Be Good for Kids’ Brains, But You Should Still Pull the Plug
  • Children Deserve the Promise of the Declaration of Independence
  • Being a Weirdo Family - Is It Worth It?
  • The Problems of Boys and the Demise of Independent Play
  • Free Play Doesn’t Have to Mean Unsupervised
  • The Zero-sum Myth for Kids’ Lives
  • Imagine There’s No Fences, It’s Easy if You Try…
  • Parent Peer Pressure
  • All the Media Exposure Doesn’t Have an Impact in Stopping the Obesity Crisis:  Why?
  • “Real Worlds,” Virtual Worlds, and Children
  • Why is it a Good Idea for Adults to Control Kids’ Sports?
  • Walking or Biking to School
  • We’re Raising a Generation of Organization Men (or Women)
  • Is it All Worth It?
  • Palo Alto (CA) Weekly Article on Play and Playborhood
  • Playborhood Survey I:  Kids Aren’t Playing Much, and Parents Aren’t Happy About It
  • How Overplaying Fear Harms Children From a Therapist’s Point of View
  • Should Play End With Preschool?
  • Is Driving Your Kids Around Safer Than Letting Them Roam Outside on Their Own?
  • American 6-12 year old Children’s Outdoor and Indoor Leisure Time, 1997 to 2003
  • Mike’s Manifesto
  • What Kids Want Most in a House Is Not in the House
  • Playgroups and Playdates vs. Playborhoods, Oh My…

• from Playborhood Berkeley

  • Recess, The Final Frontier
  • Frowning and Fighting: The Laws of Fort Play
  • Pick-Up Touch Football!
  • The Freedom and Fun of Forts
  • Playborhood Local Site Launched for Berkeley

• from Playborhood Oakville North

  • Under Pressure
  • Whatever Happened to the Corner Store?

• from Playborhood Palo Alto / Menlo Park

  • Explorers in Our Own Neighborhood
  • We’ve Changed Our Minds on Kindergarten Redshirting
  • A Happy Hour in the Neighborhood
  • The Kindergarten Decisions:  Neighborhood Public School or Not?
  • 9 Months Later - Is It a Playborhood Yet?
  • What About the Creek Down the Street?
  • Give Your Kids Some Space to Think - They May Outsmart You
  • Playing in the Rain
  • Allied Arts Scores High on the Trick-or-Treater Index
  • Making Our Front Yard Into an Outdoor Family Room
  • Traffic Restriction in Menlo Park:  I Used to Hate It, Now I Love It
  • Elementary Schools Are Enemies of Play
  • How We (Finally) Found a House to Buy
  • Playing Until the Sun Goes Down
  • Guerilla Playborhood Hunting Techniques IV: Visit the Neighborhood and Talk to Neighbors
  • Guerilla Playborhood Hunting Techniques III: Research Neighbors Online
  • Guerilla Playborhood Hunting Techniques II: Research Neighborhood Reputations
  • Guerilla Playborhood Hunting Techniques I: Introduction
  • A Reggio-Emilia Preschool, Italian-Style (or why Bing Nursery School may not be perfect…)
  • Picking a Preschool:  Play-based vs. Structured is One Choice, But There are Many More
  • Hot Wheels on the Sidewalk!
  • Social Class and Neighborliness
  • Raise Local!
  • Summers: Skill-Building or Neighborhood Fun?
  • All Work and No Play…