Don't view education and knowledge as dangerous or harmful. As your child gets older, the amount he or she knows about the world should increase linearly.

I am always surprised when these parents -- the same ones who are encouraging their children to walk to the park alone, to venture out into the woods, to play without adults around -- say things like "but we always supervise their technology use." Technology. Where even free-range parents seem to stumble.

Some of you are going to read this and think I'm a bully. Perhaps I am. Or maybe I am just a normal person who refuses to be offended by everything and anything. Maybe I am a person who thinks that life is too short to waste on ridiculous nonsense.

While it's unlikely that the halcyon backyard days of the 1950s and '60s will return unblemished, recent high profile cases of so-called "free-range parenting" suggest change may be afoot.

When I was a child, my parents often ignored me. It's not that they were unkind to me. It's that they had full lives of their own and didn't like playing Candy Land.

I do know that my work as a parent is to protect, yes, but also to find ways to push against my kids' boundaries. I want them, after all, to come up with adventures of their own in the years ahead, and feel comfortable selling me on them. That's a version of "free range" I can embrace.