Free-Range Children, Mormon Rivals

Free-Range Kids (1:07) Guests Lenore Skenazy is author of Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant children (without going nuts with worry). She also hosts the show "World's Worst Mom" on the Discovery Life channel. Larry Nelson teaches and researches parenting in the Department of Family Life here at BYU. His latest research on the effects of helicopter parenting appears in the journal Emerging Adulthood. Parenting is Top of Mind this hour. Free-range and helicopter are the much-talked-about varieties right now. A couple in Maryland was cleared last week of neglect charges in a couple of instances where they let their kids walk home alone from a park about mile from their home. The kids are 10 and 6 years old. They"ve become a cause celebre for the "free-range parenting" movement, a word coined by Lenore Skenazy who"s with us this hour. On the opposite end of the spectrum from letting your kids roam free is the common tendency to hover over their every move, pad every landing and smooth every bump in the road. So-called"helicopter parents" are a phenomenon BYU Family Science professor Larry Nelson has studied extensively. He joins me now in studio. Welcome. Mormon Rivals (51:43) Guests Matt Canham and Thomas Burr are reporters at The Salt Lake Tribune. They've just released a new book called Mormon Rivals about the Romney and Huntsman families. Mormon Rivals are Top of Mind today. That's the title of a new book by Matt Canham and Thomas Burr of the Salt Lake Tribune. It documents the similarities, differences and disagreements of two prominent members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who faced off in the 2012 Republican primary race for president. The novelty of two Mormons on the ballot was a source of endless fascinating for the national press and curiosity for voters unfamiliar with the faith. Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman Junior descend from the same fiery Mormon pioneer. They're both sons of self-made millionnaires and scions of their communities. Both have had successful careers and been elected Governor. Inside the Mormon community, the Huntsmans and the Romneys are as close as it comes to royal clans. And yet, Matt Canham and Thomas Burr write in their book that Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman Junior could not be more different in many regards. They're not friendly. In fact, they barely know each other. Their intertwining story is one of faith, money, power and ambition.