How old is old enough to walk alone?
For Virginia mother Karyann Parkinson, the answer was 5.
On June 5, she let her 5-year-old son, Samuel, walk half a mile to a pond in their gated community to collect goose feathers, a route she says he knows well and that they had just done together. The outing ultimately led to a criminal conviction and her placement on the state’s child-abuse and neglect registry.
Parkinson has become the latest inadvertent symbol of a growing movement that believes children need more independence. Her conviction has reignited a debate over how much freedom kids should have and how much government oversight is appropriate in parenting. It’s also placed a spotlight on free range parenting, a philosophy that emphasizes free play, increased independence and limited parental intervention.
Parkinson says she permitted Samuel to go on the walk because she and her husband, Dallin, “feel really strongly about giving our kids a lot of room to grow.” It’s an approach she’s found success with in her older kids, who are ages 14, 12 and 7.
“They can do more than you think they can, and as you allow them to do that, they’re going to build all this confidence,” says Parkinson, who studied family science at Brigham Young University. “I just love to give my kids those chances to have a little success under their belts, and you have to build that, you can’t expect kids to suddenly be able to walk down the street on their own if you don’t give them the chance.”
How a walk turned into a flashpoint moment
Parkinson was making lunch when a paid security guard from Ford’s Colony, the community where they live, knocked on her door. He stopped Samuel on his way to the pond after a neighbor noticed him walking alone.
“He said, ‘Well, we don’t permit children to be alone in the neighborhood.’ And I said, ‘Well, is that an HOA bylaw? Because I don’t think that’s against the rules,’” Parkinson says. “He said, ‘Well, if it’s not against the rules, then it’s against the law, and I’m going to call the police.’”
A police officer and Child Protective Services visited that day. Parkinson was eventually charged and convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to records viewed by USA TODAY. She was sentenced to six months of suspended jail time and also added to Virginia’s child abuse and neglect registry for the next seven years. According to CBS, the conviction means she can’t do certain things, such as volunteering at her son’s school.
Parkinson says she plans to appeal her conviction.
While many parents online have defended Parkinson, others have criticized her, particularly because her son was walking toward a pond and bodies of water can pose additional changes for young kids.
“Everyone who’s invested in this conversation cares so much about kids,” says Parkinson. “What I did on June 5, wherever anybody stands on whether that was a good decision or a bad decision, we need to take a look and say we can all agree that kids today are struggling, and we have abandoned what has worked really well for thousands of years, which is letting children be a part of our communities and believing that they are capable.”
When is a child old enough to be alone?
The question of when a child is old enough to be alone isn’t governed by one federal standard.
Virginia is among more than a dozen states with a reasonable childhood independence law, which provides some protections for parents who practice age-appropriate independence. Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Montana, Georgia, Florida, Missouri, Indiana and Kansas have passed similar laws.
Children are typically ready to navigate streets without guardian supervision around age 10, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Factors like traffic environment, travel length, and a child’s maturity all impact when a child is ready to be unsupervised.
And yet, many American children have less independence than that.
A Harris Poll survey conducted of kids ages 8 to 12 found that most respondents aren’t allowed to be in public without an adult, and more than a quarter aren’t allowed to play unsupervised in their front yard. Research from the conservative think tank Institute for Family Studies found that more than 60% of 17-year-olds cannot go beyond their own neighborhoods unsupervised.
The debate over childhood independence
Parkinson’s case has drawn praise from advocates like Lenore Skenazy, the pioneer of the free range parenting movement who is president of Let Grow and author of “Free-Range Kids: How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow.” Skenazy first wrote about Parkinson’s conviction in early September and defended her.
“What she was doing was not only not bad parenting; it was great parenting,” Skenazy says. “She was listening to him, she was thinking of what he was capable of doing, she was showing him that she trusted him, she was showing him that she trusted her neighborhood.”
In 2008, Skenazy wrote a column about allowing her then-9-year-old son to ride the New York City Subway by himself. She says this moment marks a stark difference from the criticism and outrage she received then.
“The tide is shifting,” Skenazy says. “The country seems to be understanding that this mom did nothing wrong and actually a lot right.”
It’s a shift Skenazy and psychologists like Jonathan Haidt, the author of “The Anxious Generation” and Peter Gray, who researches free play and wrote “Restoring Childhood,” have been urging for years.
It’s something Haidt has previously attributed, in part, to a moral panic America underwent starting in the 1980s. Parents had a disproportionate level of concern about kidnappings and sex trafficking and simultaneously stopped trusting their neighbors, resulting in less organic play, and in recent years, more time online.
But advocates of more protective parenting argue free-range parenting increases the risk children encounter danger and, in some cases, can result in neglect when children are improperly supervised.
Laws also vary by state on when children can be left without adult supervision. Illinois, for example, doesn’t allow children to be left alone under the age of 14.
Holly Moscatiello, the founder of The Balance Project, a nonprofit that aims to help kids balance independence and mindful technology, says the free-range movement is “still at the beginning of the curve” when it comes to getting parents and government officials aligned on what constitutes safe and fair independence for children.
Moscatiello allows her 8- and 5-year-old daughters to bike to school with friends. She says Parkinson’s conviction brings up concerns that are front of mind for parents like her.
“There have been times where I’ve worried, if I let them do what I know that they are capable of doing, is that going to cause a problem? Not for them, but for me,” Moscatiello says.
Rachel Hale’s role covering Youth Mental Health at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Reach her at rhale@usatoday.com and @rachelleighhale on X.