Mother Labeled Child Abuser, Threatened With 6-Month Sentence For Letting Her Kid Play Outside

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A mother of five was placed on a child abuse and neglect registry and threatened with a jail sentence after being convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor for letting her 5-year-old son walk to a pond by himself in their gated community, a report shows.

The mother, Karyann Parkinson, had been living in Williamsburg, Virginia, with her husband so that she could attend law school. She was pregnant with her fifth child when her son asked if he could walk the half-mile to the pond to collect goose feathers, his favorite activity, Reason reported.

Parkinson believed it would be safe. Her son knew the route on the sidewalk through the gated community that was separated from the road by 10 feet of grass. He would have to cross two streets with crosswalks, but she had seen him do so safely hundreds of times before. . .

Her son was spotted by a passerby who called security, who brought the boy back to his mother before chastising Parkinson and telling her son that bad people would want to take him. Soon, the security guard was joined by three police officers and two Child Protective Services (CPS) workers.

Her husband, who was out at lunch with their daughter, hurried home and told CPS that kids need to be able to take reasonable risks “in order to grow up non-anxious,” but the workers said that five-year-olds should never be unsupervised, according to Reason.

CPS would then launch an investigation into Parkinson for alleged abuse and neglect before placing her on the state’s child abuse and neglect registry for the next seven years.

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