Mother charged after 5-year-old walks to pond alone: ‘I know what he’s capable of’

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The summer day started normally for Karyann Parkinson.

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As the mother tells it, she was weeks away from giving birth to her fifth child when she took a walk with her son Sam through their gated community in Williamsburg, Virginia. They passed by a couple of ponds and crossed the street about six times, she said. Sam, 5, zoomed ahead of her and back on his bike, with the goose feathers he likes to collect from the ponds’ edges sticking out of his backpack.

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When they returned home that day on June 5, Sam wanted to go back out to look for more feathers, she said.

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What followed has brought tears, sleepless nights and a court case for the family, Parkinson said in an interview with The Washington Post. It has also sparked debate over when and where kids can do things on their own, and at what age.

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Parkinson, who has a bachelor’s degree in family science and graduated from William & Mary Law School in May, said she allowed her son to do the roughly half-mile walk by himself because she and her husband, Dallin, believe it’s important for children to “encounter reasonable risks, to do anything that they feel confident doing within safe parameters.” And Sam knows how to safely cross the street, get back home or ask a neighbor for help because she taught him, Parkinson said.

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“I know what he’s capable of,” Parkinson said.

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She said she started making lunch, and, after 20 to 30 minutes, there was a knock at the door. On the other side was Sam, visibly shaken, with a handful of feathers, she said. Behind him stood a security guard, who told her a neighbor saw her son outside alone and was so concerned they called security, she said.

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Parkinson said she insisted her son was safe and had the right to walk through his neighborhood by himself. But the guard said she had broken the law and called the police, she said.

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When asked for comment, the neighborhood security office referred The Post to the HOA, which could not be reached.

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On June 18, about two weeks after police first arrived at Parkinson’s doorstep, they returned with a warrant for her arrest, she said. Parkinson was charged and convicted last month of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to online court records.

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A Williamsburg and James City County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court judge sentenced her to six months of suspended jail time, after she declined a withheld finding that would have forced her to agree the evidence was sufficient for guilt and accept a pending misdemeanor charge, according to Williamsburg Commonwealth’s Attorney Nate Green.

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“That would have been saying that what I had done was a crime, and … that would’ve violated my principles and my convictions as a parent,” Parkinson said. “And I think it also would have let down other parents who need to know that normal childhood experiences are not a crime.”

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Parkinson is appealing her conviction along with a substantiated finding against her by the James City County Department of Social Services, which has added her and Sam’s names to the Virginia Abuse and Neglect Registry, where they’ll remain for seven years, she said.

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A representative of Child Protective Services in James City County, when reached by phone, declined to comment.

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When asked about the case over the phone, Green declined to comment on specific details. The James City County Police Department did not directly comment on the case but provided an incident report to The Post. It did not contain a narrative of events or many details.

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Parkinson is not the only parent who has been accused of wrongdoing for letting their children do things on their own in recent years, according to media reports.

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In Georgia in November, a Fulton County Division of Family and Children Services investigation substantiated claims of neglect and abuse against a couple who allowed their 6-year-old son to scooter home from a playground about a quarter-mile away. Those claims were later cleared after appeal.

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In Texas, a mother spent a night in jail and resigned from her job after she was convicted in 2022 of endangering a child for reportedly making her 8-year-old walk a half-mile home to calm down.

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And in Maryland, parents were cleared of neglect charges in 2015 that followed their decision to allow their two kids – then ages 10 and 6 – to walk home alone from a park in Silver Spring.

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The Maryland case sparked public conversations about parenting, said Lenore Skenazy, a founder of the “free-range” parenting movement and president of the nonprofit Let Grow, which makes the case that independent children develop into well-rounded adults. Skenazy first reported on Parkinson’s case.

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“There’s a real disconnect between letting your kid do something normal that you trust that he can do, and you know him and your neighborhood, and abusing a child, which is the worst thing in the world, right?” Skenazy told The Post in an interview. “So, why are they mashed up?”

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Parkinson’s case has sparked debate on social media about whether she should have been charged, and if it was okay to let her child roam free in the first place.

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“This seems like an overreaction, but sending a five year old out alone to a body of water is a terrible idea,” wrote one Reddit commentator.

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Others online raised concerns about the potential for kidnapping.

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Skenazy says that’s a highly unlikely scenario.

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“There’s a teeny-tiny percentage chance that something bad will happen when your kid is walking somewhere or riding their bike. But there’s a bigger chance that you’re going to get into a car accident when you’re driving your kid to the dentist,” she said. “And we don’t arrest moms who say, ‘Get in the car, we’re going to the dentist.’”

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Parkinson said that after Sam walked home with the security guard, a James City County police officer arrived. That officer called Child Protective Services officials, who arrived with additional police units and another security guard, Parkinson said.

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Her husband, a marriage and family therapist, had been out with their oldest daughter, who is 14. She called and asked him to return home.

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Virginia law criminalizes the willful failure of a parent or guardian to provide a child with necessary care and considers violation of that law a felony. Virginia’s General Assembly passed a bill in 2023 clarifying that no child can be considered abused or neglected for engaging in “independent activities without adult supervision,” as long as those activities are age-appropriate and are not “so grossly negligent as to endanger the health or safety of the child.”

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Parkinson spent a summer interning at the private law firm of former Virginia state senator Jill Vogel (R-Winchester), who co-sponsored the bill. Vogel could not be reached for comment.

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Parkinson spent no time in jail, but she said she spent “a lot of time crying” while thinking about worst-case scenarios: “They’re going to come take my kids away. People are going to think I’m a bad mom,” she said.

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She said she felt ashamed about how her neighbors may have perceived the police and other government vehicles outside her home. The actions taken by the county and police, she said, initially made her question the way she has parented for the past 14 years.

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“I always loved letting my kids climb trees and go exploring and to, you know, experiment with their surroundings and feel confident in this word,” Parkinson said. She wants her children to know “the world’s a good place” and that they can do things on their own. But “this just made my whole world sort of come crashing down,” she said.

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The family has visited the pond Sam walked to hundreds of times, Dallin Parkinson said, adding that he had no concerns with letting his son go to the body of water alone. He said his son, a competitive swimmer, was only allowed to visit the pond’s shallowest parts, so he was not worried about him drowning. In the unfortunate case that Sam fell in, it could be a learning opportunity for him, Dallin said.

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“Sometimes life has hard things, and it’s okay for him to go through that,” Dallin said.

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Both parents said an outpouring of support in recent days has restored their confidence that their approach has been the right one.

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Parkinson said her attorney, Andrew S. Gordon, took the case pro bono, allowing her to split her focus between litigating the case, studying for the bar exam and preparing for the delivery of her baby.

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In an interview, Gordon described defending Parkinson as a “privilege,” saying there was nothing in her background that would have drawn the attention of authorities.

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Gordon said he understands the outrage on both sides and believes “everyone involved is acting in good faith.”

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“We just disagree on whether this is criminal,” he said. “And once the criminal justice machine turns on, it can be very hard to turn that machine off.”

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