Mom found guilty of abuse for letting 5-year-old walk outside alone

A Virginia mother is speaking out after her conviction on a child abuse charge stemming from her decision to let her 5-year-old son walk outside alone.  

Karyann Parkinson's son, Samuel, likes to collect goose feathers. So, over the summer, she let him walk half a mile to a local pond by himself to get more.

"I gave him permission to go," Parkinson told CBS News. "I told him, 'Go there. Come right back.'"

Ford's Colony, the gated community where they live in Williamsburg, has paid security guards, one of whom stopped Samuel on his way to the pond and escorted him back home. 

"The security guard said, 'Well, we don't permit children to be out in the neighborhood alone.' And I said, 'Is that in an HOA [homeowners association] bylaw? Because I really don't think that's against the rules,'" Parkinson recalled saying. "And he said, 'Well, if it's not against the rules, then it's against the law. And I'm gonna call the police.'"

The police and Child Protective Services responded the day of the incident, and Parkinson was charged two weeks later with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. 

"We just expected that as soon as this gets in front of a prosecutor actually looking at it and a judge, this is all gonna go away," Parkinson said. 

She was later convicted on that charge and given a six-month suspended sentence. She will also now be on Virginia's child abuse and neglect registry for seven years. As a result, she can't do things like volunteer for activities in her son's classroom until he's in sixth grade.

Virginia is one of 13 states with a reasonable childhood independence law, which is supposed to prevent the state from second-guessing every parental decision. Parkinson said she plans to appeal the conviction, which is expected to come in January.  

The charge and conviction have sparked an online debate about her parenting.

"There's also been, just unbelievable to get so many messages from a lot of moms who say that something similar has happened to them," Parkinson said. 

"I think that, ideally, we have a conversation, we see that a kid is confident and capable, and we leave it at that," Parkinson added. "We don't interfere with children if they seem to be doing just fine."

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• Virginia

Mom placed on child abuse registry after letting 5-year-old walk alone