Free-Range Kids

Virginia Mom Gets 6-Month Suspended Jail Sentence for Letting 5-Year-Old Walk to the Pond

The government also placed Karyann Parkinson on its child abuse and neglect registry, where she will remain for seven years.

Lenore Skenazy | 9.2.2026 7:30 AM

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Karyann Parkinson (left) seen with two of her children next to her son Sam (right) (Courtesy of Karyann Parkinson)

A mom of five was convicted last week of delinquency of a minor. Her offense: allowing her 5-year-old son to walk about a half-mile by himself in their gated community.

Until very recently, Karyann Parkinson lived in leafy Williamsburg, Virginia. She and her husband, Dallin, moved there from Utah so Parkinson could attend William and Mary Law School.

In June, when Parkinson was preparing for the bar—and also happened to be eight months pregnant with her fifth child—she and her then-youngest, Sam, went for a bike ride, as they often do. They stopped for her son's favorite activity: collecting goose feathers from the path near their community pond. When they got home, he asked if he could walk back and get some more.

Parkinson said yes. It's a short walk, along a sidewalk separated from the street by 10 feet of grass. Sam would have to cross two streets with crosswalks, which she'd seen him do safely hundreds of times—including six times that morning, she says. Off he went while she made lunch.

A passerby saw Sam and alerted security. One of the community's security guards escorted the boy back and gave Parkinson an earful. Pretty soon there were three cop cars, just as many cops, a security vehicle, and two........

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