Virginia mother appeals child abuse registry placement after incident with son walking alone

<p>A Virginia mother is appealing a criminal charge and her placement on the state’s child abuse and neglect registry after her 5-year-old son was stopped by security while walking alone through their gated community.</p><p>Karyann Parkinson stated that her son, Sam, had been walking along a familiar neighborhood path past a pond to collect goose feathers when a security guard encountered him and brought him home.</p><p>Police and Child Protective Services became involved, and Parkinson, who was eight months pregnant at the time, had her six-month jail sentence suspended, but the charge remains. She was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a first-degree misdemeanor, and was placed on Virginia's Child Abuse and Neglect Central Registry for seven years.</p><p>Parkinson acknowledged the concern people may feel about a child being alone near a body of water but sought to clarify the circumstances of the incident. "I didn't send him to play at the pond," she told Fox News. "I sent him down the path that happens to go past the pond to collect goose feathers... I know that a lot of people have seen the headlines and seen '5-year-old alone at a pond.' And I think if I saw that in isolation, I'd probably be alarmed, too."</p><p>She added, "But what this was, was a 5-year-old on a pathway that he's very familiar with in his neighborhood that he loves, the only place that he can remember ever living. And it just got turned into this whole situation where a lot of people were suddenly intervening and feeling like this was a really drastic parenting choice."</p><p>The most challenging aspect for Parkinson is being on the Child Protective Services registry for an extended period, which prevents her from volunteering in Sam's classroom until he enters sixth grade.</p><p>Parkinson expressed the need to stop parenting from a place of fear and concern over potential dangers. She noted that her son was "pretty shaken up" after the incident but has since recovered. "We had to do a lot of reassuring him and telling him, 'You didn't do anything wrong,'" she said. "He would ask me, 'Mom, am I allowed to ride my bike to swim practice? Am I allowed to ride my bike to the tennis courts?'"</p><p>She concluded, "Now it's just a blip on his radar. It's not really a part of his life anymore."</p>