Virginia Mum Put on Child Abuse Registry After Letting 5-Year-Old Walk Alone To Collect Goose Feathers

A Virginia mother has been placed on Virginia's Child Abuse and Neglect Central Registry for seven years after allowing her five-year-old son to walk by himself through their gated community to collect goose feathers.

Karyann Parkinson was also convicted of a Class 1 misdemeanour for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Separately, a Child Protective Services investigation resulted in a founded finding that led to her name being entered on the Central Registry for seven years. She is challenging both decisions.

Parkinson's son, Samuel, asked to return to a pond near their home after previously collecting goose feathers there with his mother. Parkinson said she gave him permission to make the walk alone, describing the route as one he knew well. Speaking to CBS News, Parkinson said, 'I gave him permission to go. I told him, 'Go there. Come right back.''

The boy was stopped by a security guard inside Ford's Colony, a gated community in Williamsburg, who escorted him home and contacted authorities.

Child Stopped During Solo Walk

According to reports, Samuel's route covered about half a mile and included a path leading towards a local pond. Parkinson said her son was not sent to spend time at the water but was collecting feathers along a route he had travelled before.

'I didn't send him to play at the pond,' Parkinson told Fox & Friends Weekend. '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.'

Parkinson continued that her son was simply walking through an area he knew and enjoyed in 'the only place that he can remember ever living,' and that the situation simply grew far more serious when other people stepped in and began questioning her decision to let him walk alone.

'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,' she said.

Police and Child Protective Services responded to the family's home on the day of the incident. Parkinson was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor about two weeks later. The mother was subsequently investigated by CPS and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, which is a Class 1 misdemeanour, imposing a six-month jail term that was suspended.

Mother Says Son Was Shaken by Incident

Parkinson said Samuel was frightened after being brought home and later needed reassurance that he had not done anything wrong.

'We had to do a lot of reassuring him and telling him, 'You didn't do anything wrong,' Parkinson told Fox News. '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?'

She said he eventually moved past the experience and returned to his normal activities. 'Now it's just a blip on his radar. It's not really a part of his life anymore,' Parkinson said.