Free-Range Kids and the Law, Why Letting Children Roam Became Suspect

There is a country, and it is ours, in which a generation ago a nine-year-old could be told to be home by dinner and nobody called a government agency about it. The streetlights were the curfew, the neighbors were the surveillance, and the whole system ran on a mother's voice carrying down a block.

Then something changed, and it was not the children. It was the law, the culture around the law, and the fear that stood between them. Let me explain how the machinery works, because once you see it, the headlines about parents investigated for letting kids walk to the park make a good deal more sense, and so do the fixes.

The definition: what neglect law actually says

Start with the word. Every state has a statute defining child neglect, the failure of a parent or caretaker to provide for a child's basic needs, including adequate supervision. Neglect is a civil matter, handled by child protective services (CPS) and the family courts, not a crime in the ordinary case, though some neglect can be criminally charged. The purpose is a good one: to protect children who are in danger because the adults responsible for them are failing them.

The trouble is in the drafting. Many state statutes, for decades, defined neglect through broad phrases such as "inadequate supervision" or "failure to provide proper supervision," or required that a child not be left "without supervision" or in a situation that "may endanger" his health or safety. Notice the word may. Almost anything may endanger a child: a bicycle, a swing set, a staircase, a street. A statute that makes a parent answerable for what may happen, with no age guidance and no reasonable-parent standard, hands enormous discretion to whoever is applying it.

Add to that a second fact: in most states, a vast number of people are mandated reporters who must report suspected neglect, and many others who are not mandated will call a hotline anyway. And a third: CPS must follow up on reports that meet a screening threshold. The result is that a stranger who sees a seven-year-old walking alone, and who sincerely believes this is dangerous, can make a call, and the agency, applying a vague statute, may feel obliged to investigate.

That, in a nutshell, is the mechanism. Vague law plus low reporting threshold plus an agency with limited discretion equals an investigation of a parent who did what her own parents did.

How CPS decides, in brief

A word on process, because it shapes what a parent faces. When a report comes in, the hotline staff decide whether it meets the state's criteria for investigation, a step called screening. If it does, a caseworker is assigned and contacts the family, usually with a visit to the home and interviews of the parents and the child. The investigator then decides whether the report is substantiated, meaning that the agency finds a preponderance or some lower standard of evidence that neglect occurred, or unsubstantiated. Depending on the state, a substantiated finding can lead to services, a safety plan, a record on a central registry, or, in serious cases, a petition in court. Even an unsubstantiated investigation can be stressful, costly and frightening, and in some places records of unsubstantiated reports are kept for a period.

I want to be fair to the workers. Most caseworkers are trying to do a very hard job with heavy caseloads, and they are charged with catching the real cases, in which children are truly at risk. The problem I am describing is not their cruelty. It is a statute so broad that it sweeps a parent who is doing nothing wrong into the same net as a parent who is. Every hour spent investigating a mother whose child walked to the library is an hour not spent on a child in real danger.

Where the phrase came from

The term "free-range" for this style of parenting was popularized by a New York columnist, Lenore Skenazy, who wrote in 2008 about letting her nine-year-old ride the subway home alone, and who became the face of the argument that children are safer and more capable than the culture assumes. She later co-founded an organization that advocates for what it calls reasonable childhood independence. The movement's central claim is modest, and it can be stated without reference to any one person: that a child of a certain age, with a certain preparation, can safely do ordinary things on his own, such as walking to school, playing at a park or staying home for a short time, and that parents, not the state, are the ones to judge when.

In the years that followed, news stories reported on parents in different parts of the country who had been investigated, or in a few cases charged, after a child was seen alone: a child at a park while a parent was at work, siblings walking home from a park, a child waiting in a car. Some of those cases ended with no finding against the parents, some with long, expensive proceedings. I will not rehearse individual families' stories here. They are matters of public report, and you can find them with a search. The pattern is what matters: ordinary independence, reported by a concerned stranger, run through a vague statute.

Utah, 2018: the first free-range law

Utah moved first. In March 2018 the Utah legislature passed, and the governor signed, a law revising the state's definition of neglect to say that a child's engaging in certain activities independently is not neglect on that basis alone. The law, which took effect in May 2018, provided that it is not neglect for a parent to permit a child, whose basic needs are met and who is of sufficient age and maturity to avoid harm or unreasonable risk of harm, to engage in a list of activities. Those included traveling to and from school by walking, running, biking or similar means; engaging in outdoor play; and remaining at home unattended. The law was widely described as the first of its kind in the country, and it was drafted to take effect without leaving children unprotected: the child must be of sufficient age and maturity, and genuine neglect and abuse remain violations.

Notice the design. The statute does not announce an age at which a child may roam, because children differ. It says a parent may decide, so long as the child has what he needs and is mature enough to avoid unreasonable risk. It puts the question of maturity where it has always belonged, with the parent who knows the child, and subjects the decision to a general reasonableness check. Check the statute's current text on the Utah legislature's website, since the code has been amended since.

Texas, 2021: narrowing neglect

In 2021 Texas passed House Bill 567, effective September 1, 2021, which changed the Family Code's definition of neglect. As enacted, neglect does not include allowing a child to engage in independent activities that are appropriate and typical for the child's level of maturity, physical condition, developmental abilities or culture. The bill also raised the bar for several neglect findings from a "substantial risk" of harm to an "immediate danger" of harm, and it said that a parent's being economically disadvantaged is not by itself a ground for terminating parental rights or for removing a child. As ever, read the current text of the statute yourself on the Texas Legislature Online site, since I am giving you the gist and not the bill.

Other states

Other states have since moved in the same direction. Oklahoma was second and Texas third, Colorado followed in 2022, and by Let Grow's count a number of other states, among them Virginia, Connecticut, Illinois and Montana, have passed laws in the same vein since 2023. The details differ: some add an age floor, some list protected activities, some use a general reasonableness test, and some apply only to specific situations like a child alone in a vehicle or at home. If you're curious where your state stands, search your legislature's website for "reasonable childhood independence" or for your state's definition of neglect in its child welfare code. These laws have been moving, so I'd rather you check than rely on my list.

The politics is worth a note (see also Bell to Bell Phone Bans Are the Easiest School Reform in America for another reform that crosses party lines). This is a cause that gathers conservatives and liberals and libertarians in the same committee room. It is hard to oppose the proposition that parents should be trusted to make ordinary parenting decisions, and the opposition, where it exists, comes mostly from worries about line-drawing, which are fair and manageable.

The steelman: what the cautious say

Let me state the best case against these laws. It goes like this: children do get hurt. Abduction by strangers is rare, but other harms are real: traffic, drowning, a fall, a medical event, an unsafe adult. Neglect is a real problem, and a statute that exempts a list of activities might shield a negligent parent who claims the child was just exercising independence. CPS workers need flexibility to act when a situation really is dangerous, and a bright-line rule may tie their hands. And parents differ in judgment, so a rule that trusts parents trusts the careless ones too.

Those are not silly points, and the better laws answer them. Let me put the answers in order.

1. The laws do not abolish neglect. Every one of them keeps the requirement that the child have his basic needs met and that the conduct not create an unreasonable or significant risk of harm. A parent who leaves a toddler alone beside a pool is still neglecting that child, and nothing in a free-range statute changes it.
2. The standard is maturity, not a number. By tying the exemption to the child's own ability to avoid harm, the statutes preserve the investigator's ability to find that a particular child was not ready.
3. Risk is not the same as danger. A child who walks four blocks to a park faces some risk, as a child who rides in the family car does. The question is whether the risk is unreasonable. And the real statistical dangers in a child's life are far more likely to be in a vehicle than in a stranger's hands. Where I cite a figure I want a source, so I'll leave the numbers to the reader to check at the relevant federal agencies, and say only that the rare, terrifying case dominates the news in a way it does not dominate the record.
4. The alternative has costs too. A system that treats ordinary independence as a warning sign consumes caseworker time, frightens families and teaches parents to hover. It also trains a generation of children to believe that the world is more dangerous than it is.

Why independence is part of an education

Here is the claim I most want to make, and it carries the moral weight of the whole subject. Independence is not a luxury added to a childhood. It is part of how a person is educated for freedom.

A child who has walked to school has learned to plan, to watch, to judge a crossing, to deal with a stranger politely, to find her way, to handle a surprise. A child who has stayed home for an hour has learned to manage himself. A child who has run a lemonade stand or biked to a friend's house has practiced the arithmetic of trust and the habit of consequence. None of this is in a textbook. All of it is education in the old sense of the word, the drawing-out of capacities, and it is education for a republic in which citizens must judge for themselves.

The Founders' world assumed this. Children worked, ranged, tended animals and carried messages. I am not suggesting we send twelve-year-olds to sea. I am saying that a society that systematically prevents its children from practicing responsibility will find itself with adults who never learned it. See The Trivium Explained, Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric for a Modern Child for another view of how a child's mind is formed, and A Family Playbook for a Childhood With Fewer Screens and More Freedom for the practical side at home.

It is also a matter of parental authority. The Supreme Court has recognized, in cases from Meyer v. Nebraska in 1923 and Pierce v. Society of Sisters in 1925 to Troxel v. Granville in 2000, that parents have a fundamental liberty interest in the care, custody and control of their children. Troxel's plurality said it was perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests the Court had recognized. A statute that lets an agency second-guess every ordinary parenting call, based on a passerby's discomfort, sits uneasily with that tradition. The state may step in where a child is genuinely at risk. It should not step in where a parent has simply decided, reasonably, that her ten-year-old can walk to the corner store.

Practical guidance for parents

I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice for any family's situation. What follows is general information, and any parent with a specific problem should consult a lawyer in her own state. With that said, a few general points are worth knowing.

• Know your state's law. Look up your state's definition of neglect and whether it has a reasonable-independence provision. The language is usually on the legislature's website or in your state's child welfare statute.
• Prepare the child. Teach the route, the rules and what to do if something goes wrong. A child who knows her address, a phone number and a trusted adult to ask is safer, and a parent who can describe that preparation is better placed if anyone asks.
• Match the activity to the child. The better statutes turn on maturity. A parent who judges honestly is the best protection a child has.
• Talk to neighbors. A neighborhood where people know one another is the best safeguard, and the best defense against a well-meaning stranger's call.
• If a caseworker calls, stay calm, be courteous, and know that you may ask what the allegation is and may consult a lawyer. Rules on what a caseworker may require differ by state.
• Support the legislation. If your state has not adopted a reasonable-independence law, contact your state legislators.

The case in brief

1. Neglect laws, drafted broadly around phrases like "may endanger," combined with low reporting thresholds, left ordinary childhood independence exposed to investigation.
2. Utah's 2018 law, the first of its kind, and Texas's 2021 narrowing, followed by other states, redefined neglect so that a mature child's independent activities are not neglect by themselves.
3. The better laws keep real neglect illegal; they preserve the requirement that needs be met and risks be reasonable, and they tie independence to the child's maturity.
4. Independence is part of an education for self-government, and parental authority over such decisions is rooted in a long line of Supreme Court cases.
5. Parents should know their state's law, prepare their children, and press their legislators to adopt reasonable-independence standards where none exist.

What you can do: Look up your state's definition of neglect on its legislature's website, and write your state representative to ask whether a reasonable-independence bill is on the table.