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Virginia mom placed on child abuse registry for 7 years after letting 5-year-old walk alone
By Max Bacall
Published September 06, 2026
A Virginia mom 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.
Karyann Parkinson said 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.
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.
Karyann Parkinson appears with some of her children in this family photo provided to Fox News. (Karyann Parkinson)
She was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a first-degree misdemeanor, and was also placed on Virginia's Child Abuse and Neglect Central Registry for seven years.
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Parkinson said she understands the shock people feel hearing about a child alone near a body of water, but sought to clarify what happened that day.
Karyann Parkinson speaks with authorities in their gated community after her 5-year-old son, Samuel, was brought home when he was found out for a walk by himself. (Karyann Parkinson)
"I didn't send him to play at the pond," she 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."
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"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.
The most difficult part for Parkinson is being on the Child Protective Services registry for so long, she told Fox News. That means she won't be able to volunteer in Sam's classroom until he enters sixth grade.
"We need to stop parenting from a place of fear and a place, you know, of obsessing over the unknown or some boogeyman who's going to jump out from behind a bush," Parkinson said.
She said 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,'" Parkinson said. "He would ask me, 'Mom, am I allowed to ride my bike to swim practice? Am I allowed to ride my back to the tennis courts?'"
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"Now it's just a blip on his radar. It's not really a part of his life anymore," she added.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/virginia-mom-placed-child-abuse-registry-7-years-letting-5-year-old-walk-alone