Case Explained: In Georgia, Is It a Crime To Let Your Kid Walk Alone? – Legal Perspective

Brittany Patterson didn’t set out to inspire change in Georgia’s child welfare law. She just wanted to give her four kids the same freedoms she enjoyed growing up — the kind she felt would help them grow into confident, independent adults.

Her saga began last year, when the Fannin County mom’s then-10-year-old son was found walking about a mile from home to a nearby Dollar General. “Soren is very, very capable for his age, so I wasn’t too worried,” she told The Imprint.

Soren wasn’t hurt or lost. But a concerned passerby called the police. At that point, Patterson’s parenting philosophy — one she describes as rooted in trust of her children — landed her in handcuffs. Responding to the lapse in supervision, Fannin County officers arrested Patterson and took her to jail for reckless conduct, even as she protested, “Last time I checked, it wasn’t illegal for a kid to walk to the store.”

Media coverage of Patterson’s arrest and several others like it in Georgia has since spurred passage of a new state law providing parents with greater legal protections in instances like these. Senate Bill 110 — signed May 14 by Gov. Brian Kemp — changes state law so that it is not inherently neglectful or illegal to leave children unsupervised and raises the standard for when authorities should step in. 

When the law takes effect on July 1, a parent’s absence must pose a significant risk of harm to the child to be considered neglect. The law will apply to both criminal and child welfare cases. 

While Georgia parents seeking freedom to parent as they choose drove the legislation, it has implications for those more typically ensnared by neglect allegations in the child welfare system — low-income families with little voice or resources. For those parents, leaving kids unsupervised can be the only option.

“If you’re a single mom and you’re working two jobs to keep the electricity on, you’re going to let your kid come home with a latchkey,” said Lenore Skenazy, president of the national nonprofit Let Grow. “To me, that’s not neglect. We’re talking about regular life.”

Let Grow, which grew out of the “free-range” parenting movement to promote childhood independence, backed the bill and similar legislation in other states.

Skenazy said such laws don’t give parents the green light to be careless.

“This is about giving parents back their decision-making power,” she said. “If you don’t think something is safe enough, don’t send your kid to do it. But if you do — and it’s not obviously and seriously dangerous — then the state shouldn’t be stepping in.”

Patterson faced up to a year in jail for leaving Soren alone. And while the charges were dropped in February and she never lost custody of her children, her ordeal has yet to end. The state could still choose to prosecute the case until the statute of limitations expires in late 2026, according to her attorney. The Fannin County District Attorney’s Office did not respond to The Imprint’s requests for comment.

Soren wasn’t hurt or lost. But a concerned passerby called the police. At that point, Patterson’s parenting philosophy — one she describes as rooted in trust of her children — landed her in handcuffs.

Patterson is pleased the state has taken some action and hopes other families in Georgia won’t face similar ordeals. She also supported a different Georgia bill that would have required 911 dispatchers to ask specific questions about a lone child’s safety before dispatching officers.  

“I just want all parents to understand that it is their right to raise their children how they see fit,” she said. “You know your child better than anybody.”

For the first time, Georgia’s SB110 spells out the kind of unsupervised activities that children can engage in without their parents being accused of neglect. This includes “playing indoors or outdoors alone or with other children; walking to or from school; running errands; traveling to local commercial or recreational facilities” and “remaining for no longer than 15 minutes in a vehicle, provided that the temperature inside the vehicle is not and will not become dangerously hot or cold.”

The law also makes it clearer that a child must be in “imminent risk” of harm, and parents must show “blatant disregard” for that risk, to meet the standard of neglect. 

It’s just “common sense” to attorney Diane Redleaf, an expert in family law who works as a legal consultant for Let Grow.

“Georgia’s law is quite strong because it takes on the question of risk,” she said. “Every time you take your eyes off your kids, that is not neglect. A lot of parents are getting swept into the system for reasons that are not really a threat to the child’s health or safety.”

The law also shifts the definition of neglect from a parent’s failure to provide “proper” care to “necessary” care. 

“If the whole culture is starting to think that anytime a child is unsupervised, they’re automatically in danger, then of course, the authorities would think the same.”

— Lenore Skenazy, Let Grow

Darice Good, a Georgia attorney who represents parents accused of child abuse and neglect, called these changes “huge.” That small tweak in wording brings much-needed clarity to what actually qualifies as neglect, she said. 

“What’s proper to me may not be proper to you,” Good said. “But if we use the word ‘necessary,’ then we’re looking at a child’s basic needs, like food in the belly, clothes on the back, a roof over the head.”

Nationally, the vast majority of reports made to child welfare authorities involve allegations of neglect, with families living in poverty, particularly Native American and Black families, disproportionately represented. National studies show children from low socio-economic households are seven times more likely to have a confirmed case of neglect compared to those from more affluent families.

That’s why Skenazy said she believes SB110 and similar laws are important for everyone, but especially lower-income parents doing their best under difficult circumstances. 

Skenazy points to the 2014 case of Debra Harrell in South Carolina, who was arrested after letting her 9-year-old daughter play alone in a nearby park while she worked at McDonald’s. She couldn’t afford child care.  

A few decades ago, it wasn’t so unusual to find kids roaming on their own. For many, it was just part of the daily routine with working parents, with the term “latchkey kid” used to describe children who came home from school to an empty house. 

But the rise of 24/7 media coverage, sensational child abduction stories and “stranger danger” narratives in the 1980s began shaping a different kind of parenting culture, Skenazy said.  

“It was terrifying and heartbreaking, but a little misleading,” Skenazy said. “If the whole culture is starting to think that anytime a child is unsupervised, they’re automatically in danger, then of course, the authorities would think the same.”

Earlier this year, state lawmakers heard from a child’s perspective about the issue.

Jackson Widner told a state Senate panel that beginning in 2018 when he was 7, his solo walks to the local grocery and comic book store landed him in the back of patrol cars. Reports that he and his siblings had been left alone also resulted in repeated interviews with the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services. 

“Because of these experiences, I learned to see police officers as a threat,” said the then-13-year-old. “I should have the right to be cared for by parents who have the freedom to raise me in the way they believe is best.”

Jackson’s mother, Beth Widner, never understood what was exactly wrong with how she was raising her kids. There didn’t seem to be consensus among authorities either. 

One police officer told the family that, “Back in the day you could just let your kids go play, but we can’t do that anymore.” Yet a child welfare caseworker said she would have let her own children do the same thing after walking the same path Widner’s kids took.

Nothing ever came from the interactions with authorities, she said, no court proceedings, no criminal charges or CPS removals. But it was one of the reasons the family decided to move out of Canton, a small North Georgia suburb with a population of roughly 40,000 people. 

Widner said her daughter in particular became anxious about what the situation could mean for her and her siblings. 

“Because she understood the threat of DFCS,” she said. “She understood the power that they had was to remove her from her home. We didn’t feel particularly like it was a good place to continue to have the kids.”

Those who pushed for the legislation acknowledge that one bill can’t change everything overnight. Advocates say law enforcement officers and child welfare workers need to be educated on the new standards to avoid overly punitive responses. 

Georgia Department of Family and Children Services indicated it was training its caseworkers on the new law but couldn’t provide detail to The Imprint on what that will look like or when it will begin. 

Well-meaning bystanders may still be quick to call police when they spot a child alone. Law enforcement and child welfare workers may still respond. But advocates like Skenazy believe there is now a stronger legal framework in place to prevent those situations from escalating into unnecessary criminal charges or child removals. 

“You can’t take human judgment out of this, and I don’t think we should,” she said. “This law helps us put the brakes on the cases that turned out to be nothing. Maybe we don’t have to investigate them all.”