Georgia arrest puts spotlight on ‘free-range’ parenting again

Last month, a mom in Georgia was at a doctor’s appointment with her oldest son when she received a phone call from the police. Brittany Patterson was told that her 10-year-old son, Soren, had walked to the Dollar General store located in Mineral Bluff, a town less than a mile away from the family’s home. A passer-by noticed the boy walking alone, stopped to ask if he was OK, and after learning that he was, called the police. After picking up the boy, the police dropped him off at home. The incident was reported in multiple outlets, including Business Insider where Patterson shared her account of what happened.
Later, at home, Patterson reprimanded Soren for leaving the house without telling his grandfather, who lives with the family, but she didn’t think Soren was in danger walking alone: Mineral Bluff is a small rural town with a population of about 370 people and quiet roads with speed limits between 25-35 mph. Patterson’s kids typically roam free in the woods surrounding their property, where other family members also live nearby.
But later that evening, Patterson was startled to see police officers arrive at her doorstep. The officer asked her to turn around, informing her she was under arrest. “What am I under arrest for?” Patterson asks in the police body camera footage. “For reckless endangerment,” an officer replied (the official charge is “reckless conduct”). The officer proceeded to handcuff Patterson in front of her children and take her into custody.
The mother of four now faces criminal charges that could lead to a fine of up to $1,000 or a year in jail. “This is not right. I did nothing wrong and I’m going to fight for that,” she told NBC News.
The incident spurred outrage on social media and spotlighted an age-old parenting dilemma: How should parents nurture independence and emotional resilience in their children while also keeping them safe?
Despite the growing consensus that “helicopter,” or overprotective parenting, often backfires, the Georgia case underscores society’s ongoing struggle to trust children to navigate the world — including something as simple as walking alone — without micromanaging their every move.
“Parents have never been more involved in their kids’ lives, and these kids have never been more depressed and anxious,” Jim Dalrymple wrote for the Deseret News last year. Research has shown the link between excessive parental involvement and lack of independent activity, and the decline in kids’ mental well-being. This growing skepticism has fueled calls for a cultural shift toward encouraging greater independence to help kids develop the emotional and cognitive tools necessary to thrive in an unpredictable world.
Yet straddling the line between fostering a child’s independence and ensuring their safety can be challenging, and the balance is shaped by deeply ingrained cultural norms. Independence and safety often seem like conflicting concepts, said Camilo Ortiz, a professor of clinical psychology at Long Island University and practicing psychologist, specializing in child anxiety. “In order to cultivate resilience in kids, they need to do difficult things,” Ortiz said. “And those difficult things can involve danger and actually should involve some degree of danger.”
He advises parents to expose their children to what he calls “4 Ds”: discomfort, distress, disappointment and danger. Being exposed to uncomfortable emotions will build children’s self worth and resilience: “You only feel better about yourself when you know that you can do difficult things.” A 10-year-old walking a mile in a generally safe place is a good example of something that’s not danger-free, yet exposes the child to a reasonable amount of danger and has benefits, Ortiz said.
In his practice, Ortiz applies “independence therapy” to treat anxiety in children. This involves exposing the child to “daily doses of independence” like walking home alone, riding a bike to a park, going to a pizza place and paying for the food, starting a business at school, painting a wall at home or cooking a meal – all without close supervision of a parent. With the exposure to a reasonable level of danger, he observes, the child’s anxiety diminishes.
But even when parents embrace a more free-range approach, how can they implement it without appearing to endanger their child or risking punishment for their choices?
Cultural norms of what’s safe and normal for a child may differ from one community, and country, to another, said Alexandra Stratyner, a New York-based psychologist who works with families and young adults. “It’s reasonable to expect that it’s safe for your child to go out and do certain things that feel developmentally appropriate to their age,” she said. “In other communities, that may not be the norm.” Parents have to consider the safety of the community and what level of independence may be developmentally appropriate for their child. Stratyner recommends that parents reach out to professionals — pediatricians, educators and counselors in children’s schools— for help in answering these questions.
Knowing what the norms are in the community and educating the child on how to explain what they’re doing out and about alone can be the starting point, Stratyner said. “If you feel that your child is old enough developmentally to be doing things independently, they should also be in a place where you can have a conversation with them about how to navigate their independent encounters out in the world with adults who might have questions for them,” Stratyner said.
To address what are often well-meaning concerns from strangers, Ortiz gives kids ID badges that display parental permission for independent activities.
“It’s up to parents to decide when to give their kids some independence. And it’s up to the government to swoop in only when kids are in grave danger. Not anytime they walk to the dollar store,” wrote Lenore Skenazy in a post for Let Grow, the nonprofit she co-founded to support parents giving kids more independence and free play.
Ortiz proposes reframing the way that parents and communities assess benefits and risks of activities like letting a child venture out to a store alone. “If I don’t allow it, that has its own kind of risk — kids are less mature and less capable; they have worse social skills,” he said. When viewing lack of independence as a risk, keeping kids from solitary, independent activities no longer seems like a straightforward choice.
It comes down to teaching kids how to make good judgments, whether it’s regarding safety or navigating conversations with adults. Stratyner said: “Kids who can do that become adults who can do that.”
Modern parenting already faces immense challenges in resisting unhealthy cultural norms, Ortiz noted. Adding legal barriers or the fear of legal consequences further exacerbates the problem, discouraging the efforts that support children’s development. And calling law enforcement when a child is not in imminent risk can potentially lead to even more significant consequences that could harm the entire family. “Taking a completely normal developmental experience and criminalizing it is a horrible precedent,” Ortiz said.
The police, according to news reports, expressed concerns about Soren being kidnapped or getting hit by a car. Yet nobody else on social media seemed to share their concerns; the public conversation around the incident has been dominated by overwhelming support for Patterson.
Patterson has declined to sign a “safety plan” proposed by a child welfare case manager. The plan included placing a GPS tracker on Soren’s phone and assigning a “safety person” to supervise her children whenever she left the house. “But I feel it’s more important to stand up for what we believe in,” she told Business Insider.
Supported by the nonprofit ParentsUSA, Patterson is disputing the charges, arguing that she has a right to raise her children without undue government interference. The organization has raised more than $60,000 through GoFundMe for her legal defense.