Free-Range Parenting Law In Utah Nation’s First

SALT LAKE CITY, UT — Utah will become the first state in the country to legalize “free-range parenting,” a loose term that describes parents who want their kids to learn to function independently as they grow up, under a bill that takes effect May 8.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed the legislation earlier this month. Utah lawmakers said the legislation stems from child-abuse investigations in several states, including the temporary loss of parental rights by some, after child-welfare authorities received reports of children walking to school alone or playing unsupervised in parks.

Under the new law, parents who allow children to engage in age-appropriate activities independently will no longer be considered neglectful. The code allows a child “whose basic needs are met and who is of sufficient age and maturity to avoid harm or unreasonable risk of harm" to travel alone to and from school or recreational facilities.

The bill also allows parents and guardians “legitimately practicing religious beliefs” to “not provide specified medical treatment for a child.”

No complaints have been registered in Utah, but in a Silver Spring, Maryland, case that ignited a firestorm of criticism, a free-range parenting couple were threatened with arrest for allowing their children to walk home by themselves from a neighborhood park. They described five years of “legal purgatory” after the Montgomery County child-welfare agency said in 2015 that it would keep a file on the family for half a decade. If they allow their kids to walk unattended, they could face prosecution.

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Republican Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, who sponsored the Utah bill, said giving kids a chance to spread their wings helps prepare them for the future, but others worried it could be used as a defense in child-abuse cases.

“I feel strongly about the issue because we have become so over-the-top when ‘protecting’ children that we are refusing to let them learn the lessons of self-reliance and problem-solving that they will need to be successful as adults” Fillmore told Yahoo Lifestyle.

“America’s Worst Mom,” Lenore Skenazy, a New York City mother of two who wrote in a 2008 New York Sun blog post about allowing her 9-year-old son to ride the subway alone, praised the Utah bill on her Free Range Kids website.

“Friends, it has happened. We have changed the course of parenting — and law,” Skenazy wrote. “Loving moms and dads in Utah do not have to worry that they will be arrested or investigated simply for trusting their kids to walk to school, play outside, go to the park. Only 49 states to go!”

Last year, Arkansas legislators rejected a free-range parenting law. It passed the Senate, but was stopped in the House.

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