By Brian Geraghty

Introduction

In 1969, nearly half of American students in grades K-8 walked or biked to school.[1] By 2017, that number had fallen below 10%.[2] In half a century, the geography of childhood has collapsed—from the neighborhood to the backyard to the living room—while the parental gaze has expanded to fill the void.

This contraction of children’s mobility reflects more than lifestyle change. It signals a deeper shift in how society regulates risk and autonomy. As parental caution hardened into policy, states began to conflate child independence with endangerment. Ordinary childhood acts—walking to a park, waiting in a car, staying home alone briefly—sometimes drew Child Protective Services’ (CPS) scrutiny. Against this backdrop, “free-range parenting” laws—often styled Reasonable Childhood Independence acts—aim to restore balance by clarifying that age-appropriate independence is not neglect.

Free-range parenting laws are a positive development that should be encouraged. Yet their promise remains unevenly realized. Some states, like Utah and Colorado, enacted clear safe-harbor provisions that protect parents who permit age-appropriate independence. Others, however, have stumbled. New Hampshire’s 2025 legislative effort offers a revealing case study of how good intentions can yield bad drafting. Lawmakers and agencies must also recognize that unnecessary intervention can worsen family trauma and that conflating poverty with neglect perpetuates inequity.

Why this debate matters now

Over the last generation, childhood freedom has narrowed. Parents supervise more than ever; kids do less on their own. This shift coincides with rising youth anxiety and depression—and with exhausted parents.[3] As some observers recently noted, “[k]ids have been strapped into the back seat of their lives—dropped off, picked up, and overhelped,” while parental stress climbs.[4]

Research links “helicopter” parenting to poorer mental health. A 2022 systematic review found a clear positive relationship between intensive parenting and symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescents and young adults.[5] The American Psychological Association likewise reported that over-controlling parenting leaves children less able to handle life’s challenges.[6]

Meanwhile, programs that gently restore children’s independence are showing promise. For example, more than 1,000 schools nationwide use Let Grow’s Play Clubs and Experience assignments.[7] These opportunities for free play and do-it-yourself tasks correlate with resilience and academic gains.[8] In other words, when adults step back, kids often step up.[9] They also occasionally step in puddles—then figure out how to dry their socks. That is part of the curriculum.[10]

Courts have long cautioned against undue intrusion into parental judgment,[11] and scholars have warned that overbroad neglect statutes risk enshrining overprotective norms.[12] Indeed, vague neglect statutes plus a hair-trigger “see something, say something” culture create a perfect storm in which ordinary independence draws legal scrutiny.[13] The result is not just intrusive; it is inequitable. According to Professor David Pimentel, helicopter parenting is a luxury of the affluent, while risk-averse norms, translated into law, effectively criminalize poverty.[14]

What “free-range” laws do

Beginning with Utah in 2018, several states have clarified that age-appropriate independence is not neglect. Utah’s first-in-the-nation law expressly excludes from “neglect” activities like walking or biking to school, going to and from a nearby store or park, playing outdoors, or staying home for a reasonable time, provided the child’s “basic needs are met” and the child “is of sufficient age and maturity to avoid . . . unreasonable risk of harm.”[15] The statute reframes the legal baseline away from a slippery “possible risk” standard and toward a “reasonable parent” lens tied to maturity and context.[16]

 Since 2018, Colorado, Connecticut, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia have enacted similar reforms.[17] Colorado’s law states “[a] child is not neglected when allowed to participate in independent activities that a reasonable and prudent parent . . . would consider safe given the child’s maturity, condition, and abilities . . . .”[18] Oklahoma adopted a similar “reasonable and prudent parent” standard.[19] Texas tightened its neglect definition to bar child removal solely because a parent allowed appropriate, independent activities.[20]

To be clear, these laws do not green-light recklessness. Utah’s carve-out, for instance, still permits agency involvement if a child’s basic needs are unmet or the activity is plainly inappropriate for that child’s age and maturity.[21] Properly drafted, the statutes act as safe harbors against reflexive investigations—not as shields for genuine endangerment.

New Hampshire: A cautionary moment

New Hampshire’s 2025 House Bill 553 moved in the opposite direction.[22] As introduced, it would have replaced “safety” with “physical, emotional or psychological welfare” in the child-abuse definition, broadening grounds for investigation into nearly any claim of harm.[23] Critics—including child-welfare reformers—warned the bill risked turning New Hampshire’s Division for Children, Youth, and Families into the “well-being” police.[24] The legislature ultimately tabled the bill in March 2025.[25]

This incident matters because New Hampshire already removes children from their homes at high rates and places an unusually large number in institutional settings.[26] Reports indicate the Granite State “removes children from their families at a rate nearly double the national average.”[27] Youth who enter foster care in New Hampshire are three times more likely as the national average to be placed in group homes or similar facilities.[28] Expanding vague statutory triggers for intervention would widen the front door for unnecessary cases while doing little to fix real dangers.

If the policy goal is earlier intervention in genuine abuse, states should invest in training and capacity, not broaden definitions that multiply false positives. As Let Grow co-founder Lenore Skenazy observed in writing about HB 553, CPS already investigates 37% of children—and 53% of Black children—before adulthood.[29] Sweeping more families into the net strains limited resources and heightens inequities.

Benefits of “reasonable independence”

The legal safe harbors inherent in free-range parenting laws offer three main benefits: healthier development, parental clarity, and equity. First, independence builds competence. The law should not punish parents for ordinary childhood rites of passage, such as walking to a friend’s house, running errands, or playing outside.[30] Programs like Let Grow’s Play Club, run by schools with light-touch adult presence, aim to restore unstructured, child-led play that fosters resilience, social problem-solving, and confidence.[31] Research shows over-control correlates with anxiety and depression while autonomy and free play support well-being.[32]

 Second, parents also deserve knowable rules.[33] Enumerating non-neglectful activities grounds casework in a reasonable parent standard and resists the drift toward zero-risk parenting as the legal floor.[34] Utah’s statutory text is a good model.[35]

Third, when law equates poverty with neglect, poor families are over-surveilled and over-removed.[36] As Pimentel notes, punishing families for “parenting while impoverished” is no way to protect children.[37] The free-range reforms can help prevent CPS from labeling ordinary child independence—often an economic necessity—as maltreatment.

Why the Let Grow approach belongs in policy

Skenazy’s compelling and entertaining book, Free-Range Kids, popularized the case for trust and child autonomy.[38] Her nonprofit, Let Grow, pairs that message with practical tools: Play Clubs, homework-style experience assignments, and legislative advocacy for Reasonable Childhood Independence statutes.[39] Kids have responded not just with better “grit,” but often with joy: “I [learned] that I am brave and can go shop by myself,” one young participant wrote.[40]

Families, schools, libraries, and cities are experimenting with screen-free Play Clubs and independence challenges.[41] Kids say they want more in-person, unsupervised time.[42] This cultural shift could help make legal change stick. To offer an extended metaphor: Think of the law as removing roadblocks—and Let Grow as building sidewalks back to the playground.

Guardrails for New Hampshire—and nationwide

Drawing on Utah, Colorado, and Texas, a sound New Hampshire free-range statute would:

1. Codify a “reasonable parent” safe harbor. Explicitly list age-appropriate, independent activities that are not neglect when basic needs are met and risks are reasonable.[43]
2. Tighten the neglect definition. Follow Texas by requiring “blatant disregard” that results in harm or an immediate danger to physical health or safety; bar removal solely because a parent allowed age-appropriate independence.[44]
3. Resist vague “well-being” expansions. Do not broaden abuse/neglect to open-ended “psychological welfare”—the HB-553 detour—without clear limiting standards and evidence-based triggers.[45]
4. Decouple poverty from neglect. Clarify that conditions solely related to economic hardship (e.g., a parent working a shift, a child walking home) are not neglect; expand concrete supports (child care, transit, after-school programs) so safety does not depend on income.
5. Invest in training and oversight. Teach caseworkers and mandatory reporters the new standard, and audit investigations and placements, especially congregate care.
6. Partner with schools and communities. Encourage Let Grow-style programs to normalize age-appropriate independence as a community value, not just a private choice.

Conclusion

Free-range laws are sensible course corrections. They restore space for ordinary childhood, give parents clearer rules, and rebalance agency resources toward real danger. But statutes alone are not enough. If New Hampshire and other states want fewer tragedies—and fewer traumatic, unnecessary removals—they must pair legal safe harbors with cultural change and concrete support for families. In other words: open the front door, yes—but also make sure there is a neighborhood outside it.

 

[1] Walking, Biking, and Rolling to School: Trends, Issues and Evidence, Nat’l Ctr. for Safe Routes to Sch. 1, 1 (2022), https://www.walkbiketoschool.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Trends-and-Research-Oct22.pdf.

[2] Eleftheria Kontou et al., U.S. active school travel in 2017: Prevalence and correlates, 17 Preventive Med. Reps., Mar. 2020, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335519301950.

[3] Lenore Skenazy, Zach Rausch & Jonathan Haidt, What Kids Told Us About How to Get Them Off Their Phones, The Atlantic (Aug. 4, 2025), https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/08/kids-smartphones-play-freedom/683742/.

[4] Id.

[5] Julia Schønning Vigdal & Kolbjørn Kallesten Brønnick, A Systematic Review of “Helicopter Parenting” and Its Relationship with Anxiety and Depression, 13 Frontiers Psych. 872981 (2022).

[6] Press Release, American Psychological Association, Helicopter Parenting May Negatively Affect Children’s Emotional Well-Being, Behavior (June 18, 2018), https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2018/06/helicopter-parenting.

[7] Skenazy et al., supra note 3.

[8] Annual Review 2019–2020, Let Grow 1, 29 (2018), https://letgrow.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Annual-Report-2019-LetGrow.pdf.

[9] Samuel J. Abrams, The Joy of Free-Range Kids, Am. Enter. Inst. (Aug. 25, 2025), https://www.aei.org/society-and-culture/the-joy-of-free-range-kids/.

[10] The Let Grow Experience, Let Grow, https://letgrow.org/program/experience (last visited Oct. 18, 2025).

[11] See, e.g., Troxell v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 66, 68 (2000) (emphasizing “the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children,” and warning states against injecting themselves “into the private realm of the family” absent clear necessity).

[12] See David Pimentel, Protecting the Free-Range Kid: Recalibrating Parents’ Rights and the Best Interest of the Child, 38 Cardozo L. Rev. 1, 57 (2016) (observing that by codifying overprotective norms, the law pressures all parents to conform, lest they be accused of neglect).

[13] See David Pimentel, Criminal Child Neglect and the “Free Range Kid”: Is Overprotective Parenting the New Standard of Care?, 2012 Utah L. Rev. 947, 949 (warning that the trend toward overprotective parenting “may be reinforced and exacerbated by the fear of criminal liability”).

[14] Pimentel, supra note 12, at 4 (discussing challenges faced by parents of limited means).

[15] Utah Code Ann. § 80-1-102(58)(b)(iv)(A)–(F) (LexisNexis 2025).

[16] Fenja R. Schick-Malone, Note, Letting Kids Run Wild: Free-Range Parenting and the (De)Regulation of Child Protective Services, 81 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 387, 415 (2024).

[17] Id. at 416.

[18] Colo. Rev. Stat. § 19-1-103(100)(b) (2025).

[19] Okla. Stat tit. 10A, § 1-1-105(49)(b) (2025).

[20] Tex. Fam. Code Ann. § 261.001(4)(B)(ii) (West 2025).

[21] Utah Code Ann. § 80-1-102(58)(b)(iv) (LexisNexis 2025).

[22] H.B. 553, 169th Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (N.H. 2025).

[23] Id. at III.A.

[24] Id.

[25] William Skipworth, New Hampshire House Puts the Brakes on Child Abuse Bill, Seeking to Return to It Next Year, N.H. Bull. (Mar. 27, 2025), https://newhampshirebulletin.com/briefs/new-hampshire-house-puts-the-brakes-on-child-abuse-bill-seeking-to-return-to-it-next-year/.

[26] Michaela Towfighi, NH’s Foster Care System Often Sends Kids Far From Home. The Consequences Can Be Long Lasting, NHPR (Mar. 24, 2025), https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2025-03-24/new-hampshire-foster-care-residential-placement-treatment-home-dcyf-atrisk-youth.

[27] Skenazy, supra note 3.

[28] Towfighi, supra note 25.

[29] Skenazy, supra note 3.

[30] Laura Boone, Free-Range Parenting, EBSCO Info. Servs. (2025), https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/social-sciences-and-humanities/free-range-parenting.

[31] Abrams, supra note 9.

[32] Boone, supra note 29.

[33] David Pimentel, Comment, Protecting Childhood Independence and the Families Who Embrace It, 81 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 439, 442 (2024) (explaining how statutory clarification gives parents certainty and prevents arbitrary enforcement).

[34] Id. at 440.

[35] Boone, supra note 29 (explaining the statutory language and legislative intent behind Utah Code Ann. § 80-1-102(58)(b)(iv)).

[36] Pimentel, supra note 12, at 13.

[37] Id.

[38] Lenore Skenazy, Free-Range Kids: How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow 3 (2nd ed. 2021).

[39] Let Grow, https://letgrow.org/ (last visited Oct. 18, 2025).

[40] Skenazy et al., supra note 3.

[41] Id.

[42] Id.

[43] See, e.g., Utah Code Ann. § 80-1-102(58)(b)(iv)(A)–(F) (LexisNexis 2025).

[44] Tex. Fam. Code Ann. § 261.001(4) (West 2025).

[45] Skenazy, supra note 3.