Virginia mom on child abuse registry after 5-year-old walked alone: ‘I didn’t send him to play at the pond’

A Virginia mother was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor after her 5-year-old son was stopped by security while walking alone through their gated community, records show.

Karyann Parkinson lives in the Virginia gated community where the incident took place.

Her 5-year-old son, Sam, had walked along a familiar neighborhood path past a pond to collect goose feathers, Parkinson said.

A security guard encountered the boy along the route and brought him home, according to the mother.

Police and Child Protective Services subsequently became involved in the matter.

Parkinson was eight months pregnant at the time the agencies intervened.

She was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a first-degree misdemeanor, records show.

Parkinson had her six-month jail sentence suspended. But the criminal charge remains, records show.

She was also placed on Virginia’s Child Abuse and Neglect Central Registry for seven years, records show.

The placement bars Parkinson from volunteering in Sam’s classroom until he enters sixth grade, she told Fox News.

Being placed on the registry for so long has been the most difficult part of the ordeal, Parkinson said.

Parkinson said she understands the shock people feel hearing about a child alone near a body of water, but sought to clarify what happened.

“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,’” Parkinson said. “And I think if I saw that in isolation, I’d probably be alarmed, too.”

“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.

“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.

Her son was “pretty shaken up” after the incident, the mother said.

He has since recovered from the encounter, according to Parkinson.

“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?’” she said.

“Now it’s just a blip on his radar. It’s not really a part of his life anymore,” she added.

Parkinson is now appealing the criminal charge and her seven-year placement on the state’s abuse and neglect registry.