Congress Will Weigh an Overdue Declaration of ‘Childhood Independence’

How do you get more tots out and about on their own — and assure parents this won’t be mistaken for neglect?You pass a law saying that letting children play outside and have some unsupervised time is not only legal, it is great for them.Representatives Blake Moore, Republican of Utah, and Jennifer McClellan, Democrat of Virginia, are doing just that. On Tuesday they introduced the bipartisan Promoting Childhood Independence and Resilience Act in the House of Representatives.Its purpose is “to promote childhood independence” rather than threaten or investigate parents who give their tots some unsupervised time.“I grew up in the generation where your parents sent you out and you played in the neighborhood till the streetlights came on,” said Ms. McClellan. That wasn’t neglect — that was childhood.Hearing stories about parents investigated for letting their tots play outside or walk to the store motivated Mr. Moore to draft the bill. “We are way too far down a bad path, and we need to work as hard as we can, legislatively, to pull ourselves out from that.”In 2018, his state, Utah, became the first to pass what was then called the Free-Range Parenting bill.In 2023 Ms. McClellan was instrumental in getting Virginia to pass its own Reasonable Childhood Independence bill. To date, 13 states have done the same, usually with bipartisan sponsors, and usually with the help of Let Grow, the nonprofit I helm.The federal Promoting Childhood Independence and Resilience Act would have states make it clear that ordinary childhood activities like playing outside or even staying home alone a bit are good for tots, and not neglect. Neglect is when you put your child in obvious and serious danger — not anytime you take your eyes off them.Being allowed to walk home from the park, say, is not neglect. Yet in 2015, Rafi Meitiv, then 10, and his younger sister, 6, were doing just that. Child protective services was summoned to the Meitiv home. “They threatened multiple times to take us away,” Mr. Meitiv, now 21, recalls. He thought he’d never see his parents again.Eventually, the Meitivs were cleared. Yet over the years I’ve heard from parents across the country, accused of neglect simply for letting their children do things that tots have always done, before constant supervision became the social norm.The authorities’ rationale is often that unsupervised tots could easily get kidnapped. This is wildly off. As I stated in my 2025 TED Talk: If for some reason you WANTED your child to be kidnapped by a stranger, how long would you have to keep them outside, unsupervised, for this to be statistically likely to happen?Seven hundred fifty thousand years.And yet, in part due to that far-fetched fear, more than one-third of all children — and more than half of all African American children — will endure a child abuse investigation before age 18.“The brunt of investigations falls most heavily on lower-income people and persons of color,” notes Let Grow’s legal consultant, Diane Redleaf.The Promoting Childhood Independence and Resilience Act comes at a propitious time: Over the decades, children’s mental health has been tanking in tandem with their independence. They need some autonomy to thrive.An Indiana state representative, Victoria Garcia-Wilburn, is one mom who would love to see the law passed.When she moved into her suburban home, she was still unpacking boxes when she let her tots ride their bikes to the very quiet cul-de-sac. Yelled a neighbor, “‘You better watch it, or else I’ll call DCS on you.'”That incident led her to join a Republican Indiana state representative, Jake Teshka, to work with Let Grow to sponsor Indiana’s Reasonable Childhood Independence law this spring.After she told her story at the bill’s hearing, it passed unanimously.Now the Congress is considering a law like that. It’s thrilling. It’s freeing.And it’s about time.Creators.comCorrection: Jennifer McClellan is one of the representatives sponsoring the childhood independence legislation. An earlier version misstated her name.

Congress Will Weigh an Overdue Declaration of ‘Childhood Independence’

Congress Will Weigh an Overdue Declaration of ‘Childhood Independence’

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