Free-Range Parents may recall 2025 as a year that brought them arrests, investigations, and solid proof that helicopters are still swarming over childhood.

Was it all that bad? Here are the –

THE 10 WORST FREE-RANGE KIDS PARENTING STORIES OF 2025:

Survey Finds Most Kids Leading Insanely Boring Life

A Harris Poll of kids 8-12 discovered that most aren’t allowed to be out in public without an adult. Most have “rarely” or “never” walked around their own neighborhood without supervision. And 71% have not used a sharp knife. Gee, I wonder why they’re online all the time? Maybe because that’s where they can cut their own (virutal) meat?

Separate Survey Finds Most Adults Believe Insanely Wrong Stranger-Danger Stats

Another Harris Poll asked parents what they thought would happen if two 10-year-olds were at the park together, unsupervised. Literally 50% thought they were likely to get abducted. As I explain in my TED Talk, that calculation is off by about 99.99999999999999%.

Depressed Yet? Another Survey Tops THOSE Surveys

A University of Michigan/ CS Mott Children’s Hospital poll asked parents how much freedom they give their teens on vacation. Vacation – as in: a time when everyone’s supposed to have fun. Teens – as in: above age 12. Most of the parents said they wouldn’t let their teens walk a short distance to a café – or even to a different exhibit at a museum. (Folks: Those dinosaurs are DEAD.) A majority won’t even let their teens stay in the hotel room while they go to breakfast…elsewhere in the hotel.

Which perhaps explains things like this:

School District Says 7-Year-Old Can’t Walk 4 Houses Home

Michigan mom Tali Smith’s son was allowed to walk home from the bus stop when he was a kindergartener. But this year the school is newly enforcing a rule that says an adult must escort all kindergartners and first graders home – no matter how close. The school blames the “significant liability the district assumes whenever we are transporting students.” The mom offered to sign a waiver, but nope. Grab a parka   and go freeze at the bus stop.

Mom Placed on Child Abuse Registry for Letting 13-Year-Old Babysit

Testifying on behalf of Pennsylvania’s “Reasonable Childhood Independence” bill, Community Legal Services attorney Mariel Mussack told the tale of health care aide “Alice” (a pseudonym). When Alice  needed to run an errand, she had her 13-year-old brother babysit her nearly one-year-old. For this, she was placed on the state’s child abuse registry. Try getting a home health care job with THAT on your record.

Aspen Police Department Criminalizes Fun

If kids ride their bike on the sidewalk, or if two kids ride on a bike together, or if – god forbid – two kids ride a bike together on the sidewalk, they could end up with “a ticket or a trip to the emergency room” warned a Facebook post by Colorado’s Aspen Police Department. As one quipster commented underneath: “Tell me you don’t have real crimes in Aspen without telling me you don’t have real crimes.”

Parents Jailed Because Driver Hit Their Kid

The saddest story of this year took place in Gastonia, NC, where parents Sameule and Jessica Jenkins let their sons, 10 and 7, walk home from the grocery. Legend, the 7-year-old, darted into the street, was hit by a car, and died. The parents were jailed for three weeks on $1.5 million bail each. They are infinitely grateful to a city councilwoman who managed to get them furloughed just in time to kiss their son goodbye before his casket was closed. Then they were returned to jail.

Airport Human-Trafficking Posters Hint at Preppy Slavery

Posters at U.S. airports featuring what look like LL Bean models are telling travelers that human trafficking is “happening in our community.” And yet, says sex worker rights advocate Kaytlin Bailey,  “We’re not having a problem with white middle-class kids disappearing from soccer games. That’s just not a thing that is happening.” White slavery panic? That IS happening.

Dad Plays Catch with Son, 14, At Park. Cops Are Called

Adam Washington was tossing a football with his 14-year-old at a park in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, while his wife pushed their toddler on the swings. Two Lower Merion Township Police cars pulled up. The cops had gotten a report of “two men” playing catch. “Eventually they told me that it’s not the ball that’s the problem,” Washington told Philadelphia Magazine. “It’s that only kids up to age five are supposed to play in the park. In other words, I’m supposedly not allowed to hang out in the park with my family, since one of my kids is past the age limit.” The family that plays together…gets arrested together.

Boy, 5, Walks to Chick-Fil-A Alone. Police Return Him Home and Don’t Arrest Parents.

Okay, okay – this is GOOD news, right?

Only if you think it should be national news when a kid does something on his own and the parents aren’t charged with neglect.

The REAL Good News?

With the help of Let Grow, three more states passed Reasonable Childhood Independence laws this year, bringing the total to 11. Now parents in Florida, Georgia and Missouri can let their kids walk to the Chick-Fil-A – or heck, home from the bus stop – without this being mistaken for neglect!

(So long as they don’t bike on Aspen’s sidewalks.)