Mom who was investigated for letting 6-year-old ride scooter solo speaks out
A Georgia mom is speaking out after child welfare services visited her and her husband after they let their 6-year-old ride a scooter solo from their Atlanta home to a nearby playground.
"It was a shock," Mallerie Shirley told "Good Morning America," recounting the incident.
Shirley said she and her husband Christopher Pleasants didn't think twice last November when their son asked them for permission to ride his new scooter to a playground by their home.
Shirley described her son as responsible and said they arranged for other parents to meet their child at the playground. Shirley and Pleasants' doorbell camera also recorded their 6-year-old leaving their home alone with his scooter.
"The playground is actually about three blocks away, maybe four blocks and it takes about two to four minutes to get there," Shirley said. "There were parents waiting for him on the other end to get to the playground and they were texting me when he arrived."
Shirley said that after the playground visit, her son told her he was stopped by a woman in a car while riding his scooter home, who asked him where his parents were.
Shirley said her son said he didn't answer the woman and continued home, but the woman followed him and alerted authorities.
Shirley said two days after the playground visit, she and Pleasants received a visit from child welfare services.
"We were told that this was an official investigation," Shirley said. "I remember thinking, 'Well, you know, this has to be a mistake. It has to be a mistake.'"
Shirley said she and her husband cooperated with the investigation and signed a safety plan in November that said they will "ensure [their] children are supervised at all times."
According to Shirley, she and her husband were told in September by the Fulton County Division of Family and Children Services that the agency had substantiated allegations of neglect.
She said they received a letter from the Georgia Department of Human Services this week, notifying them that after a review of the investigation, the department found the allegations were unsubstantiated.
In most states, child neglect laws are broadly defined. In Georgia, welfare laws depend on whether children are appropriately supervised, and the standard may be subjective.
Georgia's SB110 law clarifies that parents should not be investigated for letting a child "engage in one or more independent activities," unless a child is in obvious, imminent danger. Under the law, parents are legally protected to let their children walk, play or go to and from school alone, among other examples of "independent activity."
Shirley and Pleasants' lawyer, David DeLugas, said more training is needed for child welfare agencies and staff.
"What needs to happen is training of the child welfare people and law enforcement to make them understand they do not substitute their subjective views of parenting for what parents do every day," DeLugas said.
ABC News reached out to Fulton County DFCS and the Georgia Department of Human Services, but both agencies declined to comment about the case.
The American Academy of Pediatrics says in general, most children are not ready to handle emergency situations on their own until about the age of 11 or 12 but also acknowledges that some children under 11 may be more mature.
