In an age maligned for the rise of overbearing helicopter parents, a backlash is taking root. Free-range parenting advocates believe that giving kids the freedom to explore on their own builds self-confidence, autonomy, and decision-making skills.  They point out that crime rates are lower than they’ve ever been and it’s never been safer to give children a longer leash; we simply hear about more incidents because of nonstop, 24-7 news cycles.

Of course, there are others who don’t share this philosophy, as one Montana mother found out when she let her 12-year-old daughter and her daughter’s friend supervise her 8-, 7-, and 3-year-old at the local mall. Bridget Kevane wrote about the experience on the website of “Brain, Child” magazine:

The plan was for the kids to have lunch and walk around a bit. I told the older girls the rules. They could not leave the younger kids unsupervised. They could not make a ruckus. They had to behave. Olivia, the three-year-old, had to stay in her stroller. When I called my husband and the other mother to let them know the plan, there was no hesitation on their part. My husband was at his office down the street from the mall, less than five minutes away. I would be at home with my cell phone, and my daughter had her cell phone in case they wanted to be picked up early.

Kevane outlined several factors that went into her decision to leave the children at the mall. Her Montana town is very safe, she said, and the mall is known as a family-friendly destination. The 12-year-old and her friend had taken a babysitting class and had experience watching other people’s kids. And the mother herself was raised in Puerto Rico, “where we were frequently left to our own devices, with the older children often left in charge of the younger ones.”

After just an hour, though, the local police called. Kevane and her husband raced to the mall, where her children were waiting in the security office. It turns out that the 12-year-old and her friend left the three younger children alone in Macy’s while they tried on some clothes nearby. Macy’s employees called mall security after spotting the younger children alone, and mall security called the local police:

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One [officer] told me that what I had done was completely unacceptable in his opinion and that he was going to arrest me for endangering the welfare of my children. I asked him if there was a mall age limit that I was not aware of. He told me to be quiet. I tried to explain to him that I had faith in my daughter’s skills and in the safety of the mall, and that I was not an endangering parent. As I tried to keep talking, desperate to clear up what was obviously nothing more than a huge misunderstanding, he warned me that if I “went crazy” on him, he would handcuff me right in front of the children and take me away to jail for the night. He said he had called child services already.

Kevane ultimately was charged with child endangerment. The case dragged on for a year, and she eventually accepted a deferred prosecution agreement.

The case stirred outrage among free-range parenting advocates, and Kevane wrote of the mixed feelings she was left with after the incident:

For all the times that I was not the “good” parent, I am guilty; for all the times that I did not respond perfectly to my children’s needs, I am guilty. For all the times that I’ve not given them enough of me, I am guilty. For feeling constantly torn between so many daily demands, trying to make it all work, but knowing that I sometimes fall short, I am guilty.

But of knowingly putting my children in harm’s way by letting them go to the mall alone? Not guilty.

What do you think? Is there a magic age when it’s OK to leave a child alone at the mall? Is this particular example simply “free-range parenting,” or child endangerment?