A new law legalizing free-range parenting will soon take effect in Utah allowing children to do things alone like travelling to school.
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed the bill on March 15, which takes effect in May.
The bill redefines “neglect” in Utah law so that kids can participate in some unsupervised activities without their parents being charged, a representative from the state confirmed to ABC News Monday.
“Kids need to wonder about the world, explore and play in it, and by doing so learn the skills of self-reliance and problem-solving they’ll need as adults,” Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, a sponsor of the bill, said in a statement to ABC News. “As a society, we’ve become too hyper about ‘protecting’ kids and then end up sheltering them from the experiences that we took for granted as we were kids. I sponsored SB65 so that parents wouldn’t be punished for letting their kids experience childhood.”
Fillmore added that there were no organized groups against the bill, and it passed unanimously out of both houses of the state’s legislature.
PHOTO: Republican Sen. Lincoln Fillmore looks on from the Senate floor at the Utah State Capitol, in Salt Lake City on Jan. 22, 2018.