We are tempted to declare the care-free days of childhood officially over, after reading a recent news story about police issuing no-trespass orders to a Cape Cod sixth-grader who’d been cutting through neighbors’ yards to reach the school bus stop.

Many of our readers yearn for simpler days when kids could roam as they wished, testing puddles, inspecting rocks, climbing trees, requisitioning sticks. But fast forward to contemporary times, and Harwich, Mass., police delivering three no-trespass orders to an 11-year-old girl. Two related property owners had objected to the girl cutting through their yards, though she reportedly had caused no harm. After sharing their objections with the girl, they complained to school officials; a school resource officer and the principal got involved.

But no one spoke to the girl’s mother, who was shocked when police came to her home. “I’m her mother,’’ she told the Cape Cod Times. “If I’d had a chance to speak to her it wouldn’t have got to this level.” The town police chief agreed that there’d been a “breakdown in communication.”

Like many stories that seem simple at first blush, this one has complexities. The property owners are perhaps not simply grumpy. One said she was sued years ago when a child came into her yard uninvited and broke her leg. On the other side, the mother of the 11-year-old said she suspected they were being discriminated against because she and her daughter have brightly colored hair. She also said the fuss is creating “a hostile environment for my child to go to school.”

So multiple issues have been raised: possible discrimination, parental rights (to notification), hostile environments, a litigious society and the effect of police in the schools. And then there is justice: The notices say the girl is subject to $100 fines and 30 days in jail for any violations, although we assume those wouldn’t apply to a minor. To the list we add possible social isolation and suspicion of strangers: We doubt the property owners would have bypassed the girl’s mother in not-so-distant times, because they might have known her, or they would have felt comfortable seeking her out.

The girl in the center of the case presented a simple summation when she told the Cape Cod Times, “I’m a good kid. I just wanted to get home and be warm inside my house.” We wish it was as simple as that, and it could be, if more adults relied on personal interaction rather than cold process. We don’t necessarily hold that simpler days were always better, but stories like this pop up again and again and make you wonder.