History Main / FreeRangeChildren

It was in [[TheEighties the mid-Eighties]] when [[MediaScaremongering media-promoted fears]] of [[TooSmartForStrangers kidnapping and strangers]] ("Stranger Danger"), which caused parents and society to clamp down on the freedom of children to wander unsupervised.[[note]]The disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979, when he was walking two blocks to his school bus stop, was a huge story and helped whip up fears. The 1980-81 "Atlanta Child Murders" by a serial killer helped the change immensely. Also, media fear tactics included FBI statistics on missing children ''reports'' -- not on missing children ''cases''. If Bobby stops off at Carol's house on his way home from school to play video games with her, and his mommy gets frantic and notifies police, it doesn't matter if Bobby shows up at home an hour later; if he does this four times in a year that's four missing children reports to the tune of zero missing child.[[/note]] Before then, kids were commonly allowed much more latitude, particularly in the summer months, concerning what they did and where they went, whether in a city or in the countryside. City kids were allowed to play games in vacant lots and explore local streets. Kids in the countryside could bike all around their small town. While the freedom kids had to run about town still wasn't nearly as great as it tends to be in fiction (parents still needed to know where they were going, when they were going to be back, etc.), they were often allowed to at least take their bikes to local shopping centers, swimming pools, libraries, or woods. This was the particular case in a CloseKnitCommunity where other adults would notice and intervene in cases of danger.

* ''VideoGame/NiNoKuniIIRevenantKingdom'': Among the characters that you can convince to live in Evermore there are some children, like Li Li, Phillipos or Chip. The majority of them make absolutely no mention of any parent or guardian who would have any problem about their kid leaving their hometown to live in a completely different kingdom by themselves. The only notable exception is Mylas, whose mother you have to convince before he's able to join you.

* ''Literature/TheHardyBoys'' and ''Literature/NancyDrew'': In the earlier editions, Frank and Joe were 13 and 15.

* Lucinda Wyman and Tony Coppino in Ruth Sawyer's ''Roller Skates.'' Set in the 1890s, a policeman sees Lucinda doing pretty much as she pleases every day and thinks that New York isn't too big a city to turn a child loose in, "barring a few corners of it." [[spoiler: One "corner" turns out to be a fancy hotel, and Lucinda, aged ten, finds an adult friend of hers who has been stabbed to death. The policeman never finds out about that.]]

* As does Betty Smith's ''Literature/ATreeGrowsInBrooklyn'', which is based on her own childhood in that borough.

Pre-teens in fiction will wander about their town, ride around the country, or even explore the world, with little adult supervision or even concern. They'll ride down to their friend's house on the other side of town and go to places that aren't anywhere close to their own house.

It was in [[TheEighties the mid-eighties]] when [[MediaScaremongering media-promoted fears]] of [[TooSmartForStrangers kidnapping and strangers caused parents and society to clamp down on the freedom of children to wander unsupervised]].[[note]]The disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979, when he was walking two blocks to his school bus stop, was a huge story and helped whip up fears. The 1980-81 "Atlanta Child Murders" by a serial killer helped the change immensely. Also, media fear tactics included FBI statistics on missing children ''reports'' -- not on missing children ''cases''. If Bobby stops off at Carol's house on his way home from school to play video games with her, and his mommy gets frantic and notifies police, it doesn't matter if Bobby shows up at home an hour later; if he does this four times in a year that's four missing children reports to the tune of zero missing child.[[/note]] Before then, kids were commonly allowed much more latitude, particularly in the summer months, concerning what they did and where they went. While the freedom kids had to run about town still wasn't nearly as great as it tends to be in fiction (parents still needed to know where they were going, when they were going to be back, etc.), they were often allowed to at least take their bikes to local shopping centers, swimming pools, libraries, or woods. This was the particular case in a CloseKnitCommunity where other adults would notice and intervene in cases of danger.

Unusual travel permissiveness in a story can be an [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality acceptable break from reality]]. A show involving Timmy and Sally being driven everywhere by their parents wouldn't be very exciting. Parents are, after all, [[AdultsAreUseless useless and boring]], and the kids wouldn't be able to explore that AbandonedWarehouse and solve mysteries, and have grumpy adults yell "YouMeddlingKids" at them.

* Exaggerated, with the consequences played for drama, in ''WesternAnimation/{{Pinocchio}}''. Instead of taking Pinocchio to his first day of school, Geppetto merely directs him to walk there with the town's other children. Although Pinocchio has the mentality of a 6-year-old, at this point, he has only been alive for one day and has never been outside his house before. Not surprisingly, he doesn't actually get to school.

* The kids in ''Film/{{Super 8}}''. Justified in that it's set in the 1970s.

* All three youngsters (and the rest of their Sunday School class) in ''Film/WhistleDownTheWind''.

* Sara-Kate's family situation in ''Literature/AfternoonOfTheElves'' is at the darker end of this trope. She runs wild and does whatever she wants, apparently free of adult supervision [[spoiler:because her mother is too sick and/or depressed to look after her, and Sara-Kate is trying to keep it a secret so she won't be taken away by CPS]].
* In ''Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture'' books, the kids living in the 2070s and later often tend to be like this, especially on Earth and other civilized planets.

* ''Literature/{{Duumvirate}}'', in spades. [[{{Transhuman}} Bioengineered]] children are treated as adults by age eight, and the 6-year-olds know how to fly jets. [[MuggingTheMonster Want to mess with one?]] [[SchmuckBait Go on, try it.]] [[WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong What's the worst that could happen?]]

* ''Literature/FlaviaDeLuce'' is 11 years old and spends her time riding around on her bike investigating cases of murder. She does run into adults who tell her she has no business getting involved in police work on a regular basis, but Flavia has long since learned to make use of the gaps in adult supervision and of the hands-off parenting of her widowed father.

* ''Literature/TheHardyBoys'' and ''Literature/NancyDrew.'' Now Frank and Joe are 16 and 18, but in the earlier editions, they were 13 and 15.
* Lyra in the ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'' series, due to her [[LukeIAmYourFather interesting]] [[DatingCatwoman personal]] [[BigScrewedUpFamily circumstances]] grows up with no parents in an Oxford college -- that is to say, a place designed to educate adults. As a result, her education includes advanced physics but not the fact that the earth orbits the sun, and she's effectively feral, but as a result very independent, StreetSmart, brave, and a chronic liar: traits that serve her well in her adventures. Justified with Angelica, Paolo, and many children in Citigazze. Adults can't go into Spectre-infested areas so the children, sometimes orphaned by the Spectres, go where they want. Sometimes, adults even send the children places to find food.
* ''Literature/HiveMind2016'': Children old enough to have their monitoring bracelets removed (on their 10th birthday) have the run of the public places on their level. 13-year-olds move up to Teen Level to live independently for five years before becoming an adult.

* The main characters of ''Literature/LockwoodAndCo'' by Creator/JonathanStroud run the eponymous [[ParanormalInvestigation agency]] by themselves, with no adult supervision.

** Just like the games, being ten [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} in the anime]] is seen as an appropriate age to be given an incredibly powerful monster to keep as a companion and to travel around a world inhabited by many species of such monsters. School is never mentioned whatsoever outside of Pokémon-based ones and even these seem to be optional. This is a JustifiedTrope in that traveling around the world is only allowed ''because'' the child is accompanied by a powerful creature that can protect them if things go wrong. The Hoenn seasons of the anime had May hate and fear Pokémon at first, but unable to fulfill her dream of traveling the world unless she received a Pokémon for her own protection. Meanwhile, her younger brother Max was only able to travel with her, Ash, and Brock because she agreed to have custody over him for the duration of the journey; being too young to have his own Pokémon, he was forced to go home when May decided that she wished to continue her travels alone at the end of ''Advanced Generation''. WordOfGod has people are considered of age for journeys once they turn ten, though not all children will choose to travel like Ash does in the anime. The (albeit non-canon) [[DarkerAndEdgier novelization]] by head writer of the original series, Takeshi Shudo, even explicitly mentioned that the legal age of adulthood is, indeed, 10, with all of the privileges and responsibilities that come with that. All that said,

* ''VideoGame/{{MOTHER}}'':
** The [[VideoGame/EarthboundBeginnings first]] [[VideoGame/EarthBound two]] ''MOTHER'' games are somewhat egregious examples, but ''VideoGame/MOTHER3'' justifies it by having the island be a [[spoiler:former]] utopia.

** The characters wander about their local region at a young age, with little concern from any adults. Although to be fair, the regions appear to be so small that if one chucked a rock hard enough, it could cross several cities. It also makes sense that only children with tamed Franchise/{{Pokemon}} are allowed to roam freely. It seems to almost be a rite of passage. Even then, most child trainers don't appear to really go far from home until they're in their teens, with this even being the case for the protagonist in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Black and White]]'', [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite2 its direct sequel]], and ''[[VideoGame/PokemonXAndY X and Y]]''. Regardless, it's still a bit odd seeing very young trainers, such as preschoolers and the kids you see at beaches being farther from home than Campers and Youngsters. The beach kids, at least, usually make some reference to their [[InvisibleParents parents]] being around (in RBY, one of them notes that her mom won't let her swim without a float ring).
** Partially deconstructed in ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl''. It is treated as ''very'' dangerous for the protagonist and their rival to head out into tall grass without any Pokemon. It's only until after the first encounter with the villain team of the game about 10-15 minutes into the game and they get their starter Pokemon that they consider going to ''the town down the road'' by themselves.

* {{Exaggerated}} in Atshi’s backstory in ''Webcomic/AnecdoteOfError''. Her sister, Mishmai, took her halfway around the world to another continent all by herself, to get her medical treatment from a healer friend free of charge. Mishmai was twelve and Atshi was five at the time.

* ''Webcomic/ManlyGuysDoingManlyThings'' parodies the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' tradition with Jared Kowalski, a teenager who balked at the idea of leaving home on a Pokemon journey (because it would [[ThisLoserIsYou separate him from his Xbox games]]), until his parents got fed up and kicked him out of the house. They were shocked and upset that he wouldn't take off to WalkingTheEarth with his pet Pokémon.

* Played with in the ''WebAnimation/PokemonRusty'' series, which parodies the use of this trope in the Pokemon franchise. Most Pokemon trainers appear to be this trope but in fact, the age of majority is ten in the world of the show.

!!Examples:

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* The characters in ''Anime/SerialExperimentsLain'' live in a society where it's perfectly normal for 14-year-olds to visit an adult nightclub and hang out at night. This also applies to Taro and his friends, who are even younger. In this case, it's ''supposed'' to seem weird and creepy to the audience.

* ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'': Even though she is adopted by the Danvers in ''ComicBook/TheUnknownSupergirl'', Linda is essentially allowed free rein to do whatever she wants after school, which is because her adoptive parents know nothing about her adventures as Supergirl until she finally comes clean about her secret identity.
* ''{{Comicbook/Yakari}}'': Yakari, Rainbow, and Buffalo Seed often wander away from their tribe camp (sometimes ''very'' far away, like [[spoiler:Yakari's visit to Hopi people in ''Le Lézard de l'ombre'']]) in either comics or adaptations and no one bats an eye; in some instances however, i.e. when the tribe moves to another location and the children are not there, adults will start searching for them.

** This is averted in ''WesternAnimation/ThisIsAmericaCharlieBrown,'' where episodes of the miniseries feature adults in assorted roles.

* ''Anime/{{Bakugan}}'' allows some kids to ask adults to take them somewhere by a plane or space shuttle.
* Seems to the rule in every ''Beyblade'' series. The characters are never older than teenagers, but they are free to go all over town, to other towns or even other countries seemingly with no parental disapproval. As long as they're doing it for their Beyblading dreams, it's all good.

** Sakura runs errands all over town and even goes to Hong Kong with only her big brother Touya (who's 17-years-old tops) to supervise. Her brother is aware of her ''MagicalGirl'' activities and worries about her but doesn't interfere.

** This was likely part of the reason the 10-year-olds in ''[[Anime/DigimonTamers Tamers]]'' got an age up in the dub. This seems to be the norm in Japan (see the real life section).

* ''Manga/FlyingWitch'' has an interesting exchange in Episode 5. 9-year-old Chinatsu spots the cat Chito sneaking out, runs in and shouts to her mother that she's going out for a bit. When asked where she simply says "I don't know but I'm sure it's someplace amazing", and all her mother has to say is "watch for cars", at which point Chinatsu proceeds to follow Chito all around the town. And when she comes home covered in dirt from head to toe, her mother still asks nothing and just tells her to wash the dirt off before coming in.

* The heroine of ''Manga/NurseAngelRirikaSOS'' is 10-years-old, and no adults show any concern about her going out in 1990s Yokohama unsupervised at all times of day and night. Her parents would probably object to her SneakingOutAtNight, but they never catch her. Mostly this chalks up to values dissonance, although the episode where Ririka and some classmates go on vacation in the mountains with no sign of any parents or around is surely a bit of a stretch.

* In ''Anime/ShimaShimaToraNoShimajiro'', Shimajiro and company are always seen going around town on their own without adult supervision. Keep in mind that they're basically kindergarteners, Shimajiro can only barely read basic kana forms if any of the toy advertising anime are canon. Sure, they're on an island which statistically always have very low crime rate, they have a police station, and they have a neighborhood association which means everyone knows each other, but the island is shown to be quite huge with a large town encroaching the entire west and south side of the island, and several smaller villages on the outskirts towards the central north-east, and a working shinkansen line circling it. The probability of getting lost on the island is still very real.

* The protagonists of ''Manga/WanderingSon'' are allowed to go to ride trains to other cities at 9-years-old, accompanied by no adults. On Takatsuki's first trip to the city (while dressed as a boy), he gets hit on by an adult woman, who later becomes a CoolBigSis. The protagonists are allowed to [[IntergenerationalFriendship hang around]] two adults whom their parents don't know, and even ''sleep over at their house''. Though, to give them a break, their parents are unaware of their friendship for some time and they use vague terms like "friends" -- though when they do tell their parents they don't seem scared, just mad that they're keeping secrets from them.

* ''{{Comicbook/Yakari}}'': Yakari, Rainbow and Buffalo Seed often wander away from their tribe camp (sometimes ''very'' far away, like [[spoiler:Yakari's visit to Hopi people in ''Le Lézard de l'ombre'']]) in either comics or adaptations and no one bats an eye; in some instances however, i.e. when the tribe moves to another location and the children are not there, adults will start searching for them.

* Used as DeliberateValuesDissonance in ''Fanfic/BlindCourage''. Zelda lets her blind and sheltered daughter wander around the local forest by herself. At almost 7-years old, Baby is old enough to go play outside by herself.

* In ''Film/BMXBandits'', the young teen heroes ride all over Sydney without any parental supervision at all. And some of the characters in the [[TheCavalry bike cavalry]] are even younger, and equally unsupervised.

** It implied that Jess and Leslie snuck out to the woods without their parents knowing, and they somehow managed to keep their parents completely uninformed about their little adventures. Which is somewhat justified, since the Aarons are too busy watching over their other four children and considers Jess, their only son, to be capable to taking care of himself, whilst the Burkes, being from the city, are on the eccentric side and thinks Leslie is independent enough on her own despite her age. The trope still fits though.

* ''Film/CopCar'': The protagonists are two young boys who have run away from home to wander around the wilderness outside their town. They find a cop car and take it for a joy-ride, claiming it as theirs.

* The kids in ''Film/TheFloridaProject'' freely wander the Kissimmee strip area without supervision, with it not being until one major incident that one of the mothers take action.

* ''Film/InvasionOfTheNeptuneMen'' has a group of children who can seemingly go ''anywhere''. And not simply around their neighborhood; they can waltz into government buildings during high stakes defense meetings and press conferences regarding an alien invasion. Lampshaded in the ''[[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 MST3K]]'' viewing: "Apparently the kids have level five security access". In the "[=MST3K=] Episode Guide" book, while reviewing ''Film/{{Gamera}}'', Kevin Murphy elaborates:

* At the beginning of ''Film/RunWildRunFree'', Philip attends a clinic for emotionally disturbed children, but his mother stops taking him because she doesn't think he's making any progress. Philip can't attend a regular school, so for the rest of the movie he's free to spend all his time wandering the moors.

* Creator/MarkTwain's ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfTomSawyer'' and ''Literature/AdventuresOfHuckleberryFinn''. Huck gets a pass because he's an orphan (more or less), but in general the kids are allowed to go wherever they please, and the parents only get worried if the kid doesn't come home for a few days. A little girl's birthday party includes an afternoon of exploring the local caves, though it's well known that you could get lost and never find your way out.

* ''Literature/TheFamousFive'': Certainly there was less helicopter parenting in 1950s Britain, but letting a group of 10- to 12-year-olds go on weeklong camping trips in various desolated areas with no supervision? They have the dog to take care of them, it's probably fine. The books do have them age up a couple of years. Julian was meant to be 15 or 16 at one point. One website worked out, from the pattern of summer/Easter/x-mas/half-term holidays they had, that by the end of the books they should all be in their early 20s.
* ''Literature/FeelingSorryForCelia'' has a great version of this trope. The titular girl, who is herself a {{Cloudcuckoolander}}, runs off to join the circus. The mother, who had been worried but expressing it strangely for a good part of the book, is instantly put at ease when she's told that her daughter is just with a traveling circus, saying "Oh, the circus! Why didn't we think of that earlier?" Another example from the same book is when a younger Celia and her best friend were planning on building a treehouse. Her mother is absolutely fine with the idea, no questions asked; however, the best friend's mother wants to know details. The two mothers get in an argument over the issue.
* ''Literature/FlaviaDeLuce'' is 11-years-old and spends her time riding around on her bike investigating cases of murder. She does run into adults who tell her she has no business getting involved in police work on a regular basis, but Flavia has long since learned to make use of the gaps in adult supervision and of the hands-off parenting of her widowed father.

* Katniss Everdeen of ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' at 11-years-old roamed around town trying to sell her sister's baby clothes and ended up looking through garbage bins in the pouring rain and her mother didn't seem to notice she's gone. At the age of twelve, Katniss (and Gale, who was fourteen) was running around in the woods trying to gather food and hunt which was not only potentially dangerous for kids that age in its own right, in Panem it's illegal and would have terrible consequences if the wrong person found out. Neither Katniss' nor Gale's mother seemed to mind at all.

* ''Literature/{{Pale}}'': the Kennet Witches, all aged thirteen, tend to have pretty free evenings to go around in their home town of Kennet, meeting with supernatural creatures to interview them about the murder of the Carmine Beast and learning magic from them. They make some use of connection-blocking runes to distract their parents from thinking of them, but this only goes so far-a parent is naturally inclined to think of their child so the runes tend to burn out quickly.
* ''Literature/PippiLongstocking''. Granted, well, [[MissingMom her mother]] is [[NeverSayDie in Heaven]], her father is a Captain who roams the Seven Seas on his ship and later on the King of some exotic island kingdom, and since Pippi is living in a house all alone with no adults, a certain orphanage lady is always after her. But Tommi and Annika? Whenever that [[FieryRedhead red-haired anarcho]] goes on another adventure, be it all around Sweden or even to somewhere overseas, their thoroughly square parents let them tag along! (Tommi and Annika were just as square before they met Pippi.) Then again, what bad could happen to you when you accompany a girl who is stronger than most grown-ups, and who neither knows nor cares for and therefore doesn't really obey any laws of physics and therefore has the liberty to do anything she wants to?

* In ''Literature/TheRomanMysteries'' the four main characters border on this trope, and cross the line into it during several books.

* Most of the Stark kids in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', since they have a tendency to be separated from their parents for long periods of time. Rickon, the youngest Stark at 3-years-old, practically becomes feral along with his direwolf Shaggydog. [[spoiler: Deconstructed in that the only reason Bran and Rickon Stark can go anywhere is that their home is destroyed and they are both presumed dead. After her father's death, Arya ends up in the company of criminals and assassins.]]

** Played straight with apprentices, who begin at roughly between the equivalent of 10-13. They're allowed to go within their borders on their own, however they're usually accompanied by warriors.

* The kids who work at ''Series/OddSquad'' (hell, most kids in general, really) roam around Toronto, going about their daily lives with absolutely no parental supervision whatsoever, although the concept of parents (if there are any at all) being a mystery is enforced by show staff, who intentionally don't reveal the parents of any character in order to push the message of equality that the show and organization have. At least until Season 2, when we see at least one character's parents and learn about another character having [[ParentalSubstitute Parental Substitutes]]. All of the Odd Squad agents are children and the oldest ones are 12-years-old, but they are more mature and smart than a majority of adults seen on the show.

* In ''Series/RoundTheTwist'', the Twist kids regularly wander all about [[QuirkyTown Port Niranda]] without adult supervision -- from a new toxic waste-dump to the depths of the local unexplored forest, nowhere seems off-limits. To be fair, the two older Twist twins are 14.
* This is in full effect in ''Series/StrangerThings'' with Mike and his friends in the first half of the season, and even moreso near the end. Stranger Danger hadn't yet kicked in in 1983, so this wouldn't have been unusual, especially in a small-town setting. On the other hand, you also have instances like the kids having to sneak out of their houses because they've been forbidden from going out while Will is missing, and Joyce driving Will to the arcade in Season 2 while repeatedly confirming plans for getting home. This is also somewhat averted in ''Stranger Things 2'', as the kids usually have the supervision of Hopper, Bob, Joyce, or Steve (who is himself only a teenager). Then again, Nancy and Jonathan do travel far enough away from Hawkins that they have to spend the night in a motel, and they're only teenagers. Also, Eleven travels to ''Chicago'' of all places during the season, although this does send Hopper into a frenzy, especially when he discovers she hitched a ride with a "nice man in a truck". Interestingly, ''Series/StrangerThings'' is somewhat of a deconstruction of the trope, reflecting some of the ValuesDissonance between media made in the 1980's and media made in the 2010's ''about'' the 1980's. The only reason the kids are able to be free-range is due to ParentalNeglect, as the only kid to live in a functional, healthy family is Lucas. The other kids live in homes where their parents either do not have time to devote to their children or are too self-absorbed to do so. El is on the other end of the spectrum for justified reasons, and a lot of conflict in the second and third season is her wanting more independence than Hopper is willing to give. It's also a deconstruction in that when they're solving things on their own, they tend to screw them up, implying they're too young to have this level of responsibility over themselves and need adult intervention. By Season 3, the kids are all old enough that no one seems to pay attention or care that they're out all hours of the night and have the entire group in the house at 6am.

* The flashback epilogue of ''Manhua/MyBelovedMother'' have the then ''4-year-old'' Sinbell somehow wandering out of his kindergarten, into a town square a few miles away where a gas leak had occurred. With not a single adult noticing, where the local military had the square evacuated while somehow missing a toddler wandering on his own without adult supervision. Things get ugly when Sinbell's StrugglingSingleMother Aya receive news of her child wandering out the kindergarten, where she [[MamaBear tore open a barbed-wire fence with her bare hands]] to search for Sinbell and managed to retrieve him... only for the square to blow up. It ends with poor Aya performing a HeroicSacrifice and getting herself incinerated to shield her son from the flames.

* Empress Elisabetta Barbados in ''TabletopGame/AnimaBeyondFantasy''. Despite being just 12-year-old and ruling alone the most powerful nation of the game's setting, she likes to leave the palace to live adventures causing ''lots'' of headaches to those adults close to her.

* ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'': Lan and Mega Man save the world left and right and wander about it, but Lan is only 11-years-old and in fifth grade (a year or two older in later games). Lan's parents sometimes show worry, but he's still able to battle dangerous criminals without being held up in his room. To say nothing about Mayl, Dex, and Yai. While they occasionally can't accompany Lan to something or other due to something during the main plot, they always at least try to follow Lan into the evil base at the end of each game. The epitome of this has to be the 5th game where Yai manages to take the entire gang to a ''deserted island'' two hours away from home. And then they go to explore an ''abandoned mine'' with predictable results. You'd think after that their parents would never let them go anywhere on their own again. The second anime eventually solves this by making Lan a "Net Savior", basically an agent of the Net Police. After this he stops randomly wandering into criminals on random adventures and is actively dispatched into crime scenes and anyone attempting to stop him on the grounds that a dangerous site is no place for a child will immediately yield when he shows them his badge.
* ''VideoGame/MegaManStarForce'': In the second game, Geo goes running off to other countries. His mom doesn't seem to notice her son's absence. Although at one point she scolds Geo when he returns home in the early morning. Geo can travel the world at high speeds using his radio wave abilities though so it's understandable she doesn't notice as he can leave his room to adventure then return before she even notices he's gone.

* ''VideoGame/MyChildLebensborn'': This is partly justified by the game's setting being a small Norwegian town in the 1950s. The fist scene of the game proper consists of the child, who is turning seven the next, telling the PlayerCharacter all about the unsupervised play session they were just having with their best friend. This continues to be the case on each Saturday as the PlayerCharacter needs to work, but the child doesn't have school. When the bullying towards the child gets bad enough, they start considering staying at home when they don't have school and the PlayerCharacter is at work.

** The characters wander about their local region at a young age, with little concern from any adults. Although to be fair, the regions appear to so small that if one chucked a rock hard enough, it could cross several cities. It also makes sense that only children with tamed Franchise/{{Pokemon}} are allowed to roam freely. It seems to almost be a rite of passage. Even then, most child trainers don't appear to really go far from home until they're in their teens, with this even being the case for the protagonist in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Black and White]]'', [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite2 its direct sequel]], and ''[[VideoGame/PokemonXAndY X and Y]]''. Regardless, it's still a bit odd seeing very young trainers, such as preschoolers and the kids you see at beaches being farther from home than Campers and Youngsters. The beach kids, at least, usually make some reference to their [[InvisibleParents parents]] being around (in RBY, one of them notes that her mom won't let her swim without a float ring).

** This is deconstructed yet again in ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'', though PlayedForLaughs. Team Skull is a street gang made up of a bunch of teenagers and young adults, some of them from abusive homes, who turned to a life of petty crime because failing their Island Challenges has left them [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome homeless, jobless, and with almost zero self-esteem]]. Unlike every other villain team in the series, their biggest concern is just getting enough money to buy food from day-to-day. The locals regard them as annoyances at worst and pitiable at best, with few characters treating any of their grievances seriously.
-->''Team Skull, represent! We can't pay the rent!\\

* ''VideoGame/PrincessMaker2'': The player can send Olive out into town or even on adventures to distant parts of the kingdom completely on her own. Though, in the case of the adventures, Cube will always rescue her if she gets into too much trouble, implying he's somehow keeping on eye on her.

* ''VideoGame/TomodachiLife'' doesn't have many differences between adult and kid Miis, other than kids not being able to get married. This means that Kid Miis move into and live in their own apartments, wander the island and get part-time jobs without any parents or guardians in sight.

* ''VideoGame/YesYourGrace'': Maya explains showing up at the castle alone at age twelve by her parents letting her roam around while they're working. It turns out that the real reason is [[spoiler:that her father is leading a group of refugees that has been mistaken for a invading army by the player character's scouts, so he has several reasons to not be keeping a close eye on Maya]].

* It ain't called "Webcomic/LatchkeyKingdom" for nothin'. Willa is 13-years-old and [[DungeonCrawling Dungeon Crawls]] half because it's fun, and half because she [[MinorLivingAlone lives alone]] most of the time and has to have ''some'' way of paying for food. The society of Hilla accepts Free Range Children as the norm and will happily sell swords, explosives, and booze to any kid who can afford it.

* As noted in TooSmartForStrangers and in a similar manner to MissingWhiteWomanSyndrome, child abductions had a massive spike ''in news coverage'' in the '80s, which led to a societal shift towards more attentive parenting and restrictions on kids being able to act independently. In reality, statistically child abductions are far more likely to be from family members (particularly disaffected divorced parents) or known acquaintances than complete strangers coming across them on the street[[note]]Kidnapping is a crime that tends to be planned out rather than a crime of opportunity[[/note]].

** On one hand, it's quite common to see school-aged children walking around freely or even riding the train without an adult. Since Japan has considerably less crime than in many other countries, in part because their society views everyone as part of an interconnected social group (basically, if you try and commit a felony in public, everyone sees you, and you're caught red-handed), it's generally viewed as much safer for kids to travel about unsupervised. A Japanese proverb, かわいい子供には旅をさせよ, is commonly interpreted as "if you love your children, send them out while they're young."
** Averted once a kid enters middle school. Liberty gets severely limited at an age where you would expect them to acquire more liberties to socialize out of home, they're expected to get from home to school and vice versa alone but only through a preselected path, they can't use smartphones, just regular cellphones and only for emergencies. It should be noted that all of this is just in paper and can't actually stop kids, but to counteract this you can get reprimanded in school for your personal activities outside of school hours and schools have been pushing cram schools which leaves kids with even less free time.
* This trope is in full effect in many countries other than the United States (though Americanization turns more and more parents into helicopter parents). Especially prevalent in The Netherlands and Denmark where children who have outgrown the child seats of their parents' bicycle are expected to bike to and from school, after-school activities, etc... In other countries many towns have functional public transportation that isn't considered dangerous. Children frequently commute on this system on their own.
* The documentary ''Class Ride/ActionPark'' discusses this trope, saying that in the 80s, like in the movies of the decade, minors would basically seek adventure going around anywhere they wanted (one of the interviewees notes people would tell about their weekends saying "I went to my cousin's house" and "I ventured into an AbandonedHospital and found a group of skinheads which pursued me" in the same tone). This included going on their own to the title park -- basically a real life AmusementParkOfDoom, with rides that often injured guests and even a few deaths to their name.

* In ''Anime/CowboyBebop'', Edward Tivursky, a genius, eccentric teenager, is this to an extreme, living on her own for much of her childhood, since her kind but mentally unwell father unintentionally abandoned her.

''Film/TheTwelfthMan'': The first people to help Jan are two young kids who are out on the fjord in a rowboat at night.

Unusual travel permissiveness in a story can be an [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality acceptable break from reality]]. A show involving Timmy and Sally being driven everywhere by their parents wouldn't be very exciting. Parents are, after all, [[AdultsAreUseless useless and boring]], and the kids wouldn't be able to explore that AbandonedWarehouse and solve mysteries, and have grumpy adults yell "you meddling kids!" at them.

Pre-teens in fiction will wander about their town, the country, or even the world, with little adult supervision or even concern. They'll ride down to their friend's house on the other side of town and go to places that aren't anywhere close to their own house.

Unusual travel permissiveness in a story can be an [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality acceptable break from reality]]. A show involving Timmy and Sally being driven everywhere by their parents wouldn't be very exciting. Parents are, after all, [[AdultsAreUseless useless and boring]].

[[folder:Podcasts]]
* In episode three of ''Podcast/MysteryShow,'' called "Belt Buckle," the titular belt buckle was found on the ground by a boy named Jimmy Turk before being given to Starlee's client, Carson. Carson describes Jimmy as a good kid who just had a lot of unsupervised time, which let him wander around finding things like mysterious belt buckles and (allegedly) sticks of dynamite.

* ''Film/TheGoonies'': An entire gang of them go out on a last adventure following the trail of PirateTreasure on the northern Oregon coast.

* ''FilmTheGoonies'': An entire gang of them go out on a last adventure following the trail of PirateTreasure on the northern Oregon coast.