“Free range children” was started as a joke to point out to the overprotective helicopter parents who wrap their kids in protective gear and then watch them like prisoners at a SuperMax prison who are on their one hour of mandatory exercise that they are not letting their kids be kids and that those kids grow up to be Progressives who actually fear real freedom.
Of course, the helicopter parents took that to mean that they should add more protective gear (and a GPS locator stuck up the kid’s butt) and not watch them for their one hour of “free range time”.
When I was a kindergarten - 1st grade aged kid I was always out exploring. I was of three quarters of a mile in the swamp collecting tadpoles and things like that.