Free Range Kids in Film

Remembering childhood as it should be now.

• • Oct 15
  • Author

  The Red Balloon (French: Le Ballon rouge) is a 1956 fantasy short film, directed by French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse.^[1]

  The thirty-four minute short, which follows the adventures of a young boy who one day finds a sentient, mute, red balloon, was filmed in the Ménilmontant neighborhood of Paris, France.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Balloon

  So this is the ultimate free range kid film. 34 minutes of walking around the dangerous streets of Paris in the 1950s. Notice how the other kids walk home from school themselves. Notice how his mother shoos him out of the house to play by himself. When he is bullied, he outsmarts the bullies with no help from adults.

  I loved this movie as a child. It is a beautiful expression of childhood and freedom.  

• notesurl

About

Inspired by the book Free Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy

http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/



This is my attempt to show the world that kids playing outside alone and doing things on their own, despite some small risks, was once the norm. It is my hope to recapture childhood from fear-mongering adults by showing different film depictions of childhood as it should be.

Why do this? I have a daughter. We live in Plano, Texas which was called the safest city in the US by Forbes magazine recently. I don’t want her to fear the world just because adults are too afraid to let her experience it.

Yes, I know bad stuff happens. 17 years ago, Ashely Estelle (age 7) was abducted and killed near our neighborhood. I used to babysit one of the girls murdered in the infamous Yogurt Store murders in Austin in the 1990s.

These stories are tragic and scary, but they are also over-reported in the media because it glues viewers to the TV which, in turn, sells products.

I don’t want to let fear guide my child’s life in the “safest city in America.”

I am not selling my daughter’s childhood to TV fear-mongering.

So take some time to remember what it was like for you to walk down your street by yourself, or go to the store, or ride your bike to the park. The world is safe despite what your TV tells you. The kids in the films are here to remind you.

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