https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-new-season-of-stranger-things-shows-the-limits-of-kids-saving-the-world

"Watching a ragtag group of kids save the day never seems to get old," says Maya Phillips. "That’s what the Netflix series Stranger Things, the third season of which premièred on July 4th, continues to bet its success on. The Duffer brothers, the creative team behind the show, have blatantly plucked inspiration from a whole subset of popular films that feature children as saviors. But despite the nerdy fun of Stranger Things, its titillating action sequences and over-all pluckiness, the show reveals how the kids-save-the-day model represents a romantic but ultimately uneven idealism that has echoes in our current political moment. Guns in schools, climate change, terrorism—will the kids save us from those monsters?" Phillips adds: "These stories about the courage of children and teens suggest that bravery and heroism are innate qualities of youth. But in that assumption also lies its counterpart: that youths are simply more capable than adults, and that some vital majority of adults are, at best, unable to rise to the occasion of grave danger and, at worst, are the cause of those very catastrophes."

ALSO:

Study finds that 13% of former Netflix subscribers returned for Stranger Things 3 (https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/stranger-things-3-subscriber-growth-netflix-research-1203262056/)
Stranger Things 3 contained too much fleshy goo to ramp up the gross factor (https://www.polygon.com/2019/7/9/20686770/stranger-things-3-mind-flayer-gore)
The NeverEnding Story was originally Lord of the Rings-themed (https://www.indiewire.com/2019/07/stranger-things-3-dustin-neverending-story-finale-explained-1202156705/)
English pop singer Limahl is so happy that his NeverEnding Story song is reaching a whole new audience (https://ew.com/tv/2019/07/09/exclusive-limahl-celebrates-newfound-interest-in-the-neverending-story-theme-thanks-stranger-things/)
The NeverEnding Story is the most grating aspect of an otherwise stellar Season 3 (https://news.avclub.com/we-were-nearly-spared-that-grating-neverending-story-bi-1836222464)
With Billy Hargrove, Stranger Things brought terror back to the neighborhood bully (https://tv.avclub.com/with-billy-hargrove-stranger-things-brought-terror-bac-1836016503)
Maya Hawke's Robin deserved better in Season 3 (https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/tv/a28324818/stranger-things-robin-sexy-nerd/)
Stranger Things 3 is right: New Coke didn't fail -- it was murdered (https://www.motherjones.com/food/2019/07/what-if-weve-all-been-wrong-about-what-killed-new-coke/)

I think the trope of "kids running around saving the world, unsupervised" makes a lot more sense in a pre-90's setting.

In the 70's, I remember riding my bike all around Plainfield, NJ at all times of day & night and back then, Plainfield was pretty dangerous place to live (and got worse in the 80's).

Stranger Things' internal story logic sustains that trope pretty well and the cast does a great job of suspending disbelief.

Pretty much every CW teen drama relies on the premise of, "We can't trust/rely on the adults, us kids have to fix this."