Every parent fears their teenage children immediately going off the rails if they’re not kept under constant lock and key.

But does a helicopter strategy make life harder for everyone involved, and do kids do better when left to their own devices?

Gwen Loughman wrote in the Journal about being as hands-off as possible with her own children over the summer, and said it worked “really, really well”.

“Now, we’re talking about cooking here,” she told Lunchtime Live.

“I left them alone, I left the kitchen over to them in the summer.

“The way I looked at it was, I’m on my holidays as well, and if you want to get up at 12 o’clock or one o’clock in the day, you can look after yourself in the kitchen.

“And lo and behold, they did!”

Teenage girl cooking in the home kitchen. Image: Sergii Kumer. 25 March 2016

Ms Loughman said she has “no issues” with teens getting up late in the day, but that she also has no interest in adjusting her schedule around them.

“They’re gone back to school and everything, back to college now – they're still doing it,” she said.

“What’s more, two of them in particular are cooking for each other.”

Ms Loughman said she has four kids ranging in age from 14 to 19.

Outside the home

Katie Makk from the Opinions Matter podcast said it’s all well and good talking about independence when it’s confined within the family home, but there are other areas that can be more difficult for parents to navigate.

"I am dreading the day where I have to navigate the teenagers,” she said.

“Honestly, I don’t know how parents do it because there’s a fine line between giving them some independence and then giving them too much freedom.

“My kids are quite young, but recently my son, who’s going to be seven on St Patrick’s Day, he started asking about walking to school on his own.

“Now, the school is only a couple of minutes away, but I see kids sometimes walking [that are] not much bigger than him, and it just baffles me.”

A group of school children in school uniforms. Image: NorthScape / Alamy Stock Photo

According to Ms Makk, her daughter, who is four, is also asking to be left alone to play out on the road by herself with her friends.

“Maybe I’m a bit of a helicopter parent and I’m a bit nervous, but it’s very hard to find the line between giving them independence and giving them freedom,” she said.

However, Ms Loughman said that while she would encourage parents to be more flexible with cooking, she wouldn’t be a fan of letting a four-year-old play outside by themselves either.

Main image: Parents arguing with teenage son. Image: Zoonar GmbH / Alamy. 27 August 2017