If we want to raise well-adjusted kids, there are certain principles we have to grasp about how children work. We can’t get the job right if we don’t understand what’s happening. It’s our job to make sure that by the time our child turns 18 they are capable of living independently. Even if circumstances mean that they go on living with us for a while, they should still be doing it in an independent fashion. You know, doing their own laundry, handling their own finances, coping emotionally when we’re away on holiday or wherever.

So what makes someone independent? Well, it’s about taking responsibility for yourself. It’s about not feeling you have to dump your worries, your decisions, your laundry on someone else in order to be able to cope with normal life. So the way to create an independent adult is to give them responsibility. Not all in a rush when they’re 17. Gradually over time from a very early age.

Even a toddler can choose their own clothes for the day (you can control the options). A 6-year-old can decide for themselves whether they’ll need a coat when they go outside. Yes, they can. Explain to them that it’s going to be their decision from now on, and when they’re cold at the end of the day they’ll understand why they might want a coat tomorrow. You can remind them to think about it (‘Do you reckon you might need a coat today?’) but it’s their choice. If you tell them when to wear a coat, how will they learn?

By the time they reach their teens, you can start helping them to manage money – for example, instead of buying their clothes for them, give them an allowance to buy their own. They’ll need to learn that if they spend it all on party clothes, they’ll have nothing to wear the rest of the time. If they make this mistake, don’t give them more clothes. Make them live with the consequences until their next allowance. Otherwise you’ll be taking their responsibility away from them. So what will they have learnt?

By the time your teenager gets to the top years of school, they should be setting their own work timetable. It should be their responsibility how much homework they do and when. That can be pretty scary as a parent because it means they might not get the grades they could if you’d set the pace. But these are is their grades we’re talking about, not yours. Theirs to make, theirs to miss. And live with the consequences. Or what have they learnt?

If, like me, you have several children, this is easier to achieve, simply because you can’t keep making decisions for so many other people. There aren’t enough hours in the day. It’s toughest if you have only one or two children. I have a friend with one child who once said to me, ‘He needs to take a year off before university. He isn’t ready to live away from home yet.’ I made vaguely polite noises of sympathy but inside I was shouting, ‘Why not? What have you been doing for the last eighteen years? This was your only job!’