Colman Noctor: Why are we doing so much for our children?

Doing what’s right for your child may need you to step back instead of step in 

Over the 20 years of my clinical work, I have found that children and young people are becoming less and less independent and especially over the last two years where the opportunities for autonomy were so limited. Pic: iStock

Old Enough is a compelling TV series that sees young Japanese children carry out tasks they ordinarily would not be asked to do. A big hit in Japan for the past 30 years, Netflix is streaming the series to worldwide audiences for the first time.

The first episode follows a two-year-old boy sent to a shop over a kilometre away to get some groceries. He is expected to negotiate heavy traffic and complex routes along the way. Watching this episode kept me on the edge of my seat as I anxiously watched the toddler cross a dual carriageway. I kept reminding myself that a camera crew was secretly following him, so a catastrophic accident was unlikely to happen. Unbelievably, he managed to execute the task superbly, even returning to the shop to get an item he had initially forgotten.