>>>>>As a parent myself I am with Nick that parents should not smother their kids too much. Reasonable protection is one thing. It just seems to me that often parental (over)protection has more to do with the parent's desire for continued dependence than what the child can handle. This is a tough one. If it had been me in that role -- not quite such a stretch of imagination since I have a fairly precocious 17 year old daughter -- I can't tell you honestly whether I would have given this quest my blessing. It would be a lot easier with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, but of course that's not something we ever get at the time.
>>>>
>>>>I don't know enough about this particular case to have an opinion, but I have plenty of opinions <g> about kids and independence. In my view, parents have the responsibility to start teaching independence from early on, and to foster it throughout childhood.
>>>>
>>>>Thus, at appropriate ages, kids should be allowed to do various things without adults: walk to and from school (or the school bus), go to a movie with friends, walk to the neighborhood store for a sandwich or an ice cream cone, ride their bike in the street, etc., etc. The "appropriate ages" will vary by kid and community.
>>>>
>>>>FWIW, in his senior year of HS, Nathaniel came to us with an idea to go to Europe with two buddies that summer. We thought about it and told them to come back to us with a plan: an itinerary indicating where they planned to go and where to stay. One set of parents forbade their son to do this, so we never had to actually decide if we were okay with it. (Of course, Nathaniel ended up traveling all over the world in his college years.)
>>>>
>>>>Tamar
>>>
>>>How old is senior HS in the USA Tamar ?
>>
>>PMFJI -- in most (all?) U.S. locations you have to be 5 years old by September 1 to start kindergarten, which means most kids turn 18 during their senior year.
>
>My daughter didn't turn 18 until the August following her senior year of high school (high school typically ends in late May up to the middle of June). That was a bummer for her - that meant that at her high school graduation, most kids were over 18 already, but she was not...

It also means she went through school always among the youngest in her class, right? It doesn't seem to have slowed her down much. If I'm not off by a year she just graduated, didn't she? Congrats to both of you.

Emily is at the opposite end of the spectrum. Her birthday is Sept. 6, so she has always been the oldest in her class. After a couple weeks of first grade they wanted to bump her up, and again the next year, but she and her mom were against it. "I'm not comfortable with it," Emily said ;-) I thought that was a reasonably astute statement for a 7 year old.

Funny to realize that if she had skipped the grade she would be getting ready to head off for college now instead of a year from now. So in that respect I guess I'm glad. Although I don't see her very often. She is working a lot of hours as a lifeguard and swim teacher again this summer, has a volleyball tournament coming up in Missouri next weekend (she will be varsity captain in the fall), off for a week at Carroll College in Wisconsin the week after that, constantly doing one thing or another with her friends. And not only do I hardly see her, usually she has my car, LOL.