I’m into grand kids now and I have no idea if I’m making mistakes or not. Who decides if something is a mistake anyway? No one I know.

The golden rule is that you are teaching you daughter to be able to be an adult. She needs to be able to make choices and understand consequences, and you teach her one step at a time. Maybe start by let her choose her clothes to wear and stuff like that. Get her used to handling choices.

The end goal is to imagine you daughter going off to University, she needs to know everything from how to manage her money and keep herself healthy with diet etc, to handling creeps trying to spike her drinks. Life is a minefield and parents who don’t let their child make choices and mistakes, and doing it all for them ‘to keep them safe’ are doing their child no favours. Let them explore these choices in a controlled way.

For example drinking (hopefully not quite yet for yours), we decided to let my daughters drink and get drunk at home. We wanted her to learn her limitations in a safe environment rather than a park bench with said creeps hovering about.

I vaguely remember sitting and talking to you about this sort of thing so sorry if I’m repeating myself :).