London - My first thought when I spotted the two small boys striding out alone along a clifftop path in the distance at 8pm was how similar all youngsters look when they’re on holiday.
I turned to my mom-friend next to me and asked: “Why do kids all dress the same when they go away? No wonder you can’t tell who is who on a crowded beach. I mean, those two boys could be ours, couldn’t they?”
She paused, her brow furrowed as she watched the boys skipping along.
“Actually,” she said, “they are our boys.”
We were taking our turn at the pub on the Cornwall trip during the half-term holidays: you know that agreement when you go away with another family and the adults go for drinks in shifts after a day of hectic activity.
The dads were due on the later shift, we’d left them at home in charge of the six children aged between five and 13. So it was a surprise to see our boys, aged nine and 11, wandering unsupervised towards the shops in the small Cornish village.
We signalled to the boys furiously. At first they pretended not to see the two frantic middle- aged women waving sunburned arms around, but gave in when our behaviour clearly became too embarrassing.
They explained that the dads had agreed they could go to the local shop alone - a ten-minute walk away - to buy some biscuits.
This decision rang alarm bells for me. Isn’t my nine-year-old too young for his first parentless trip? They would have to cross a road twice.
But we couldn’t say no now, could we? They were so excited, and promises of extra vigilance and a speedy return tumbled out.
(I didn’t know at this point that they had just found £5 on the path and would later hide the chocolatey spoils of their exciting trip under their beds to secretly scoff at night.)
So off they went, another milestone reached, another rite of passage witnessed. I contemplated creeping along the path behind them as I nervously listened for the sound of an ambulance siren.
My husband says that if I had my way, my only son would be strapped to my side with Velcro until he was 18. Mr Candy is much more relaxed. There’s a new phrase to describe this: “submarine parenting”.
It’s the opposite of “helicopter parenting”, where you hover over the child, watching every time it makes a break for independence.
Helicopter mothers protect their youngsters from failure at all costs, but submarine mothers stay hidden below the surface, “out of plain sight”, as their children discover the world themselves.
You leave them alone to tackle situations out of their comfort zone, those containing “mild peril” as they say when they classify children’s films.
It’s the latest trend in parenting advice. Stepping back allows children to learn how to deal with setbacks - a vital skill.
Our parents were fans of this style, but we’re a more child-centred generation, our children’s daily welfare has become something of an obsession, which isn’t always emotionally healthy.
Sometimes you have to be the less available parent as your offspring learn to survive.
However, this new injection of independence seemed to flick the naughty switch for my son during our week away.
He was a menace of epic proportions, so I decided to tell him about seven-year-old Yamato Tanooka.
Yamato’s parents’ version of submarine parenting is an extreme one, and not something you should try - but the fact it happened may be a useful disciplinary tool.
His mother and father left him in a bear-infested wood some way from their home in Japan as punishment for throwing stones at people and cars.
They only meant to leave him for a few minutes while they drove off, but he wandered into the woods before they returned to collect him.
He survived six nights until he was found on Friday by the army, relatively unharmed.
“If this carries on,” I warned my son, “I shall leave you in a bear-infested Cornish layby on the edge of the moors until you have learnt your lesson.”
He looked at the picture in the paper of a cheeky, grinning Yamato and said: “He doesn’t look like he has learned his lesson at all. Besides, there aren’t any bears in Cornwall.”
I think there may be trouble ahead.
Daily Mail
* Lorraine Candy is the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine.