Parents of grown-up children are being urged not to ‘over-parent’ or seek to control every risk faced by their off-spring.

It follows the release of a report by Rehab this week which found that one third of students aged 18 and 19 experience mental health difficulties.

One of the recommendations of the report was a review of oral presentations as an assessment method for third-level students with intense anxiety.

Patrick McGarty, Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences at the Institute of Technology in Tralee, says US research shows that so-called ‘helicopter parenting’ interferes with the development of coping skills in young people: “Helicopter parenting is where parents basically do everything for their children and not let children explore issue that we would have traditionally explored when we were children when we were growing up.

“Where we faced problems and we got around it and that was it. In the last few years, a lot of the issues further up the line such as stress and anxiety could be down to helicopter parenting.”