She let her 7-year-old buy doughnuts alone. Experts say it’s exactly what kids need.

Ericka Andersen pulled up to the doughnut shop in her minivan with her 7-year-old daughter, Abby, and 9-year-old son, Jacob. Abby had a mission: to buy half a dozen doughnuts by herself. “I said, ‘Abby, do you want to do this?’ And she said, ‘Yeah!” Andersen tells Yahoo. After being handed her mom’s credit card and given some instructions, Abby headed into the store, returning a few minutes later with a big smile and a box full of doughnuts. Andersen shared the experience on TikTok, which ends with Abby, now safely back in the minivan, saying quietly, “I felt a little nervous and a little brave.”

The Indiana mom describes Abby as “an anxious child,” sharing, “You can tell she’s a little nervous, but that’s why I love having my kids do these things.” Andersen says she’s conscious of the trends happening with kids, including putting off getting their driver’s license, not moving away from home and “really not moving in the right direction.” It’s something that concerns her. “I don’t want that for my kids,” she says. “I want them to be excited to go out, to be independent and to challenge themselves.”

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation and cofounder of the nonprofit organization Let Grow, has inspired parents like Andersen to have their children do independence challenges, with some posting TikTok videos of their kids ordering food or going to the grocery store solo. It all stems from Haidt’s assertion that too little autonomy, a lack of unstructured playtime and lots of screen time play a key role in kids’ anxiety levels, which have gone up significantly. Children ages 8 to 12 years old spend an average of 7½ hours per day on screens, and fewer kids are navigating real-life experiences on their own than in years past. A March 2025 Harris poll of 522 children ages 8 to 12 across the U.S. found that 62% haven’t walked or biked somewhere, such as to school, a store or a park, without an adult present, while 45% haven’t walked along a store aisle without their parents.

Haidt encourages parents to step back and find ways to let their children be more independent and responsible — and take some small, age-appropriate risks — to build their confidence and resilience, which are antidotes to anxiety. And some parents are rising to the challenge.

‘Practice makes perfect’

Raising independent kids is something Paris Cooper has taken to heart. The mom of three, who lives in Alabama, has made several TikToks in which she talks about teaching real-life skills early, showing her kids doing self-checkout at the grocery store on their own and gassing up the family car.

She’s made a conscious effort to make sure her children — 9-year-old Gerald III, 8-year-old Gia and 4-year-old Gionna — are learning how to be more independent, including encouraging them to play outside and cooking their own breakfast on Saturdays. “My son and oldest daughter can make pancakes by themselves,” Cooper tells Yahoo. “I’m usually there just to make sure nobody burns themselves on the stove.”

She also has a chore chart for her kids so they know what they need to do to help out the household, whether that’s taking out the trash, sweeping the floor or emptying the dishwasher. “I try to give them structure and routine to help with their independence,” Cooper says. Her kids also know to wash their faces, get dressed and make their beds in the mornings before school. That includes her 4-year-old. “She can get herself dressed and brush her teeth, but one morning she was having a hard time making her bed,” Cooper says. “She has a lot of Squishmallows. I said, ‘You’ve got it.’ I really wanted to help her so they wouldn’t miss the bus, but I thought, She can do it. And she did it.”

Cooper, who is a self-described neat freak, says it can be hard as a parent not to jump in and do things for them, especially because sometimes “it’s not going be perfect — it’s going to be messy,” she says. “But I have to tell myself it’s OK. Practice makes perfect.”

Why being more independent matters

Lenore Skenazy, who, with Haidt, cofounded Let Grow,, coined the term “free-range parenting” back in 2008 — and was even called “America’s Worst Mom” for letting her then-9-year-old ride the New York City subway by himself. Skenazy knows firsthand how important it is to let kids be more independent and, based on the backlash she received, how deep parental fears can run about their child’s safety.

Skenazy doesn’t blame overprotective (also known as helicopter) parents. “I blame a culture that has denormalized kids being out and about on their own,” she tells Yahoo, pointing to how modern parenting means constantly monitoring our children, from cameras in day care so parents can watch their kids remotely to tracking your kid’s location through their phone or AirTags. “When you have a culture that has taught you that your kid is in constant danger and that you must be watching every aspect of their life every single second, you don’t realize how competent they can be — and neither do they,” she says.

Kids want to do some things on their own, she says, noting how empowering it is to be able to say, “I did it myself.” “It’s the original anxiety buster,” Skenazy says. The opposite is also true: “Always having somebody else helping you, watching you, assisting you, intervening on your behalf is convenient and easy, but it doesn’t build up any kind of competence that you have to do when you fall off your bike, when you get lost, when the dog barks at you.”

Ashley Harlow, a child and adolescent psychologist at Children’s Nebraska in Omaha, agrees. He says that parents have always had a crucial role in protecting and nurturing their kids, but he points out: “An interesting thing seems to be happening — the world is getting safer and safer, but parents are increasingly inclined to limit their children’s ability to explore it.”

Harlow says that when kids don’t have the chance to explore their world, rely on themselves and make mistakes, they can cause several unintended consequences. “For instance, when parents overprotect or over-intervene, kids have fewer opportunities to develop problem-solving and decision-making skills, as well as to build coping capacities for larger challenges,” he tells Yahoo. “Over time, these sheltered children can struggle with lower resilience and decreased distress tolerance.”

What are some age-appropriate ways children can do more on their own?

Harlow says that parents are “the ultimate decider” of what’s an acceptable amount of risk when their kids do independent activities, but in general, younger children can try ordering their own meal in a restaurant or knocking on a close neighbor’s door to ask a friend to play. “As kids get a little older, they could ask employees for help finding something in a store or walk or bike short, familiar routes in their neighborhood,” he says.

For middle and high schoolers, he says being more independent includes walking home from school on their own and taking on more complicated chores (such as cooking a meal for the family). Skenazy suggests letting kids wander around the mall while the parents catch up over coffee at Starbucks nearby. Or starting “free-play Fridays” by encouraging the neighborhood kids to head to the local park together after school, “just to normalize kids going on their own,” she says. (Parents can find more ideas on Let Grow.)

When children have the chance to rely on themselves, Harlow says they can build confidence, take responsibility for their decisions and reduce anxiety when faced with new, unexpected challenges. “Among the most effective interventions for anxiety is doing the thing that makes you anxious,” he says, “and so having the chance to do new and different things on your own teaches you that you can handle it.”

He adds: “This is true for parents and kids.”