OK I give up. It’s officially impossible to be a parent in this country.

This week it’s been more of the usual “experts warn” and “surveys reveal” in the Press. First we discover that British children are the most unhappy in the world (right after Christmas as well. Downright ungrateful really).

And then we are told that our teenagers are going off the rails because they didn’t have enough space and freedom to learn from their own mistakes when they were small.

So basically we have spent a generation designing out all the risks, fears and dangers of childhood (road are safer, accidents in the home and play parks are way down) only for teenagers to become so miserable and bored that they are finding new ways to put their own lives at risk with guns, knives, drugs, extreme sports and risky sexual behaviour.

I suppose it makes a kind of evolutionary sense.

It’s not just our children who live a risk-free existence. Even adult explorers and adventurers these days remain tied to the proverbial apron strings, knowing they are only a mobile phone call away from rescue.

We all live a sat nav, tom tom, no getting lost, no broken bones, safety surface, seatbelt, security camera, safety helmet, wet wipe, sanitised existence.

Richard Hammond even managed to survive his 300 mph Top Gear rocket car crash, thanks to modern helmet technology that protected his brain, and to the helicopter that rushed him into lifesaving hospital treatment so quickly. And what does he do after his brush with death? Realise he’s lucky to be alive and find a safer job in broadcasting?

Well, not exactly. Last week his fellow presenters laughed as he crashed into alligator infested waters and then daubed pink gay slogans all over his pick-up truck in an attempt to get him killed by homophobic bible belt Americans. It almost worked. He and the camera crew ran for their lives while being pelted with stones. I’m not sure quite why, but it was very, very funny.

And should we suppose from this that Clarkson, May and Hammond had over-protective parents who didn’t let them out on the streets enough?

I do know that Jeremy Clarkson’s mother made a very good living as the inventor of those Paddington bear toys that used to sell for an exorbitant amount in the Seventies. Little Jeremy grew up in a house surrounded by packing cases full of teddy bears, little wellies and mini duffle coats.  And as if that wasn’t hard enough, I can imagine that being called Jeremy, with thick curly locks and a cuddly physique also gave him good reasons to learn a bit of witty survival technique repartee.

So back to my immediate problems of guilt-free child-rearing. It’s half-term this week.  What am I supposed to do? Push my five-year-old out on to the streets and tell him it’s time he started learning his lessons the hard way?

For a start, he would be on his own out there. It may be the school holidays, but there are no children’s voices ringing out from the streets and gardens around us. All the children for miles around seem to be safely wrapped up in cotton wool.

What is new and perhaps a little weird is that the more that medicine and child supervision, and road, car and playground safety improve, the more our anxiety seems to grow. The number of child murders has remained more or less constant for the past 30 years. So apart from greater anxiety, there is no other reason for us to restrict our children’s freedom. So why does it feel totally wrong to even suggest it?

Imagine transporting our children back in time to our own childhoods, it would make a better TV show than Life on Mars – the cop show where a modern policeman has a car crash and wakes up back in the 70s.

Would they love the freedom from constant parental supervision? Would it make them happy?

It’s no coincidence that in today’s over-cosseted world, The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn Iggulden’s is topping the children’s best-seller lists.

It seems that all children need a certain amount of controlled danger to thrive. When we were children we were careful never to let our parents know what we got up to all day. On the surface I was a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth convent schoolgirl, in straw hat and white gloves.

But secretly I got into all sorts of scrapes in search of adventure.

One winter in the early 70s my best friend Valerie and I discovered our own private playground right in the middle to Torquay. One Sunday morning (my parents thought I was at church) we climbed over iron railings and sneaked up on to the roof of the then disused Pavilion Theatre. This was before it was converted into an indoor ice-skating rink, and later a shopping arcade.

While we were playing on the roof we discovered a way to lever out a small side window panel, and climbed through on to a ledge high above the main staircase (carefully replacing the window behind us).

From then on we spent hours most Sundays exploring every inch of the dusty, scary old theatre, with its backstage lovey messages scrawled on the walls by the stars of yesteryear, signed photos and newspaper clippings all pasted up in the wings.

The adventures stopped abruptly one Sunday morning as we inched across the flat-roof on our bellies and looked up to see a crowd of people watching and pointing at us from the bedrooms of the Torbay Hotel opposite. We stood up and ran for it, convinced the police were on their way to arrest us for breaking and entering.

When I was even younger my eldest brother, his friend and I once climbed up scaffolding and over a wall into the enclosed grounds at the back of Torre Abbey mansion.

Those were growing up experiences on a par with scrumping for apples, or stealing daffodils from the park for Mother’s Day, which play experts now say our own children need to do more of if they are to grow into well-rounded adults.