One thing I like about Switzerland is that kids are not overly protected and are encouraged to do things independently, such as walk to school on their own.
I was reminded of this on seeing the news that someone called social services alleging child neglect because a mother let her son go inter-railing at 15 without parental oversight.
I dunno. 15 seems very young to be off around Europe on your own. After our GCSEs me and my friends went camping for a week alone in the UK and that felt massive at 16.
Wasn’t on his own, he had a friend with him.
I think it depends on the child. Some are “adult” enough to do it at that age, others aren’t.
I did something similar. After GCSEs, I organised with a friend to go on a one week holiday to France.
My dad left his home country at 16 to look for work.
I remember reading stories about the early days of America and one guy who sent his 14 year old son to retrieve a horse that had run off - the son was gone several days to track down the horse and had interesting encounters with local tribesmen.
I was reading an article just last week about how Gen Z have some of the worst mental health/anxiety in recent generations and the author posited that this was in part due to helicopter parenting and children never being left alone to explore and do all the normal things that are part of becoming adults.
I hear stories now of parents going with their kids to job interviews (sometimes sitting in the room during the interview!) or moving with the kids to their university town or work town to continue the molly-coddling.
I try to hold back my natural instincts to over-protect my son sometimes e.g. when he climbs high up a tree with seemingly no fear of the fall. Or when he comes home 30 minutes late from school because he decided to walk with his friend to his house in the opposite direction to home.
I wonder how these parents find the time to mollycoddle the kids. As a working mum, I feel like that bit of parenting passed me by.
Just trying to imagine my parents coming with me to a job interview, back in the day. Holy crap. 
It’s got to be a red flag to the interviewer as well, right?!
I saw a video where a young adult asked her mum “how do I make an appointment with the doctor.”
“just call them up and say you would like an appointment.”
“no, but tell me what i need to say exactly”
“hello. this is xyz. I’m calling to make an appointment…”
My mum travelled with me to a job interview once but only because it was in the dizzy heights of London and we wanted to spend a few days visiting. It was for my first job after university and it was nice to have a travelling companion.
There was no way on earth I would have let her come into the interview with me and she would never have suggested it.
My sister and I took off from California to tour the UK; I had just turned 15, she was absolutely useless even though she was 18. We hitchhiked or took the bus, but I had to plan everything and even rescued her from a bog at one point. Afterwards, she left for home and I stayed alone in a youth hostel for 2 weeks, waiting for my school to start in Scotland.
Actually your example seems reasonable to me: Youngster asks mother how to do it, she tells him. Isn’t that what parents should do? After all, it’s not knowledge one is born with naturally.
The problem today is, that exactly this is lacking with parents these days: instead of giving their children the firs-time-information they do things for their offsprings and follow them around, making sure they will never ever be able to do things themselves.
Kudos for the kid for asking how to do it. Today’s normal seems more Mom makes the appointment, drives me there and waits until I’m finished, talks to the Doc, takes the prescription and walks in the pharmacie while I wait in the car. No? 
I hate having to call people on the phone and will avoid at all costs. Much prefer to send an email or a text. Nothing to do with how I was parented. My sister has zero qualms about calling anyone and we were brought up in the same way. Face-to-face, I’m fine but there’s something about speaking on the phone that ramps up the cringe and awkwardness.
Glad to read other people are like that too. 
I do everything by email, add “further questions exclusively via email”, refuse to enter my phone-no. into forms …
But I would be able and willing to tell a kid how to do it. But - obvious after the above - would not do it for them.
Phone avoidance level: Expert.
Many people don’t like talking on the phone and I understand that later generations have more of a hangup on this with more things being done by messaging and also covid impact.
However, a 20 something year old having to be told word for word what to say for something as simple as “hello my name is x, can I make an appointment please” is a bit much. I’d expect that level of hand-holding for a 7 year old, not a grown adult!
I got over my phone phobia when I started work. We had to talk to people on the phone. Not only that, but in an open plan office where everybody could hear your conversation and hear any flubs that you made.
I agree, I can understand needing to be talked through it if you’re a child or young teenager but how anyone can get to twenty something and not know how to make an appointment is beyond me. It’s not exactly rocket science.
Didn’t understand a word
Ah yeah, work is a different thing. No probs there.
Sounds weird I know but that’s curley 
How do you know he/she/it was twenty-something? OP didn’t say.
I take it they wern’t 7 yo either as not even I would expect them to make their own doctor’s appointment.
Because Phil told us how old she was.
Ah yeah, I see it now. Took the parents a long time to teach them.
However, my point actually was that a youngster asking for advise to me is fine, no matter how “silly” it might appear (a grave mistake to tell them a question is silly).
But helicopter parents (joining in job-interviews) or claiming child neglect when a teeny goes travelling to me is not.
When I was 19 I spent 4 weeks travelling coast to coast in the USA on Greyhound busses. It cost $99. I slept overnight on the bus and walked round wherever I was the next day. I slept on the beach, on the roof of a hippy apartment in San Francisco. Likewise in LA. Met loads of weird, but interesting people. I spent the last week travelling up to Canada.
They were very different times in 1968 and I doubt today I would be happy with sending any child of mine, whatever their age, on such a trip. On reflection, I think my parents were trying to tell me something…