This is the sixth in a seven-part series on raising a happy child. Today, we focus on helping a child develop independence.

Ms Caroline Essame, 40, is an art therapist who helps children use art as a medium to express difficult emotions and negotiate an easier relationship with the world. She is also the mother of three boys and sees parenting as a juggling act of sorts.

As a therapist, Ms Essame endorses the view that you just have to be a "good enough parent".

This is a theory put forward in the 1930s by Dr Donald Winnicott, a British paediatrician who was concerned with the development of children.

Dr Winnicott is well known for his theory that, by moving away from the child in small well-timed doses, the mother helps develop a healthy sense of independence.

Ms Essame told Mind Your Body that she has always tried to strike a balance between the economic and the emotional needs of her children.

"I run my own business so I can have more control over my hours. It often means that I work till the early hours when they are asleep, but the trade off is I am there when they get off the bus from school and they can tell me about their day. I also feel that seeing parents work is a good example, but at the same time, they do not want to feel neglected. If work is all-consuming, it will affect their self-esteem and emotional well-being - abandonment versus attachment," she said.

Going back to Dr Winnicott's theory, Ms Essame said it is the perfectionist and abusive sort of parent who damages a child's self-esteem and identity.

"If a child is able to see that a parent does not always get it right and can handle that, he will learn that too. Independence grows from self-confidence.That is ego strength and the ability to take risks and responsibility," she said.

One of the key ways in which parents can foster independence is through non-judgmental comments, said Ms Essame.

She remembers something that was told to her in her childhood: "The only real mistake is the one from which you learn nothing."

So, with her children, she tends not to look at things as a mistake but part of the journey of life, as a process.

How does she set boundaries? She does it by preserving the ego strength but setting rules as to what is "bad". So she would do this by saying: "I know you felt angry and that's okay, but you do not hit."

She and husband Andrew Duffy also try not to tell their children what to do.

"We try to be non-directive and encourage exploration which inevitably leads to mistakes, but we try and talk things through and explore what happens or does not," she said.

Ultimately, she believes that making time to allow spontaneous chat - such as during shared meals and outings - creates occasions when things can be discussed naturally.

"I think being valued and heard is one of the most important things to give a child to foster self-belief and hence independence," Ms Essame said.