Jessica Watson is preparing to sail solo around the world, but where do parents draw the line in allowing their children to pursue their dreams?

Jessica Watson is preparing to sail solo around the world, but where do parents draw the line in allowing their children to pursue their dreams? Photo: Paul Harris

When my daughter reaches 16 I can't say I or my husband would sanguinely quit our jobs to support a risky solo sail around the world, nor would we blithely wave her off from the dock.

But I will encourage my daughter to follow her dreams, tell her she can achieve anything she puts her mind to, and counsel her not to listen to ignorant critics.

As someone who vividly remembers being an ambitious 16-year-old, I want Jessica Watson to achieve her goal of becoming the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe alone.

But as a thirtysomething parent, I would struggle to sanction such a quest if she were my own daughter.

We all want our kids to have the confidence to take risks and establish their own independence. Yet as a parent where do you draw the line between encouraging children to follow their dreams and saying no for their own good?

I interviewed Jessica Watson and her mother Julie earlier this year. The Watsons are a lovely family: sensible, non-pushy parents who have their daughter's welfare at heart. Jessica is a pleasant level-headed girl, if slightly remote in that way precocious teenagers often are.

I have zero nautical expertise and even less experience adventuring. Those who do, like adventurer Don McIntyre, Jesse Martin, America's Cup winner John Bertrand and Richard Branson, believe Jessica has the capacity to succeed.

Yet it seems to me that the Watsons are de-sensitised to the very real potential for something disastrous to occur on Jessica's voyage. They have become (understandably) so single-minded in their pursuit of her dream that the dangers exist only on a theoretical level in their minds.

That's the problem with obsessions - you often don't realise how in thrall you were to a particular idea/past-time/person until the spell is broken. Then you wonder just how you became so blinkered, and why you paid such a high price.

Most teenagers take risks to varying degrees - it's part of growing up and attaining independence.

Underage drinking, speeding, driving unlicensed, or popping pills at music festivals have become adolescent rites of passage, with tragic consequences for some families.

Unfortunately for Jessica her risk-taking is occurring in the full glare of the media spotlight and has the potential to be uniquely catastrophic.

If you're going to successfully sail solo around the world, confidence is vital. All those people now pouring scorn on Jessica's abilities are sapping her confidence and increasing the likelihood something will go awry on her ambitious voyage.

You can see it in Jessica's face. The Sunshine Coast girl who reclined on her yacht with a wide-eyed smile for photographers in May now looks rattled and cowed. Her collision with a 63,000 tonne Chinese cargo ship less than a day after she sailed out of Mooloolaba last month has left her psychologically bruised.

After initially lapping up the 'you go girl' story, the media - and politicians - have turned with a vengeance against the teenager, following a damning Maritime Safety Queensland report into the crash.

It revealed Jessica hadn't turned on an alarm that would have warned her of a potential collision, probably dozed off just before the crash, and could not produce a clear plotted plan of her journey.

Yet the accident is probably the best thing that could have happened. Sure it was humiliating for Jessica to crash before she even made it to Sydney, the departure point for her world record attempt. And it's fodder for critics who think it's insane for a 16 year old girl to undertake such a journey.

But better to have a scare like this close to home in relatively benign conditions than far from help in the treacherous waters around Cape Horn. You learn from your mistakes, and hopefully the Jessica Watson currently sailing towards Sydney is a little more circumspect and prudent than the girl who left home in September.

But I still wouldn't want it to be my daughter