John Marsden, Australian educator, principal and acclaimed author of more than 40 books for teenagers and children, talks about his new book The Art of Growing Up.

A pandemic of "toxic parenting", where overprotective parents hover over their offspring, has been leading to unprecedented anxiety among young adults, an Australian educator says.

John Marsden, who is a principal and acclaimed author of more than 40 books for teenagers and children, calls his latest book, The Art of Growing Up, a parenting manifesto drawing on his decades of working with and writing for young people.

"There's a major shift in the last 10 to 20 years, it's happened very quickly. And one of the manifestations of that is the growth in anxiety among children and teenagers, and they often take the form of panic attacks, which are really quite disabling and become a serious concern for educators," Marsden told Kathryn Ryan.

Listen to the full interview with John Marsden

"We are well aware that these teenagers are just a few years away from leaving school and entering the adult world, and we worry about the likelihood of them succeeding in that world."

Toxic parenting, including parents who adopt a "helicopter" and "curler" approach to raising their child, is when the child is limited in their "landscape" of experiences and leads to them acting out, misbehaving or not learning coping mechanisms, Marsden says.

"And it's not surprising that they're not gaining much or learning much because there's not a lot of experiences available to them from that narrow range of landscape.

"The idea of a child, might cop a bruise, or a graze, or a scratch, seems to be so abhorrent to many parents now that they will do anything to protect the child from that.

"But in protecting them from physical damage, then they risk causing all kinds of other damage that the child's emotional intelligence, for example, doesn't develop, their social awareness doesn't develop, their ability to look after themselves, the development of inner strength and confidence and resilience and initiative."

However, as the founder and principal of two schools in Victoria, Marsden says his schools do the opposite. For example, they allow children to explore nature, and ride on bikes and skateboards.

And while children might get a bruise or scratch, and occasionally some minor broken bones, Marsden says it's not the end of the world when it does happen…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details