Growing up comes with a host of changes, and one that can be a challenge for parents is knowing when to transition out of being ever-present during children’s doctor’s appointments.

Although there’s no clear-cut age at which a child should be able to be in the exam room by himself, Dr. Tim Murphy, pediatrician and past medical director of Lakeside Pediatrics in St. Joseph, has some pointers.

“As children get older, they should handle doctor’s visits more and more independently to the extent of their ability,” he says. “ ... The goal is to help them step up and take responsibility for their own care as they enter adulthood, but of course you begin doing this before they’re 17 or 18 years old.”

He begins when patients are about 10, he adds, by starting to address questions to them rather than their parents. And as they get a little older and it’s essential for him to get kinds of information from them they might not be comfortable talking about openly, he sometimes asks parents to leave the room during portions of an exam.

From age 12 on, his patients’ parents can give written permission for them to seek their own medical care, meaning they can come unaccompanied, Dr. Murphy says. (Before they’re driving, of course, their parents likely are with them as far as the waiting room.)

But this isn’t to say it’s never appropriate for a parent to be with a teenager in the exam room. Dr. Murphy notes that he recently saw an 18-year-old patient with severe diabetes that she had trouble controlling, and for her, it was essential to have a parent present to hear care instructions in case she became unable to care for herself.

“That’s a case that shows there isn’t really a set age,” for a child to be without a parent in an exam room, he adds. “ ... The point really is just to put them in a position where they’ll grow up to be accountable for their own health care.”