I think one of the best parenting decisions my parents made was to have a generally laissez-faire attitude towards being protective of me. They let me walk to school from a very early age; they didn't pry when I was spending a horrible amount of time on the internet; they let me be my own person, which I'm eternally grateful to them for letting me do so. Because of that, we have a really good relationship where I feel I can tell them stuff and vice versa. So, if I have to be either horrendously overprotective or underprotective, I'd go for the latter. (Obviously if this were the real world, a lot of other circumstances would have to be considered, but for this hypothetical, the decision was relatively straightforward.)