Sorry to go against the trend, but whilst my DS is living in my house, financed by me, then he's under my control. I really don't buy into this "let them make their own mistakes" crap.
There's no way I'll let him make the "mistake" of buggering up his education, getting some poor girl pregnant, getting himself involved with drink or drugs or anything else illegal, etc. For the simple reason, I'll be the one picking up the pieces when it all goes wrong for him! I'm not going to stand by and watch him bugger up his life due to making mistakes in his formative years. If other parents don't like that - tough! He has enough freedom which expands as he matures but he remains under our control, which varies according to what he's doing.
My son was exactly the kind of kid that some of the posters on here would mark down as some kind of incompetent "nannied" overgrown baby when he was 10, and some of you would have concluded he wouldn't cope with getting himself to secondary school and surviving it once he was there. Right to his last day at primary, we took him and picked him up, gave him a packed lunch every day, yes, we were helicopter parents, did everything for him, sat at parties with him where all the other parents went off to do their own thing.
When it came to his first day at secondary school, he happily got on the service bus alone (no school buses round here), got himself to school, having walked a mile through town across a couple of very busy main roads, survived a full school day, got himself to the right classrooms at the right time, bought himself lunch, got himself back home again, all without problem nor incident, and has done the same for the last 3 years. Completely self sufficient and capable of working things out for himself, like what to do when the bus is late, working out bus timetables, etc.
One of his friends from primary school was always the "grown up" one who was always allowed out later, allowed to play and do what they wanted, etc., so on the looks of things, was more "grown up", but he was the one who wet his pants on his first day at secondary school and got lost trying to find his way back to the bus station! So which one was really the more mature???
At the end of the day, we have no worries about his development and his future. Yes, it's slower than some, but throughout his life, he's been a late bloomer, ever since he was a premature baby. But, with absolutely everything he's done, he's stepped up to the mark when the time has come and proved himself. I don't give a toss whether other parents would think that he should be doing more at a certain age - what's it to do with them. He's my child, he's happy, I'm happy, he's maturing and developing well into a well-rounded individual.
If he wasn't progressing and maturing at all, then I'd be worried, but he is, and doing really well at everything he does, even if a slightly slower pace. If others don't like it, they can butt out - it's nothing to do with them!