How to be best - Behaviour

Regulating my own behaviour is an exhausting chore but the idea of having to regulate the behaviour of others brings me out in hives which is why I regard even the friendliest and most professional police officers with a degree of circumspection. I just don't see the attraction. Obviously I am hugely grateful that they exist because the maxim 'live and let live' is not one of universal interpretation or subscription but it's not for me.

Which is why I'm such a massive cop out as a parent (sorry, I know). I realise that an unlimited diet of ice lollies for my child is something I will end up paying more for than he will, most likely in dentist's bills, but shutting down that wheedling with a reasoned explanation of why he would be much better off with his kale and quinoa wrap is just far beyond me. Just say yes is my motto.

This makes me no sort of an ally to my German wife, Frau Nein, as I don't call her. She lays down the law like a road crew on the August Bank Holiday. We have the full range of sanctions from 1-2-3 to sit on the step to go to your room with a sideline of withdrawn screen time and what are fancifully called treats, fancifully because they constitute about 75% of his diet. And what kind of masochist threatens to take away their child's screen during a lockdown, the biggest self own since the Duke of York remembered taking the family out to Pizza Express.

I believe that, according to conventional gender dynamics, fathers are supposed to be in charge of discipline which is a laughable suggestion in my case, quite literally because I am usually reduced to hysterics by my child's naughtiness. My main problem is consistency of tone. My wife is capable of sounding really quite fierce when things are getting out of hand whereas I just plaintively ask 100 times for my son to get into bed with no result.

On one occasion I decided to take a leaf out of her book and shouted at the top of my voice. Instant hysterics and I had to write a letter of apology. I'm not even aiming for a good cop bad cop dynamic just totally average recruit who is going to scrape his way through Hendon. I know however that I need to shape up because, leave to one side the love/fear spectrum, I haven't yet moved beyond receiving my son's scornful defiance.

Food Inglorious Mood

All the anguish and ecstasy of parenting is characterised by one thing and that is cliche. Whatever thought, whatever feeling, whatever experience a plethora of parents have had it before, whether it's the bedtime battleground or the screen-time siege, you aren't the first and you sure as hell won't be the last. And so, inevitably, to food.

I know there is a right way and I know there is a sane way. I am not convinced they are the same.

Right way:

- Set meal times

- Baby led weaning

- Organic

- Home made

- Rationed snacks

- Very occasional sweets as reward for good actions ALREADY completed not bribes in the futile hope of good behaviour

Sane way:

- Literally whatever gets you through the day

Ok, I know that the Birdseye potato waffles for every meal until adulthood is active damage to a child, but I also just can't bear what I call 'Cornetto Feeding' otherwise known as 'Just one' more mouthful.

Contrary to what some may believe you will always eventually win a battle of wills with a child. You are twice, thrice or more their size. Where are they going to go? But you will always lose the war. Your child is your child forever. Force the broccoli down their throat at 5 and you and they both will be paying for it with their therapist 20 years later.

If your mantra is 'Never Nutella' be assured that theirs is 'Nirvana Nutella' and they'll be spooning the stuff as soon as they have their own bank account. Baby led weaning is wonderful in principle. Agency, autonomy, fine motor skills. What's not to like? Simple - it's turning your pumpkin and his pumpkin into a pint-sized Pollock except the canvas is his face, his clothes, the high chair, your face, indeed every possible surface and orifice except his mouth.

You know those amazing pouches you can get from the shop have nozzles [teats] for a reason. You screw the good stuff to their mouth like a bike pump to the valve and fill them up. No mess, no distress. And no two times cooking.

And yet I know that without regulation there is chaos or worse, intolerance. There are two foods I really hate liquorice and basically anything aspic, savoury jelly is boak with bounce. But you serve that to me for supper and I'll wolf it down and ask for seconds. Because manners and because fussy eater means fussy everything.

Active allergy must be terrifying and for some, tragically, fatal. But the yawning chasm that exists between that and 'intolerance' is an abyss of courtesy and decorum. It is not one I want my children tumbling into. Answering 'Any dietary requirements?' with 'Lashings of champagne' is probably equally unwelcome but it's a firm way of declaring to a host that you're not a bloody nuisance.

Anyway I must get back to arranging my baby's smorgasbord.