Bringing up parents

> Dealing with increasingly precocious youngsters nowadays requires learning some unorthodox parenting skills

to Kelvin to match her tat.

People criticised her for this. But raising children is all about thinking on your feet – plus will, of course, in my case, include bribery, corruption, cheating and lying.

Here are two evil dad tricks that worked for me:

Tell your children that the display of chocolate next to the supermarket checkout queue is special ‘dogs only’ candy.

Instead of buying expensive tickets to the aquarium, show the children the fish display in the window of your local fishmonger shop and say: “Shh! They’re sleeping.”

Oh, most parents start off imagining that they are going to raise an angelic child who wears only natural fibres. Pretty soon, they are happy enough if they can keep the little monster from running naked out of the house.

One father recently wrote on Twitter that he asked his six-yearold son to get dressed for school, and the boy snapped back: “OMG, why are you so obsessed with clothes?”

A TV presenter recently admitted that she and her husband sometimes travel first class while putting their children in economy.

First class should be “a huge treat that you have earned”, explained Kirstie Allsopp of the UK.

I like this idea. I wonder if her children live in a small hut in the yard of the family mansion, not having earned a house?

Nury Vittachi is an Asia-based frequent traveller. Send ideas and comments to lifestyle.nury@ thesundaily.com.