Let’s do this together

Another day, another phone banning.

Thrilled with her recent gaming success, The Dark Lord decided to spend half the night calling her mates until I finally got bored of telling her to go to bed – and confiscated her phone.

Trouble is, I’ve done it so many times before, and used so many different hiding spots, I decided to find a really cunning place where she would never be able to find it. In fact, it’s so cunning, that even I can’t remember where it is.

To make matters worse, I turned the phone off in my fit of temper before putting it in this very secret place, so I can’t ring it and track it down that way.

I’ve told The Dark Lord that it’s on a long-term confiscation as punishment for her little tantrum at the weekend, when she had the cheek to hide her phone from me, rather than hand it over.

It’s very confusing when your child turns one of your few parenting ploys against you, and it did feel like the monkey was in charge of the zoo.

But when she asked in the morning for her phone back this time, I had no choice but to be firm and refuse to return it. She wailed a bit, but is now playing the role of ‘sad, contrite child’ until she gets bored of pretending.

So this accidental loss is playing into my hands and making me a much firmer and consistent parent. I just wish I could ‘forget’ where I hid my stash of gin and crisps too.

It’ll turn up at some point, probably when I’m looking for the next thing I’m going to lose…

Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.