DO you want to lose your child’s respect for you as a parent without tricking, forcing or bribing them? Try these foolproof techniques:
Secretly eat their snacks
Denying it was you who polished off the last pack of Wotsits while sporting a Ronald McDonald-style orange ring around your mouth is the perfect way to make your kids question everything you tell them. Even six-year-olds know whole jars of Nutella don’t simply vanish overnight.
Sing along to 90s pop classics
Showing off by singing or rapping along to Livin’ La Vida Loca or Gangsta’s Paradise is guaranteed to make your children not want to invite you to their own sixth birthday party, let alone their wedding.
Cry when they win a prize
Visibly welling up whenever they achieve any bollocks, no matter how insignificant, will instantly make your kids want to trade you for a less wanky parent. They’re fully aware that Star of the Week means nothing when Iris gets it just for not wetting herself. Why aren’t you?
Be incapable of helping with maths homework
When a child asks for your help with something pretty simple and five minutes after you’ve sat down they’re still explaining it to you, respect ebbs away. When you correct their efforts and it comes back covered in red pen and you furiously confront their teacher, it’s gone.
Wearing trendy clothing
Parents should know their place, and that place is to be uncool. When you turn up at the playground in Balenciaga trainers you’ve humiliated them, the Balenciaga brand and the very concept of fashion. They’ll be in brogues and a waistcoat the moment they can.
Actually tell them how you feel
Your kids can’t afford to see you as a human being with needs and wants and, worst of all, feelings. Make the mistake of showing them that you’re not simply a tidying and meal-providing automaton and they’ll never respect you again. Save those emotional chats for the mirror or the dog.
