It was the end of One of Those Days and we were lying in bed waiting for those precious few hours of sleep to kick in when Mrs Sad Old Dad, summoning the last bit of energy she could muster, said: “Can you say with 100 per cent certainty that everyone has moments like this?” I muttered a not-at-all reassuring “Yes” and we both nodded off and said nothing more about it.

What had happened that day had been an epiphany of sorts. In the ongoing challenge to be good parents, modern parents with time for our children and all that stuff our own parents had never been bothered with, we had given too much territory away and we were now being ruled by a Tyrant Toddler. Things had come to a head in the car park of a large Mothercare. Thing One, our three-year-old, has recently developed a new favourite game. It involves sitting in the driver’s seat of our car and pretending to drive. The game has been helpful: in his desperation to reach the pedals, we have told him that if he eats all his food he will soon grow big enough, and since then mealtimes have been marginally less traumatic.

As a bargaining tool to get him out of this particular Mothercare, which has a small soft play area, his mum had told him that he could have a turn driving. Lines had been crossed and while she had meant sometime soon, when we were all safely at home, Thing One had understood it to mean immediately upon leaving the shop and had therefore decided to throw a tantrum in the car park when we tried to place him in his own seat. He was sobbing uncontrollably, but not uncontrollably enough to not break off every 20 seconds or so to wail “But I want a turn in daddy’s car seat.”

It was late in a very long day and the traffic home was moving at crawling pace. I decided to try to reason with him. “Look. If you try to get yourself together, stop crying and nagging, you can drive soon.” The crying stopped and there was silence. Then, after about a minute of peace, a small voice from the back said: “So, can I have a turn in daddy’s car seat now?” Aaaaarrrghhhh! It was a small moment but a defining one. We had created a monster, a master manipulator. In our desire to be loving and understanding parents, we had over-indulged and it hit us with some force that it just might be possible to create a child that you didn’t like very much as a person. Something had to change and it had to change soon. But where to start?

As sometimes happens, the very next day an answer presented itself. I was shopping for a birthday present for one of Thing One’s friends. There, by the tills of a posh children’s toy and clothes shop near where I work was a book with the title Hate Me Now, Thank Me Later: How to Raise Your Child With Love and Limits. I picked it up and started reading. “That’s our bestselling item right now,” the woman behind the till helpfully informed me. There, before my eyes was precisely the handbook we needed. Among its insights are the following bullet points:

·         Parenting in the past was all about respecting parents; today it’s all about respecting children. How about we try mutual respect?

·         Kids used to be scared of their parents; now parents are being emotionally bullied by their kids. How about setting loving limits with you squarely at the helm?

·         ‘You should be ashamed of yourself’ was a common, damaging mantra; now we’re ‘good-job’-binge our kids to death. Let’s give accurate, specific praise where it’s due…

The strange thing is that all it took was the green light the book gave me as a parent and the rest just sort of fell into place. It’s not been an entirely smooth transitory period, but Thing One seemed to immediately understand that sometimes a parent can be something other than a friend and our relationship has not suffered from the odd injection of Stern Sad Old Dad. And if it’s possible for me to learn a new trick at 50, he sure as hell can at three. Though I’m still not sure about that “hate” word in the book’s title.

@simmyrichman