Bad mums and worse parenting: why your little darling needs discipline

I oppose all home-schooling, apart from exceptional cases

I am so glad I had extremely stoic parents growing up. I could scream, kick, roll around on the floor, hit it with my bookbag, beat it with my fists, and my mother would not be manipulated into obeying me. I was not in charge. I was not in control. No matter how violent, abusive, or loud I was, no matter how unbelievably naughty I was, my parents were in total, unbending, stoic control. They never beat me, they never abused me, they just stared down in cold, unwavering silence until I realised my little pantomime of seven-year-old sadism wasn’t working.

If I wanted to lie on the floor and fake sob and shriek for twenty minutes, so be it. I was still going to school. I was still doing my homework. I was still getting dressed. I was still getting out of bed. I was still getting in the car. I was still learning how to read. I was still having a bath. Eventually, I’d get bored and sulkily do what I had been ordered to do an hour earlier. Never failed. And believe me: I was and am a strong-willed girl.

The first option is far, far more unkind than you think

Permissive parenting is child neglect.

I was always praised by other mothers on being “such a well-behaved child”; and that was simply…