Six tried-and-tested tricks to make your child lose all respect for you

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.

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The Telegraph reader's guide to 'hippy crack'

FOOTBALLERS enjoy a balloonful. Youths at lockdown raves go mad for it. But what is ‘hippy crack’ and could it become the drug à la mode for relaxed kitchen suppers? Lord Denys Finch Hatton investigates. 

What is ‘hippy crack’?

Nitrous oxide or ‘laughing gas’ is used by Generation Z, who reached adulthood in the 2010s and consequently have never laughed naturally. Its shiny, bullet-like receptacles can be found discarded in areas where mindless yob vandalism is called ‘street art’.

Is it safe?

Once inhaled, the gas induces a sense of euphoria and a fascination with brightly-coloured balloons. When administered by medical professionals as ‘gas and air’, it is risk-free. Taken recreationally, side effects can be dizziness, the application of glitter to the face and a disinclination to agree with Laurence Fox.

Is it legal?

Nitrous oxide inhabits a legal grey area very different to ‘five and drive’ on country lanes, groping female colleagues, large-scale tax avoidance and everything else where the police leave you alone if you have the right accent. The lower classes can’t be arrested for this one, giving them a dangerous sense of impunity.

Should it be banned?

Shall we go over who’s enjoying this again? Boy racers. TikTok teens. The voiceless urban poor with no hope and no future. Of course it should be banned.

Conclusion

I am no puritan. I went to Ibiza in the 90s and once danced to Paul Oakenfold with Prince William. However, hippy crack is accessibly priced and readily available so must be the new scourge of society. Plus nobody with a modicum of decorum should be seen dead puffing on a pink ‘Same Penis Forever’ hen party balloon.