Getting tough

...AND if you have had a teenage son in the last ten years and have managed to get through without a single row on any of those subjects, then you are a genius and should certainly be writing this column instead of me.

In the meantime, if you're just like the rest of us in the real world, prepare for battle. Get your strategy sorted and hold firm. Here a few guidelines...

1. £100 trainers are not essential for human happiness.

Especially not for 14-year-old boys whose feet are still growing or who still drag their toes instead of using bike brakes. And if they are, well, tough. One answer is to offer as much as you would reasonably expect to pay for trainers and let them make up the difference - either from their part-time job, savings or as sacrificing birthday and Christmas presents.

Don't want them enough to do that? No? Well, then, they don't want them that much at all. End of argument. Problem solved. If they keep on pleading, harden your heart and wear earplugs.

2. No one died by not having a TV set in their bedroom.

They won't believe this one either. And you, of course, are the only mean and miserable mother in the entire universe who won't get them one. Just think what you're depriving them of - late-night porn, gory films, the mindless witterings of fifth rate comedians. Doesn't have a lad have a right to these? Well no.

We held out until Senior Son was about 15 and after all that fuss, found they didn't even watch it all that much really. When they're home, we still watch our favourites - Coronation Street, The Bill, weird documentaries - downstairs together. And when they start squabbling over who gets the sofa, we sometimes wish they'd just go and watch in their own rooms....

3 Just because you can now talk to anyone anytime anywhere doesn't mean you have to...

Especially if you last saw them, oh, about ten minutes ago at school. Most parents weaken and buy mobile phones for their children because they think this means they will always know where their children are and will always be able to contact them.

Ha! How dumb can you get? Mobile phones are nothing to do with communication. That's why you'll see gangs of teenagers all walking round town together - and all of them talking into mobiles to someone else. Unless, of course they're so used to talking into a little box by their ear that that's the only way they know how to speak to the person next to them.

They will ring you and say they're at their best mate's. What a relief. But how do you know? They could quite likely be heading for an all-night rave in a warehouse on the edge of London, or hitching through the Chunnel with a crazed axeman. Or you get total silence because they've run out of credit or forgot to put it on charge. Or they've lost it, forgotten it, left it in a friend's car. Or - as Smaller Son did on the day he had his GCSE results - jumped in the river, fully clothed with his phone in his pocket. Then didn't come home till breakfast time... "And I couldn't ring you because my phone was wet."

If you expect their mobile phone to give you peace of mind, forget it. For mothers worried out of their skulls, maybe T should stand for TRANQUILLISERS too...

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