"The parenting criticism I needed to hear."

You’re doing it all wrong.

Nobody likes being told that. Especially, especially, especially when it comes to parenting.

So it’s to be hoped that Angela Mollard, who recently wrote a column telling parents exactly that, has a crash helmet.

In her piece, Modern Parenting Isn’t Working, Mollard cites examples of feckless teenagers taking gap years only to lie on the lounge, playing on the X-Box, swearing at their mothers, and of parents of pre-schoolers who will sit on the floor so their children can take the chairs as examples of a power-balance that is out of whack in our rush to be “friends first”.

A little piece of me winced in recognition as Mollard, inspired by The Collapse Of Parenting by Leonard Sax, called out parents of small kids who don’t jump on bad behaviour, who attempt discipline but don’t follow through with consequences, who always assume the teacher is in the wrong, not their child.

You can listen to Angela telling me what I’m doing wrong (and my co-host Andrew Daddo roundly agreeing with her) here, on This Glorious Mess:

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She writes:

I’ve always been a champion of parents. Support, listen, don’t blame. We’re all doing the best we can. But modern parenting isn’t working. Our kids are stressed, entitled, fat, over-medicated, fragile and lacking resilience. And they’ve got that way because parents have assigned their power over to their little princes and princesses.

My own “little Prince” is three. My “little Princess” is almost six. And Angela’s words made me cringe because every day in my house, the boundaries of power are pushed and shoved back, picked up and moved, hammered down and rebuilt.

It feels like the grown-ups in the house are constantly trying to hold back a coup, and most days, I think the rebels are winning.

When my daughter strikes my son in anger and I send her to her room, pouting and protesting that life’s not fair, am I ruining her by not confiscating all the fun stuff she can do in there? After all, she’d probably rather be locked away with her Shopkins than anywhere else in the world.

When my son kicks over a sand-castle at the beach, and I threaten to take him home, but then I decide the sun and sand is far preferable to an energetic pre-schooler tearing up my living-room, am I chipping away at regard for authority?

Angela and my This Glorious Mess co-host Andrew Daddo say yes, yes I am.

“You’ve got to start early,” says Andrew. “You can’t turn around to a 15-year-old and expect them to suddenly respect you.”

It’s about confidence, says Angela. And she’s right. When my parenting is flabby, it’s because I am feeling unsure about my choices. When I don’t follow through with punishment, it’s because I’m feeling guilty — have I been around enough? Have I bolstered their self-confidence enough today before I rail on them? When my children tell me I’m “being scary”, I feel no pride, only mild panic that I might be sowing the seeds of resentment.

We are bombarded with so much conflicting parenting information now, that none of us know what we’re doing. So often, we’re doing nothing.

No more. My parenting “words” for the coming year are RESPECT and CONFIDENCE.

What are yours?

You can follow Holly on Facebook, here.