Devalued currency

No, not Sterling or the Euro or the US Dollar, but the Prefix.

And specifically the following prefixes: special, biggirls and bigboys.

They had worked wonders for us for so long.

'Don't want to go for walk!'

'But Daddy wants to take you out in the special buggy!'

[The sound of TS and TD scrambling towards the front door and the creak of satisfied grins breaking out on parental faces.]

'No eat breakfast!'

'What about if Mummy gives you your cereal in a biggirlsbowl?'

[Half a super-sized pack of Cheerios disappears in the space of seven minutes.]

But the important thing to remember with prefixes, as with so many things in life, is to avoid over-use which might lead to their devaluation.

We have at least half a dozen 'special' creams in the house: the one which helps make grazed knees feel better, the one which Mummy inexplicably slathers all over her translucent skin so that it may glow , the one which Daddy rubs into his walking boots so that they repel water etc. And we wouldn't want an accident. Mummy does not want to wake up to find TS or TD slathering Brasso on her lower legs.

Inspired parenting solutions from the police

When it comes to finding creative solutions to persistent parenting problems, one must cast one's net wide. And who better to look to for inspiration than our law enforcement agencies?

Inspired by the Metropolitan Police's recent knife amnesty, we decided to use similar tactics to deal with that most pernicious of problems: daytime dummy-sucking.

Yes, it's Day Two of our Daytime Dummy Amnesty.

With the grandparents threatening to apply to the council for an ASBO, we have instituted a regime whereby TS and TD are asked to surrender their dummies before leaving their bedroom after waking up in the morning and after their midday nap.

A dedicated dummy pot (complete with difficult-to-prise-open lid) has been placed by the bedroom door for this purpose.

We are pleased to report that there has been an immediate cessation of daytime dummy-sucking, with decreasing frequency of dummy requests during the day.

It is for this reason that we are asking people to put to one side Sir Iain Blair's terrorism-related blunders and consider how his more inspired policing solutions might be successfully applied in other areas of life.