Jonny McCambridge: How to get through to my son? Summon the food hygiene inspectors

Parenting is a good example. Billions of words have been written about the best methods for bringing up little ones. A quick search online reveals there is a whole publishing industry based around books in this area. They are mostly all billed as “must-read”.

I’ve written countless words about parenting myself. Indeed, it has probably been the most obvious theme of this column over the last five years. Once, when I was in discussions with a publisher about a potential book, it was suggested that I should write a guide for new dads, being told there was a market for such a publication.

But I was nonplussed by the idea. I have always kept a strong distinction in my writing between detailing my experiences and telling others what their experience should be. Perhaps it has been one of the character flaws which has always limited my career development, but I’ve always ascribed to the Groucho Marx quote – “I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member”.

Or, to put it another way – the last book I would ever want to read would be one written by me trying to tell other people how to parent. The mooted book proposal came to nothing.

Had I accepted the commission, it would have been a quick read. In fact, I believe I could have summed up my advice in a few words – do what you think is right and hope for the best.

Once you get beyond passing on the basic instructions to a child about the things to do in order to avoid harm, much of the best way to proceed in preparing them for the world has always seemed uncertain to me. I’m conscious of the authority that a parent has. My son will (to an extent), do what I tell him to do. But the more this authority is exerted in a particular direction, something is inevitably lost going the other way.

And this is before you consider that children’s processes of thought are so far away from an adult that they may as well be a different species. Years have been frittered away trying to find that elusive spot where my son’s point of reason intersects with my own.

I think of it in the same way I do the battered old wireless radio I once owned which had the frequency for Radio Luxembourg marked on the display. I used to spend a lot of nights when sleep was elusive turning the dial slowly, searching for something melodic amidst the mass of crackling and hissing sounds in the dark.

My son is a messy eater. It was quite an endearing trait when he was little. During visits to his primary school for teacher consultations, I could always guess which desk was his by the area where there was an abundance of crumbs on the floor.

But what may be deemed cute in a small child, can cause a bit more worry as they grow. When he eats dinner at the table, or grazes on snacks on his preferred spot on the sofa, the same circle of food is left around him. I’ve raised a complaint several times, but the messiness has not diminished.

Paradoxically, he has become obsessed with the subject of hygiene within restaurants and cafes. Displaying a feat of memory which I can only marvel at, my boy was memorised the ‘scores on the doors’ food hygiene ratings of every eating establishment within the council area where we live.

On one occasion some friends had invited us out for dinner. To my embarrassment, my son refused to eat any food during the evening and was mostly uncommunicative. It was only after we had returned home that I managed to get the truth out of him that the restaurant only had a three-star rating.

Once more I find myself grumbling and complaining as I am hauling the vacuum around the front room, hoovering crumbs off the floor. My instinct is to summon my son from where he is playing outside, to tell him off. I swallow the agitation, knowing from bitter experience that no good comes of it.

So, I do something else. I get a piece of paper and I begin to amateurishly recreate a couple of the food hygiene templates which my son regularly points out to me on café doors.

In my version, there is a prominent zero rating. The message below reads ‘URGENT ACTION REQUIRED TO TACKLE MESSY EATER’. I leave one on the kitchen table and one on the sofa.

When my son breathlessly returns home later, I tell him, with a voice filled with solemnity, that we have had a visit from the food hygiene inspectors. He looks at the notices. It is clear immediately they are not real. However, I notice a range of emotions filling his face. He is perhaps a little confused, in some way amused, but it is clear that he is thinking about the message. A contradiction has been exposed in a way that he understands. I have obtained the elusive parenting El Dorado – I have got through to him.

While an overnight transformation in my son’s eating habits would have been a neat conclusion to this column, the world does not work that way. My son is still a messy eater, perhaps he always will be. But the important point is that I see he is now trying not to be. He is sitting more upright, making an effort to keep the food on the plate. On occasion he has even guiltily asked if the hoover can be brought out to clean up some crumbs he has dropped.

He has also entered into the spirit of the ruse, asking if the food inspectors will be coming back and if I think he’ll get a higher mark. I’ve told him I am sure they will. There is a little bit of progress. Sometimes, as a parent, that’s as much as you can hope for.