I have been a teacher for more than twenty years and I must say that I have some real doubts about corporal punishment. When I was teaching at the British School of Bucharest, one of my pupils came to school with horrible scratches across his face. His father said, "My son lied to me, so I beat him."

Please, parents, take great care when using corporal punishment. If you are really angry, do NOT hit your child because you can easily forget how strong you are and hurt the child far more than you intend. I am not saying that you should never give a child a smack on the bottom. There are some occasions when this is an appropriate response to bad behaviour.

If your child has lost or broken something, the best thing is for a favourite toy is disappear. Then you can say to the child, "We've sold your PlayStation to pay for it." Children are particularly bad at leaving their clothes lying around and often they have no idea how expensive children's clothes are.

As for Ritalin and ADHD, there are a number of well-documented studies on the Web that underline the dangers of giving Ritalin to children. It is a Class 2 drug, in the same group as heroin and morphine. Ritalin is a powerful drug and it causes brain atrophy (which is a posh way of saying that your kid's brain will shrivel and shrink).