Five signs your

Parents may need to put their foot down - and see how their own behaviour may be creating problem offspring

I'M a parent. I know what it's like to be more interested in peace and quiet than principle. However, as a Chinese proverb points out, if you're afraid to put your foot down sometimes, your children will end up stepping on your toes. And not just your toes. They'll swagger around the world, entitled, oblivious to the needs of others.

Here are five behaviours that suggest your parenting screws might need to be turned a little tighter, or you might need to examine the example you're setting.

Your child litters in public spaces. "I'm gobsmacked," a high school teacher in a private school told me. "Our students are privileged. They receive the best education money can buy, and you might hope that means they are aware of the world. But they leave sandwiches squashed behind cupboards, and the playground is covered in chip packets and Coke cans after break.

"An old gardener has to walk around cleaning up after them and it doesn't bother them." I can only assume an old domestic helper is picking up after them at home as well;

Your child is arrogant, excessively boastful or thinks he or she is superior to others. A private maths tutor I know says it's not uncommon for some of her students to say things like: "I'm smarter than the other kids," "I consider my family to be better than other people," or "We pay your salary."

These are the actual comments. Where does this sort of overweening pride come from? I'll give you one guess. Of course every person is unique, but you do your children no favours in selling them the idea, or tolerating their notion, that they are superior simply by virtue of their birth, money or even their abilities.

That is, unless you want to raise narcissists or persistently disappointed adults who can never live up to the fantasies of their parents;

Your child watches hours of TV every day and never reads. He watches hours of TV every day because you let him. Nothing wrong with having "no-screen" days. When you do enforce this rule it's amazing how, after a long moan or sulk, your child heads out to the garden or her bedroom and starts making things with cheap materials. Your child doesn't read because you don't read. She doesn't read because your home is empty of books, because you don't read to her when she goes to bed. Of course some children have learning disabilities and really struggle to read, but what about the rest?

Your children show no curiosity or don't think for themselves. One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is to open them up to the world - its complexities, wonders, possibilities and ambiguities. If your child is not interested in the world, you need to make the effort to introduce them to it. Go on interesting family outings; travel; invite different kinds of people to dinner and include your child in the conversation; and share your interests, skills, culture and history with your children. Challenge them to think and allow them to voice opinions that differ from yours. But don't give your children permission to believe in something without thinking it through, defending it logically or supplying evidence; and

Your child says or believes racist, sexist or homophobic things. There is just no excuse for raising haters.

What happens if you do most things right and you still end up with an aliterate and incurious child? All I can say is that parenting is a mighty responsibility and we can never do it perfectly, nor should we ever strive to do so. The road to hellish children is also paved with overly good intentions.

If you've done your best, it's highly probable that your children are at least good people, sensitive to the feelings of others.

Overall, your child's attitude to life originates with you.

There is a wonderfully poignant fable that illustrates how the real message of parenting is delivered by our everyday, unconscious thoughts and deeds.

A couple with a young child takes the grandfather into their home to live. He irritates the parents. He is slow moving. He forgets things and sometimes drops and breaks glasses and bowls. Fed up, they give the old man a wooden bowl for soup.

One day the parents notice their child carving an object from a piece of wood. Puzzled, the father asks him what he is doing and he innocently replies, "I'm carving a bowl for when you and mother are old."