Christmas is just round the corner. As well as the goose and the retailer’s profits getting fat, the kids are becoming over-excited, which can lead to various forms of bad behaviour.

Unlike the tablet or gaming device you bought on the high street, the little ‘uns don’t come with a manual and a set of troubleshooting procedures illustrated with diagrams …  maybe they should!

Yes, with the rampant commercialism of Christmas, this is the time of year for little Johnny to lose it in the queue to see Santa, roll screaming on the floor of the supermarket aisle while you’re choosing a turkey, and play up in the Post Office while you despatch Christmas cards.

This scenario isn’t helped by endless TV ads, aimed directly at kids, which lead to an accompanying chorus of “I want, I want, I want” and an unhealthy fixation with the contents of ToysRUs.

Christmas fact: children loathe shops – other than toy shops. It is therefore advisable to do the gift shopping on eBay while they’re at school.

Hard luck if you’ve missed the postal deadlines, are at work all week, and must make the decision to brave the shopping centre on Saturday afternoon … along with thousands of other people who don’t want to be there either.

Yes, you’ll be browsing those boxed gift sets in the hope of finding something “thoughtful" and with Little Johnny screaming “why can’t we go home now, Mummy!” while attempting to fling himself on to the floor.

For parents who struggle to control their children in shops, not only is there the full horror of viewing one’s offspring performing an Oscar-worthy re-enactment of The Exorcist: there’s also the need to justify themselves to the seemingly “better” parents who smugly say they’ve never had this sort of trouble. Ever.

Furthermore, they’ve never had to raise their voice to their child, because it is perfectly behaved, 100% of the time, reflecting their general superiority and excellence.

The children of top-performing parents are the ones that don’t even play up in Tie Rack, in a dusty aisle of books about World War II for granddad, or the ladies’ lingerie section of M&S, which are all dead boring for under-30s.

These parents don’t require a book called Basic Child Control for Dummies (yes, it is top of my Christmas list) and a stash of Nurofen Extra Strength for their shopping trip.

Sadly, for the tired and beleaguered parent who fails to maintain the child control benchmark at all times, it can be a lose-lose situation. If you raise your voice and escort the child for a ticking off at the side of the store, people stare… oh gosh, what a dreadful fishwife you are!

If the child wails at the indignant nature of being told not to touch those fragile ornaments costing £100 each, you are given filthy looks - you … child-abuser!

You may try to reason with the child discreetly, in the hope of avoiding unwanted attention from other shoppers.

However, if the child wails “NO!” pushes you away and promptly hides under the nearest store display, everyone stares at the Bad Parent.

Yes, by your gently-gently approach, you are Public Enemy Number One. Old ladies will tut and mutter: “We never put up with that sort of cheek in my day – what that child needs is a good smacked bottom.”

Then they loudly add: “That child is going to reach 13 and beat up its own mother.” Another epic fail!

Hissing at the child with threats of a later punishment are also grounds for the Dunce’s Hat.

I remember attracting evil stares for suggesting that my youngest son wouldn’t be allowed a Scooby Doo colouring pack if he further misbehaved in public.

Did they, perhaps, think I had threatened to throw him to a greedy pack of wolves?

And the little ones, whose minds work lightning-fast, note these scenarios and use them to great effect. Their worst behaviour may be reserved for the quiet in-store café, where you attempt to rest your feet while enjoying a coffee.

Enjoying? Dream on! Here, the child’s tantrum can have maximum drama value, with the audience immobilised in their seats.

In these circumstances of high excitement, “now now, calm down Johnny or Santa won’t come this year” or distraction techniques such as “would you like a kids’ snack pack featuring colouring pencils” don’t always work.

Maybe the child has randomly gone deaf. At least, where your voice is concerned, it has developed furry earmuffs – a must-have for the winter season, it seems.

With parents being undermined from all directions, and kids possibly wearing headphones at most times, perhaps the older generation is correct that a firmer hand is needed. 

No wonder the little ones reach age 13 and run riot in schools, forming knife-wielding gangs that steal alcopops for their classmates.

Really, some of the tiny terrors would be at home in a modern version of ‘Lord of the Flies’, where there’s no adult interaction whatsoever.

Recently, a 45 year old male fried pointed out that, back in the 1970s, the adults were well-respected and the kids knew their place – which was certainly not in front of a flat-screen TV, shouting that they want the latest iPad. Somewhere, since then, things have gone wrong. Is it the fault of too many electronic devices?

My mother, aged almost 80, believes that youngsters should not be allowed mobile phones and laptops for Christmas because they are “too expensive” and lead to competitive urges, one-upmanship and – if the child is older – wasting their life browsing Facebook and YouTube when they could be out in the fresh air shaking off their sugar intake.

Having said that, my mother also cannot see why people use eBay when they could (sic) “buy a new one cheaply in Primark”.

Furthermore, she believes that Christmas turkey is only ethical if plastic shrink-wrapped and not from a butcher, where there may be signs of its origin as an actual bird. Hmm!

Maybe we should evolve this idea and shrink-wrap the kids until Boxing Day, so there’s no sign of them behaving as actual kids.

Or, even better, unwrap them at the start of the spring school term, when they can safely be handed over to their school teachers. To be fair, schools like to adopt the role of primary carer these days anyway.

And, if the kids really must be given expensive and easily-breakable devices requiring their own insurance policies - such as tablets, smartphones and netbooks – maybe we could hark back to my previous idea (in an older blog entry) re designing apps to encourage good behaviour.

Concepts could include Mummy’s Little Helper, Quiet Kids instead of Angry Birds and a game based around arranging the odd socks in the drawer into pairs. Nothing involving shooting and destruction or disobeying the village elders.

Judging by child-rearing in the current era, in comparison to the 70s - and the barometer of social behaviour that is Christmas - our society has become like one big tablet device.

The traditional files have been replaced with throwaway shopping apps and instant chat functions where we can all have a big moan-up about life, while spying on what the Smiths and Jones are doing and behaving like we are in the school playground - with petty tiffs with so-called friends we barely know being conducted at a safe distance!

Maybe, this Christmas, it’s time for a quick reboot? System Restore to a previous era, where families enjoyed a low-key Christmas feast, not everything in Santa’s sack relied on batteries, and expectations weren’t too high. 

If the kids did not quite come with manuals, they were at least happy with a skipping rope and spinning top.

Then again, we could recreate Christmas 0.0 by locking the doors, disabling the wireless router and turning off the power supply. Dream on!