It was only 9.15am on week 2 of the summer holidays and I'd already said "I've asked you three times" more often than I'd had a cup of tea.

Listen to this article

One child was refusing to get dressed, another had disappeared behind a screen. Before I knew it, I was doing exactly what I'd spent years helping families avoid as a teacher: raising my voice and trying to win an argument nobody was ever going to win.

That was the moment I realised something uncomfortable. It wasn't just the children escalating these rows. I was too.

Because summer doesn't create difficult children. It simply exposes the communication habits families fall into when everyone is tired, together all day and routines disappear – here's what to do instead.

When it comes to summer rows, we assume the problem is what we're arguing about. The screen time. The bedtime. The "you never listen to me" accusations. Actually, the subject of the row is rarely the real issue. The real issue is how we're arguing – and most of us, parents and children alike, fall into the same handful of traps without even noticing.

I call these Argument Traps. They're not about being a bad parent or a badly behaved child. They're just what any of us do when emotion takes over from calm, and once you can spot them, you can start avoiding them.

The traps........

© LBC