The thing about kids is that while they can be dripping with the saccharine sweet kind of cutesiness that makes you go all awshucks and woggly over them, under the right conditions (i.e. teething, being sick, turning two) they can all become Chuckies (or the Brides of Chucky, depending on the gender).

We’ve all met them before (and it so happens that all of us have had the luck of the draw – none of them are our own. I raise my child up in the fear of the Lord, y’all). It was a nice quite afternoon at the East Coast Park, you were chilling sipping your cuppa of budgetta lattes when suddenly a shrill wail reverberates from the play area.

“Daddy this boy pushed me and broke my arm and punched my nose and called Mommy a whore!” (ok it may be any of one the above and not all together probably just the pushing bit but you get the drift).

The options in such a scenario are limited and these are the usual suspects.

(a) You can usher your boy away and tell him its ok, kids are mostly brutes and assholes (sorry daddy is not supposed to use that word anymore) and that’s why mommy says homeschooling is good now smile at the boy shake his hand and walk away.

The problem with this is that it is too cliche to be of any value to your child in the long run (turn the other cheek? bah!), unless you want your son to grow up to be a geeky stiff-necked academic (we call them President’s Scholars here).

Hence, peruse option B

(b) You push the offending boy, karate-chop his arm with one hand while smashing his nose in with your right hook and while he’s still screaming from the pain and shock from seeing his humerus stick out like Eduardo Da Silva’s shin, call his mother a whore in that looping sing-song voice “nah-nee-nah-nee-nah-nah, your mother is a whor—ore, nah-nee-nah-nee”

The problem here is that Social Services will haul you away from that child and your child.

So what’s a good parent to do? Here’re three alternative methods to get PAYBACK TIME without getting jailtime, or worse, landing up on the front page of the New Paper.

(a) Do something completely ridiculous and out of character for the typically sane parent.

If you’re at the playground, throw sand at the offending child’s eyes. Parents with newborns may want to consider flinging poop. If there are no objects around to improvise from, pinch the kid when he is being distracted. Smokers, set his Baby Guess jeans on fire and then put it out before it actually burns him.

If Brute accuses you of physical harm and Brute’s parents approach you, look completely bewildered and appalled at the idea that you could have done such a thing (I’m an GROWNUP, for crying out loud!). Brute gets a telling off from Mommy and Daddy for lying.

If you did the fire thing (always a good choice), you may even get a reward for saving his life. We all win.

(b) Offer him our *special* treats.

Daf and I always carry around in our diaper bags candies and chocolates that also double up as laxatives or constipatives for  the young ‘uns. It’s kinda our own little experiment and family-owned business,  if you’re not living in Singapore I’ll be glad to send you some. If you’re Singaporean, I am obviously kidding about this and my IP address is actually 221.123.44.1.

The idea is that spoilt brats and/or bullies are almost always obese and would never refuse candy or chocolate even if they are suspicious of your intentions. You would think that being as fat and engorged on candy as they are already their own saliva would taste like maple syrup but it is the paradox of the Turkish delight.

Mind you, these special treats won’t actually kill them but cause them enough trouble at an – importantly – delayed reaction time. So while your own child may be dismayed that you seemingly just rewarded foul behaviour, you can smile at him with a twinkle in your eye and be assured that two hours later that what goes into Brute may not come out for at least a week or come out very quickly at one go. In liquid form.

(c) Accuse the child of swearing.

For whatever reason, parents that don’t bat an eyelid when their kids behave like little Kim Jong-Ils go all ballistic when they find out their child uses improper vocabulary.

So here’s how it goes. Brute’s parents arrive on the scene and Brute has a Dursley catch-me-if-you-can smug look on his face. This is what you say:

“Your child just yelled the word f*ck”

They’ll be all flustered and panicky and go “My son would never say a word like that!”

This is where you turn towards Brute and ask in a gentle voice “Boy, did you say the word f*ck to me just now?”

Chances are that he’ll yell “NO I DID NOT SAY THE WORD F*CK!”. You then put on a sympathetic look, give a knowing shrug, and lead your child away to a safe distance away from the subsequent fallout. Victory is yours.

These are just some of the methods I employ when facing a sticky situation of disciplining a kid that is not your own child. If any of the above has happened to you before, I just want you to know that I do not frequent the Ikea@Tampines and I am not that “uncle” that mixed a moshy looking paste into your kid’s McFlurry.