My son has reached the stage where he's more influenced by YouTubers than his very cool parents

Against every instinct, I have had to slacken the parental reins. Apparently I cannot meet him outside the school gates with an apple anymore

Children need to disengage from their parents tastes and develop their own (Getty)

The fidget spinners, bottle flipping and Gangnam Style generation are growing up.

My own started secondary school this year and against every instinct, I have had to slacken the parental reins. Apparently I cannot meet him outside the school gates with an apple anymore. (I was nowhere near as bad as one family member who, on the first day of school, stood outside the gates at home time with a massive bunch of helium balloons for their son, who then, I imagine, ran away to Honolulu. What other option you would have in that situation?)

He does not wish me to accompany him to school anymore either. I’m allowed as far as the station, but not on the platform. He was mortified this morning when I asked a kind-looking woman going through the gates to keep an eye on him for me.

The practical, physical separation is one thing but much more interesting (and less anxiety inducing) is accepting that his father and I are no longer his sole moral guides. He is looking to music and social media personalities, TV and his peers to widen his outlook and form his attitudes.

A slackening of the ideological reins needs to happen, too. I can’t expect my boy to have exactly the same politics as me, for example. If by secondary school you haven’t taught them basic wrong and right as you see them, then, frankly, what WERE you doing? If you are a staunch Tory and your child joins the Socialist Workers Party, you only have yourself to blame.

I assume that thanks to the values I’ve raised my children with, it’s unlikely they will join a neo-Nazi group (they’d have a job explaining their perma-tans if they did). We only talk about politics in my house if the kids ask. I try not to impose my view, but, instead, I gently make them see that thinking any other way to mine would mean that they are fascists. (This is a joke. Please don’t get angry in the comment section. Many people who don’t share my sensibilities are not fascists. Stupid maybe, but not fascist. I am still joking.)

But now my 12-year-old has gone in search of people whose opinions and humour connect with him that have nothing to do with what I have introduced him to. However “cool” we think we are as parents (and MY generation thinks it is very cool indeed because it went to raves and wore crop tops in winter) children need, to various degrees, to disengage from their parents tastes and develop their own. Yes, you can give them a steer: my children have been highly educated at home in the subjects of Fawlty Towers, Stan & Ollie and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. There comes a time though, when they find their own heroes.

At his age, my own first glorious moment of finding places I belonged away from parents and school was when The Young Ones and Saturday Night Live hit our screens. Alexei Sayle, Ben Elton, Rik Mayal and their gang of social misfits sticking it to “the man” provided the humour with values which split my sides and took me into a world where authority was not allowed in. For my son’s generation, YouTubers provide the sub-cultures people look to belong to.

In our house, a rap by YouTuber Boyinaband (real name David Brown) called “Don’t Stay in School” has dominated the airwaves in our kitchen. His message is that science and maths and indeed all subjects at school should be introduced to pupils but they shouldn’t be forced to pursue any subject if they don’t want to and instead be taught stuff that is of practical use. He raps, “I wasn’t taught how to get a job, but I can remember dissecting a frog” and “I was shown the wave lengths of different hues of light, but I was never taught my human rights”.

Now, admittedly, a song called “Don’t Stay in School” doesn’t immediately seem like something parents would approve of, but what kid wants to listen to anything parents approve of? I felt duty bound to research this Boyinaband chap. He seemed thoughtful, engaged and engaging. Phew. My maths- and science-loving boy had this alternative view presented to him by a YouTuber he related to. It won’t make him stop enjoying school, but perhaps be more understanding of people (like his mother) who struggled in that system. Some have been up in arms about the “bad influence” of this song, but we have always feared “influence”. At my school, in 1984, my entire year was herded into the school hall because someone had been found to have a copy of Bachelor Boys: The Young Ones Book.

The teachers were outraged by the content. We were asked, “Who else owns a copy of this book?” Almost all our hands went up. Meetings were had and letters sent home about this dreadful “influence”.

And you know, despite Rik’s insistence that we all become anarchists, most of us turned out alright. So I’m more than happy for my son to listen to Boyinaband’s “Don’t Stay in School” – as long as he’s finished his homework first.