HOW to tame your wild teenager was the topic of a weekend workshop. I had visions of a chap in jodhpurs and boots, wielding a whip and a chair at a snarling, spotty young berk.

It conjured up this image of a sniper firing off a few rounds of tranquilliser darts and tying up the foaming, frenzied Kevin and Perry types as they threw a tantrum because they couldn't invite all their pals round to wreck the house.

It must have been a laugh a minute at that weekend workshop in Harrogate on Saturday.

The aim was to teach parents how to cope with the terrible teens. Bridging the parent-teenage gap was the subject of the special, live session called Antidotes To Adolescent Angst.

I'm afraid I could not make it. I had to stay home and wait for some adolescent angst. But the press release said it was led by a 'teen coaching expert' to help parents break through the communications barrier.

The technique apparently involves a seven-step teen taming process developed by teenagers, not adults. The system covers such topics as:

u How to listen from a teen's perspective

u Respecting the person while disagreeing with their behaviour

u Consequences versus punishment

u Promoting responsibility through agreements.

Call me lucky, if you like, but I've never experienced the terrible teens, even with three children.

And as for parents and teenagers not being able to communicate, that's rot. Of course they can communicate: "Can I have some money, dad? Can I stay out at my friend's tonight, dad? Will you drive me to the shops, dad? I'll tidy my bedroom later, dad - much later."

Now, we all know there is no apprenticeship for parenthood. Mess it up, and you finish up with one screwed up teenager as well as the parents in question.

If you were fortunate enough to have good parents, you can always adopt their techniques when you become a mum or a dad. Mind you, telling a teenager these days they have to be in by 8 o'clock every night might not go down very well, nor would insisting on no kissing on their first date, or no drinking.

And untidiness wasn't really an issue - a fearless peep into today's teenage retreat may involve guessing the colour of the carpet through the festering layers of 'hoodies', 'cargoes' (they're clothes, apparently), crisp packets and teen mags.

We could never emulate that spread when we had one 'best' set of clothes, school togs and the cousin's hand-me-down scruffs we mucked around in the rest of the time. Besides, in my pre-centrally heated days with frost inside the windows, upstairs was too bloody cold to hang about in, and there was no chance of blu-tacking a computer-generated warning such as "Billy's Room - Keep Out" on the door when it was shared with a brother and the clothes horse.

But I reckon you've either got it or you haven't when it comes to parenting. If you haven't, you'll need more than a weekend workshop to learn how to cope.

Trouble is, a mithering, moaning teenager brings out the spoilt child in patience-impaired parents, and their responses can be as childish as the ones they are exploding about.

To be honest, there is some truth in what our aged parents might say about us: "Your generation has never really grown up - you buy loads you don't need, won't save until you can afford things, chuck stuff when you're bored with it - never make do or mend - and have no idea how to put up or shut up." Perhaps they're right. Can you say you have never muttered "It's not FAIR!" in the last 20 years? Can you, really?

Perhaps, spoilt by parents compensating for post-war deprivation, determined their children would have better and more, we still at times behave like terrible teens ourselves. Is it surprising what results such role models produce? Maybe our teenagers are not that different from us. After all, who have they learned it all from?

Updated: 16:55 Monday, September 22, 2003