Due to innovative timetable management by Birmingham’s education service, the inaugural half-term break of 2012 will take place a few days after the Christmas decorations were stashed away.

The children will have exams to revise for and there is bound to be at least one interminable homework project to contend with.

(Did you know that the latter are more divisive in our household than any other single issue? Projects are more controversial than X Factor. Oh, the trouble they cause. But I will say no more. Even mentioning “them” will spark a row. In fact, I’ve said too much already and school projects – ahhhh! – are not the topic of this week’s column. Although they could be. Believe you me, I’d like to give school projects both barrels. But enough. For now.)

Homework assignments to one side, there will be free time for the children to “hang out” and “chill.” And then we will brace ourselves, as all parents do, for the oft repeated refrain: “I’m bored.”

While our girls were still young, say three or four years old, I indulged them. I maintained the pretence that life was packed with adventure, fun and fluffy pink bunny rabbits.

But by the time they hit reception class, I reasoned it was time for a wake-up call from Planet Reality.

And to the phrase “I’m bored” I devised a response which cannot be contested. It runs thus:

Child: “Daddy, I’m bored.”

Me: “Good. Get used to it. Life is boring.”

I don’t see anything wrong with telling a child that life can be hard and that it isn’t all about having fun, fun, fun.

In retrospect, it might have been advisable to have waited until the girls were into their stride at primary school before I shattered too many illusions, but, hey, we all make mistakes.

For a long time, the behaviour of other parents led me to believe I was in a very small minority. We did very little, so why were all these other children being lavished with trips to Legoland, the “Wacky Warehouse” and the sweet shop? Life’s not like that, I wanted to say. Life’s like Monty Don – it is essentially miserable.

Well, it’s been a long wait but my stance has finally been vindicated by none other than Kirsty “Desert Island Discs” Young.

The radio and TV presenter, who has two daughters and two stepchildren, has gone as far as saying she doesn’t want her children to be “happy”.

She believes they will be “bloody lucky” if they get a sniff of happiness and she would much rather they were content and had a sense of self-worth.

I am with Young all the way.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, we persist in telling children that life is like a box of chocolates. We don’t tell them there are some real stinkers in there – like lime creams.

At school, pupils are taught that if you are happy and you know it – and you really want to show it – you should clap your hands. When do you ever see someone walking down the street and spontaneously clapping their hands? It never happens.

Young, who is 43 and has become my spiritual guide, is correct when she says “life’s complicated” and “mostly never as it seems”.