You've already had them under your feet for six whole weeks, chances are the novelty of the long summer holidays and managing your minions, aka your little darlings, has long worn off.

Summer camps are expensive, foreign holidays are on hold and the weather's not up to much, so how on earth do you maintain your sanity until it's time to pack them into their school uniforms again?

We offer an unconventional guide to perfect parenting during the recess.

1 Children are extremely adept at extracting cash from their parents, so avoiding being fleeced is a key goal this summer. Never, ever make the mistake of believing your children don't understand the value of money.

A good life lesson is to make them work for it. Tell them you earned pocket-money from the age of three (you can add anecdotal if improbable tales of walking to school with no shoes and carrying a pail of milk 10 miles just as your own parents lied to you).

Paid work sadly no longer involves children climbing up chimneys, which is a pity. On the other hand, washing the skirting boards or dusting those pernickety in-between bits of the banisters are perfect for small hands and deserve, ooh, 50¢ an hour (don't shy away from capitalist arguments over the minimum wage).

Never, ever agree a price in advance for work. Be vague, but optimistic. Tell them this is how tradespeople operate in real life.

2 Any more than one child is a child too many. If you didn't realise this before your second pregnancy, too bad. Siblings will fight about every imaginable thing. Let them.

On the basis that they're going to do it anyway, there's no point in mediating. Plug in your iPod and rachet up the music.

If you're in the car on a long journey, Queen and ABBA at a million decibles are excellent. You'll have hit the right volume when the kids ask you to turn it down. You don't need to hear them and it will transport you back to an age BC (before children).

Agree with each child at every opportunity that the other is being unfair, mean and horrible. Do it with a big smile.

3 Bring Other People's Children (OPC) with you everywhere. This may initially seem insane but do it early and often.

It has a triple effect: your own children fight less when they're busy trying to impress someone else; OPCs are invariably better behaved and this will rub off on yours; and you will immediately guilt-trip their parents into taking yours off your hands at some future date. If you can engineer all of them on the same day, bingo!

4 Kids love sleepovers. They are the bane of parents' lives because (a) they'll be up all night and (b) you can't yell at OPCs. Solution: put everyone in a tent in the back garden.

To add extra time for you, get them to erect it themselves. Tell them to initiate a secret password, zip up the tent, and on no account let the enemy in (you).

Pass through a variety of foods and leave them to it. Apologise to the neighbours in the morning, explaining that they are OPCs. They'll be livid they didn't think of it first.

5 Summer is all about money, money, money, so best to exploit this. Give each child a couple of quid and tell them to buy as many items as possible in the Euro shop.

The winner gets to keep their booty while you direct operations from outside nursing a latte. The rest gets returned (apologise to the shop assistant by telling her they're not your kids). Minutes of fun.

6 Borrow someone's pet. The kids will take hours washing, feeding, walking, you'll have the bonus of a grateful friend and will avoid the problems of the animal throwing up the following day.

It will most likely be slightly traumatised after the experience, but will get over it.

7 Going abroad on holiday with small children is akin to an army deployment to Iraq. You may survive, but best to plan for disaster.

Tie all children to a rope line in the airport (ignoring stares from other passengers -- they're just jealous).

Dose them liberally with Phenergan before take-off (it's antihistamine -- they'll need it with all that nasty circulated air) and allow them to run around the plane. The air hostesses won't know who they belong to and will bring them free stuff to calm them down. If they're super-annoying, you might get bumped to business class. Leave the kids where they are.

8 Use grandparents liberally and unashamedly. It is what they are for, after all. Few things give grandparents more delight then seeing their children have unruly sprogs of their own, but deep down they still love you.

Smile indulgently, dump and go. Never feel bad about this. Always carry an air of doing them a favour.

9 Children love water. It is quite incomprehensible how much time can be spent with a plastic sheet, a garden hose and a bottle of Fairy Liquid. Lock the back door.

10 Use children's time productively. If you strive to be an organic yummy mummy and can make rice krispie buns and healthy pizza toppings, there is no reason, given good instruction, why they cannot be taught to measure out four parts gin to one part vodka and string an olive through a cocktail stick.

They should practise regularly to get this exactly right. Maths and cookery in one lesson. You are a great mother.

- Aine Nugent