P is for PUBS, PARTIES and PUBERTY, which creeps up on your little boy about three years before you expect it.

There you are, thinking he's still happy in his chain store jeans, playing with Lego and giving his mum a cuddle. Then suddenly, he's all hair gel and attitude and curled lip and won't even walk down the street with you if he can help it.

You were expecting this at 13 but you might well get it at ten or 11 years old. If you think that's bad, just be grateful that you haven't got girls, who seem - so I'm told - to go from loveable little toddlers to stroppy little madams in the space of about a fortnight.

But there are bonuses. Apart from the fact that now, with luck, he can tie his own shoelaces and get his pants on the right way round. At least you don't have to do PARTIES any more, which must be worth at least two cheers.

No more musical chairs or pass the parcel. No more Punch and Judy men. No more late nights trying to convert a lump of cake, lots of icing, some jelly beans and liquorice strings into a football pitch/space rocket/racing car/ Incredible Hulk (a large green blob often barely distinguishable from a football pitch. Ho hum.)

No more football parties or swimming parties or all those trips and treats you've done for years. You might, just, be allowed to take a small select group to cinema or theme park as long as you make yourself scarce once you're there and don't say anything embarrassing . But parties and - hooray! - party bags are a thing of the past.

For now...

For soon parties will be reborn. But not as you or I know them. No, the average late adolescent takes the minimalist approach. To them a party is an empty house, a few friends, lots of lager and a bottle of vodka. Simple. Food? Forget it. Though they might phone for a pizza if there's any money left after buying the booze.

If only all entertaining were as easy...

Nervous parents first risk leaving their teenagers at home for one night. They can't get into much trouble in one night can they? Of course they can.

Word will go round on the jungle drums, and a steady stream of teenagers, cans and bottles will start pouring in. These aren't the advertised parties that attract gatecrashers and trouble. They're generally more of an intimate sort of a gathering.

TIP: Stock your cleaning cupboard up with lots of 1001 and they might have to mop up so much spilt lager that in the process of cleaning it up you could get most of your carpet shampooed.. See, I told you there were bonuses.

There should be others. This is also the age at which they discover PUBS. They can legally go into pubs when they're 16, but most of them are there before then. By the time they're of legal; drinking age they will say loftily that they don't go to certain bars "because they're full of kids".

At some point you might just bump into him in your favourite pub. This is seriously disconcerting, because you meet as equals, as fellow drinkers.

Until it comes to buying the drinks. However grown-up your son may think he is, may seem to be, or even is, the chances of him putting his hand in his pocket to buy you a drink are probably zilch.

When it comes to buying the old rule still holds - parents pay.

Some things never change.