I write as a parent who happens to be a solicitor. Hurrah for Mr Justice Coleridge (tinyurl.com/32xekfd). It is so refreshing to hear a judge talking openly about what is a serious and untackled malaise. He has demonstrated quite clearly the detrimental effects of raising children as your ‘best friends’ rather than as children who need boundaries, support, guidance and, on occasion, authority.

The effect of not talking about this will be generations of hopelessly spoilt adults, all talking about rights and entirely forgetting about obligations. An additional effect, which we can see immediately, is that judges are less willing to act as authority figures during contact disputes. I have three friends with contact disputes at the moment, all of which could be settled if the court would actually exercise its authority in respect of the recalcitrant parent.

As is the case with physical exercise, one ‘loses the muscle’ if it’s not used – and that is precisely what has occurred with the family courts.

I am still astonished that my children refer to my friends by their given names rather than ‘Mrs whoever’ or, at best, ‘aunty’. The purpose of this is to show that children are not equal to the person whom they are addressing. Such deference also proves to the child that they are necessarily lower down the pecking order of preference, noise, choice and interest; but that with age, experience and achievement, they too will be treated with the same respect.

Shalaleh Barlow , associate solicitor, Grower Freeman, London NW1