Well, it had to happen sometime and it happened last night; Tom’s halo finally slipped and nearly strangled him as he and Emily got into a scuffle and he annoyed his dad so much, he had his new bedtime privileges suspended.

Now, I don’t know whether me and my family are the weird ones, but I felt that for a boy of fourteen – nearly fifteen – Tom acts, and is treated like, a boy of about eleven. Is it just me or do you feel the same? Let us know because I’d be really interested if it’s just me who thinks so. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing – kids grow up way too fast – but I did think it a bit odd.

However, he has many attributes common to fourteen year olds though; being tired all day because he’s playing on his computer all night, being moody, being sullen… it’s a commonplace thing with boys his age, and Simon amused me no end when he said that Tom had become an ‘invertebrate’ and was incapable of sitting or standing straight.

Anyway, moving on and Simon was as ever trying his best to rule his roost and he puts me in mind of that saying, ‘the meek will inherit the earth… if that’s ok with the rest of you?’ He tries hard, he clearly loves his family very much but he gets absolutely no support from Jane at all who I think would just let everyone do their own thing if she could get away with it.

You have to applaud the guy for trying though but there are times when he’s just overwhelmed and clearly doesn’t quite know what to do. It was funny to watch him berating his family for not helping him to put dinner on the table and for having the radiator set to 27° and no matter how stern he tried to sound, the entire family dissolved into giggles at his Victor Meldrew-esque rant.

However, Tom was the primary focus of last night’s show and the debacle over his bedtime, which he refused to adhere to. Anyone who’s got teenagers will be able to empathise with the frustration of trying to prise a tired teenager out of bed for school when they’ve been up half the night on their computer games; it’s annoying and leads to endless rows, one of which was between Emily and Tom last night.

Simon and Jane decided to go out – foolishness in the extreme because the parents of teenagers never get any peace – and left Emily in charge. Again, foolhardiness to hand power to one sibling over another and chaos ensued. Emily tried to enforce the 9.30pm bedtime and Tom was having none of it. He went to the loo at snail’s pace, checked out the ‘fridge at snail’s pace and went up the stairs so slowly that most snails would have beaten him to it.

Emily was right behind him and decided to pull rank. She stomped into his room and said she was taking his Wii console out so that he couldn’t play on it which infuriated Tom and a scuffle broke out, during which Emily hit her head on the top bunk. She cried, he apologised – grudgingly – but then she decided to take his Playstation too which really lit the blue touch paper. He yelled at her, she yelled at him, they pushed and shoved and Tom went flying into a radiator.

Emily hurried downstairs to phone dad, clutching both games consoles, and Tom tried several times to knock the phone out of her hand, however, she did get through to dad and he said he’d deal with it when he got home. He spoke to Tom and without giving him a chance to put his case, ordered him to bed.

When Simon and Jane came home, Emily tried to put her side of the story and made Tom out to be some kind of psychopath while she’d just been trying to help. Simon however told her that she’d been overbearing and abused the fact that she’d been left in charge; cue tears and a stomp up the stairs. Jane kept repeating, ‘Can we leave it now?’ and despite her trying really hard to hide behind a newspaper, Simon wanted her to back him up. She didn’t.

The next day saw ‘the meeting’ about it get underway while Emily and Tom were eating. Simon and Jane sat at the table and without asking what happened – very wisely – Simon issued certain directives at Tom including that his later bedtime of 10pm had been revoked and that he wouldn’t have his games consoles back for a week. Simon told him, “We trusted that you would act like the young man you want to be whose bedtime is at 10 o’clock.”

When Simon left a rather disinterested Jane no choice but to get dragged into it, she said that both Emily and Tom can be aggressive and that it must stop. Throughout, both kids said nothing but if Tom’s looks could kill, everyone would’ve died there and then. Jane suggested that Emily and Tom apologise to each other which they both pretty much ignored but Emily did say that she’d consider it, but only when she felt like it. Fun times.

The last few minutes of the programme showed that Tom and Emily had made up and were play-fighting and hugging, followed by a family dance session in the living room. The show ended with Jane and Simon ‘dirty dancing’ to a Bob Marley track. I wonder if they were able to turn the cameras off that night?

Another excellent peek behind someone else’s net curtains; roll on the next installment!