I was complaining online to my three children about the training of Chocolate, our toy poodle. We bought him a toy to improve his IQ. It was a sort of treasure hunt, with swivelling layers of containers covered by lids, and Chocolate had to use his wit and paw, often helped by his nose, to turn each layer to a position where the lids could be removed. The reward would be the snacks placed inside the containers. He was not choosy where food was concerned, so we just used kibble for the snacks. So far, so good. Once he got the hang of it, however, the toy lost its novelty, and he started looking for harder challenges. The upshot was he developed the habit of snooping for food everywhere. My obedient, docile pet poodle had turned overnight into a scrounger for food. I took him to task for it but, then again, I'd inadvertently trained him to do it. My grown-up children, who together presented their parents with Chocolate as our 30th wedding anniversary gift some years ago, said they wished they had been given the same latitude in their upbringing when they were small. My daughter, Phoebe, had vivid and horrifying memories of being force-fed medicine at preschool age. Fabian was more of a fighter, and we had to wrap him in a bath towel so his limbs could not move before we could give him any medicine. Once he demanded to taste the medicine first. After a lick, he said, resignedly, 'Better wrap me up'. I reminded my children of the bedtime story I'd told them about a baby crow fed by its mother, who regurgitated worms and the like. When grown up, the bird showed its gratitude and filial piety by in turn feeding its parents, grown old and feeble, also by regurgitation, in both cases because the one being fed was unable to chew. I went on to describe in vivid detail how Helena, their mother, likewise fed each of my children by regurgitation their first solid food after weaning. She would cook fish congee and carefully test every mouthful in her own mouth for possible fish bones before spitting it out to spoon-feed her baby. I refreshed their memory of this with the intention of awakening their appreciation for such great maternal love. Their reaction proved to be an exclamation in unison of 'Yuck!' Whine as they may, deep in their hearts our children are grateful. We have already been treated to what counts as regurgitation by them, after a fashion. Phoebe cooked three meals a day for us when we stayed at her place in Sydney. On our return, Phoebus made us barbecued steak and king prawn dinner, with Caesar salad and risotto with truffles. Fabian, who does not cook, took us to a seafood restaurant when we visited him in Singapore. We had oatmeal prawns, a healthy variation on 'golden prawns' (deep-fried prawns wrapped in salted duck egg yolk), with the prawns wrapped in oatmeal instead. Next, I suggested that my children be thankful for their parents taking them to Sunday dinner at their favourite eateries. Unfortunately this did not agree with their own recollection, which was that Helena would ask every family member to name his or her choice of dinner venue. We would each do so and invariably end up going to Helena's choice. Well, I told my children they were thus given a first taste of democratic consultation, a process done in the same way by anyone in power - ?la Alan Jay Lerner's lyrics to the song Why Can't a Woman from the musical My Fair Lady: 'She will beg you for advice, Your reply will be concise; And she'll listen very nicely, Then go out and do precisely what she wants!' Rupert Chan is a recently retired university administrator and chairman of the Chung Ying Theatre Company