This summer, Sasha has given us a masterclass in Machiavellian power politics

One of the advantages of being brought up in large families, supposedly, is that you learn the art of politics at an early age. The idea is that if you’re surrounded by lots of siblings you become skilled at forging alliances, isolating your enemies, and so forth. I didn’t give much credence to this theory until recently, but a change in the dynamic between three of my own children has persuaded me there may be something in it.

The top dog among my brood is seven-year-old Sasha. Not only is she better at fighting than her three younger brothers, having been raised on a diet of ultra-violent martial arts cartoons, but she gives no quarter. If five-year-old Ludo is foolish enough to wander into her bedroom, she repels him with a succession of lightning-fast blows to the head. What makes this strategy particularly effective is that it left poor Ludo with no option but to mete out similar treatment to three-year-old Fred — and Fred, in turn, is equally brutal towards two-year-old Charlie. Sasha has succeeded in turning the Young household into a prison yard in which status is dictated by how ruthlessly violent you’re prepared to be. Since she is more psychopathic than the rest of them, that suits her fine.

However, at the beginning of the summer holidays a strange thing happened. A thaw occurred in Ludo and Freddie’s relationship. They began hanging out together and it wasn’t long before they were roaring round the house playing some incomprehensible game involving robots and wicked witches. They soon discovered that Sasha’s karate skills were no match for the two of them if they attacked her at the same time, and they started launching sorties into her bedroom and making off with her Build-a-Bear collection.