Discipline is sacrosanct in parenting.
Everybody knows this.
Our family used a behavioural imperative which I believe is unique in contemporary child education.
It was called a CFO.
CFO was a Compulsory Family Outing.
When all other contemporary child education measures had failed - shouting, bribery, hints of beating, almost beating, pleading, and, my God this was the stupidest of them all, Time Out - our son just used that to destroy his room and we had to rebuy everything and rebuild the next day - we would pull out the CFO.
And somehow, because perhaps it had been given such importance since birth, it worked.
''Kids, we are going to visit Mrs Bandersnatch.''
''Her house smells and she has bad biscuits.''
''It's a CFO.''
''Oh. OK.''
And we all toddled off to visit Mrs Bandersnatch.
Unfortunately, the CFO only worked when all the family was involved.
We could never use the CFO to get the son to practise the piano or do his homework.
The rest of the family simply wasn't involved in those activities.
And you couldn't bark CFO at the daughter as she stood half-dressed and half asleep with her eyes staring into space five minutes before school began 3km away.
Not with the dad snoring like a big old bear in the next room.
Our daughter turned 44 last week.
We decided just for the sheer sport of it to go to Moeraki.
To make it even more sporting, we decided this would be a CFO, so the son had to leave the internet poker tables and the father missed out on some tremendously vital sporting events on television.
Moeraki is the Japanese word for people taking pictures of people taking pictures of people taking pictures.
Usually, there is a half-sunken-in-the-sand round boulder thing in the picture.
People stand on the boulders and raise varying numbers of fingers depending on whether they are happy, celebratory or socially dysfunctional.
Naturally, I refused to have my photo taken on a boulder, citing a bad knee.
But after every possible permutation of family and extended family had been photoed extensively in that ratatat-tat way digital cameras work, I was hauled towards a boulder with a chorus of ''CFO!!''
''Get up on the boulder.''
''I can't. My knee is giving me gyp.''
''Get up on this stone then.''
''That's not a boulder, it's a stone. I don't stand on stones.''
''Stand BY the stone then. CFO!''
''OK.''
I have never been a surfer, but I know surfing.
I know every 40th wave is huger than the other 39.
So just as I got my sneakered feet set in sand so, ostensibly, the knee wouldn't disintegrate, the 40th wave came thundering around the stone and drenched me right up to the ankles.
Now, the ankle is not far up the body, I will grant you this, but if you cannot swim, and I cannot swim, then water as far up as the ankle puts my life in danger.
But did anyone burst from the crowd to rescue me?
No they didn't.
They just laughed like drains.
This sort of thing is the drawback of the CFO.
You bring it to the table to try to make life better for all, so we can all move towards, yes, the heart of the sunrise, with hope in our hearts and love in our eyes.
But when your socks are drenched in icy water sloshing around inside your sneakers and you know you won't be back in Dunedin for two more hours because the cafe is still to come, grandchildren cawing for milk shakes, ice cream, and probably chocolate, then there is precious little hope or love going on, just anger and chattering teeth.
Should I have bought some socks at the gift shop? Well, I only know op shops, but I did try.
A sixth sense, and a sign that read ''Merino Socks $32'', meant I chose instead to stay frozen and shivering for the next two hours.
I sulked alone in the cafe with a spearmint milkshake.
There will be no more CFOs.
They are so 1980s.
• Roy Colbert is a Dunedin writer.
