You’re just using me to win stuff.

That’s what my daughter said the first time I suggested she enter an art competition. She was six.

She was spending every waking minute cutting, drawing and taping together weird objects — wool, a pencil and Barbie’s head.

So, I was a little stunned by her adamant refusal.

Was she right? Was this all a sinister plot on my part to win a new pencil case and some crayons?

Of course not. I wanted what every parent wants: bragging rights.

For years I’d watched in envy as other parents sent their little tots off to race through blazing temperatures.

Sports aren’t really our thing, but art, we could manage.

I tried to trick her.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to draw a picture of a dolphin picking up garbage?” I asked coyly. The theme was marine trash.

It was as if a light bulb went off. She disappeared in a blur of crayons and pencil. When she was finished we had a brilliant picture of some dogs playing cards, or was it cows playing football?

Whatever it was, it definitely didn’t fit the theme.

“Maybe you could put fins on the cows,” I suggested desperately.

“Those are cars! It’s perfect the way it is.”

Maybe she was too young. I tried again a year later.

“Now mummy, you know I don’t believe in competition,” she said sternly. “Someone always gets hurt.”

“But this time you could win a prize for the whole class,” I argued.

She shrugged. She wasn’t biting.

“It’s all your fault,” my father-in-law said. Well of course it is; everything that happens is mom’s fault.

He said: “You chose that non-competitive school to send her to.”

I called the school. I said: “Could you talk about the need for healthy competition with my daughter?”

Later I got a message back from the teacher. The entire class had discussed their experiences with competition. My daughter had explained her views on the situation.

“I respect her opinion,” said the teacher. Discussion closed.

How does a seven-year-old develop a position paper on competition? Then I started thinking, maybe the debate club ...