`It was bizarre. For several weeks, eggs were being thrown at the house. Sometimes they'd be smashed on the front doorstep. One Sunday they were smashed all over the front window."

Sophie and her husband found the repeated incidents annoying and upsetting, not to mention messy. And they had an idea who the ringleader of the egg-throwers was: they suspected a 15-year-old boy who had been friendly with their daughter. One evening, they saw him leaving their doorstep as the family returned home from shopping - and decided to take action.

What happened after that made Sophie nearly as cross as the eggthrowing itself.

"We knew who the lad was, and decided to go to his home to talk to his parents. His mother sort of accepted that her son might have done it, but kept saying, `My son never tells me a lie.' She asked us to leave it with her so that she and her husband could sort it out with their son. There was no question of suggesting he apologise - we were made to feel we were over-reacting and being aggressive."

Children and teenagers have always made mischief. Rows over children's bad behaviour, whether accidental (kicking balls into gardens) or deliberate (see above), are probably the single biggest cause of fallings-out between neighbours in urban areas, says Sgt Con O'Donoghue, head of the juvenile office in Garda headquarters.

With goodwill on all sides, adults need not fight over their children. But neither should they put up with brattish behaviour. Life is stressful enough, "and people shouldn't have to live with these pressures", O'Donoghue says.

Increasingly, they don't. "There's nothing to say this kind of behaviour is on the increase, but like bullying, people are less inclined to tolerate it." People have better communication skills, he says, and are more inclined to take action.

As indeed they should: pranks may range from the childish and innocent (five-year-olds knocking on doors and hiding) to the more sinister (teenagers throwing stones at an elderly person's window) but nearly all are offences under public order legislation.

In fact, what she and her husband did was the right thing to do. "You should try to deal with the problem yourself first, but sensitively, even if you're deeply hurt. The approach is important - it doesn't help if you bash down the door, roaring `where's that child'," O'Donoghue says. "People should always nip these things in the bud, but you don't necessarily need to make a big formal thing of it."

If, for example, some young children on the street are annoying you with the ring-the-doorbell-and hide game, "you might wait to meet their parents on the way to the shop, and tell them about it conversationally".

Not all parents will respond, however: most people have run into the "My Johnny can do no wrong" parents. At this point, you should consider calling the Garda.

Indeed, if for whatever reason you can't bring yourself to approach the misbehaving child's parents directly, you can always ring the Garda station for advice.

O'Donoghue advises people not to be too hasty - don't get on to the guards 10 minutes after an incident (unless, of course, it's seriously criminal). Think about it for a day or so.

Be warned: you are unlikely to mend relations with a neighbour if gardai pay them a visit. But then, as O'Donoghue agrees, if these neighbours have not been receptive to you, or concerned about the distress their child's behaviour is causing, you probably don't have much of a relationship anyway.

Gardai might then make informal contact with the parents of the child in question to discuss the situation and advise them that what their child is doing is an offence. Reaction to such visits - in both middle and working class homes - varies widely.

"Some people want to throw the guard out on his ear," O'Donoghue says.

If the child persists in offending, gardai have a number of options under the Juvenile Diversion Programme: they can give the child an informal caution at home or a formal caution in a Garda station - and, ultimately, they can charge the child.

ANOTHER favoured prank is messing about with phones. This, on the whole, is probably more upsetting for the parents who have to foot the bill than to recipients of the calls.

Majella Fitzpatrick, PR manager of Telecom Éireann, says she doesn't believe "children messing" is a major problem for customers, most of whom probably deal with the calls by simply putting down the phone (next to the hook, not on it) until children get bored.

That said, if you get problem calls, you can always ring Telecom for advice (tel: (01) 661 1111) on how to handle them. The company certainly takes malicious phone calls (usually abusive, persistent, and sexual in nature) very seriously.

It's probably a good idea to raise some of these issues with your own children. Yes, your little angel could be guilty - even if he or she is being led astray by older or bolder companions.

Most do know right from wrong. O'Donoghue explains the role gardai play in developing that knowledge: gardai visit schools regularly, talking to children about everything from road safety to discussing why they wouldn't get involved in crime. Fifth-class students have a structured programme of Garda visits developed in liaison with St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin. Ten and 11-year-olds are at an age when their attitudes "are most fluid", O'Donoghue says. "The guard does very little talking - usually, he facilitates the children talking themselves. And it does wake them up to the things they shouldn't do."

Meanwhile, Sophie stands by the direct parent-to-parent approach: the parents of "egg-boy" were appallingly defensive - but even though she never got an apology, the egg-throwing did stop.