At the
tender age of eight, Tudor Mendel-Idowu has been picked to play soccer
for no fewer than three Premier League junior teams: QPR, Tottenham and
Chelsea.
This
achievement alone would be enough to make most fathers’ hearts burst
with pride. But, unfortunately for Tudor, he appears to have a very long
way to go before he meets the sky-high expectations of his demanding
dad, Tolu.
So
far, the most heart-rending scenes on Channel 4’s Sunday night reality
series Child Genius — in which 20 gifted children are subjected to a
terrifying barrage of tests — have been the sight of this small boy
hiding his face in his hands as he weeps.
The reason? He has not scored as well as his father tells him he should have done.
Tudor Mendel-Idowu sobs as the pressure of performing on Child Genius starts to get to him
Never
mind that Tudor was asked to perform tasks beyond the reach of the vast
majority of adults, such as recalling the order of two packs of
randomly shuffled cards
in less than an hour or answering such general
knowledge questions as: ‘What is the measure of the ability for a
substance to become magnetised?’
Child
Genius has been the perfect opportunity for Tolu, a pastor, to showcase
his parenting philosophy which is ‘the right combination of happiness —
as well as fear — produces genius.’
However
there is little happiness seen in the training regime Tolu, 39, and
wife Gold, 36, have organised for Tudor at their neat home near
Wokingham, Berks.
Not
even tea-time is a revision-free zone. As Tudor eats his meal,
surrounded by dictionaries, encyclopedias and banks of Post-It notes, he
is filmed being quizzed by his father on the spelling of ‘cybernetics’
Any
wrong answers are dismissed by his mother, Gold— a power-dressed NHS
administrator who is just as fearsome as her husband — with words such
as ‘ridiculous.’
In
recent episodes, Tudor was deliberately pitted against his big sister
Hazelle, 11, who was also in the running until she was knocked out last
week, leaving her too sobbing inconsolably.
Yet
rather than commiserate with his son after a disappointing performance,
it is Tolu, who declares that he finds the contest ‘emotionally
draining’. He then tells Tudor: ‘Maybe you’re not as good as we
thought.’
Indeed
in last night’s episode, Tolu admitted what we already knew. ‘It’s now
obvious this is more of a competition for parents than clever kids’.
Even for a nation well used to the mercenary exploitation of spy-on-the-wall television, this has raised concern.
As one worried viewer pointed out on Mumsnet, the series would more aptly be named ‘Lunatic Parents’.
For
it is really all about the Eagle Dads and Tiger Mums, who want to show
off how much work they have invested in their youngsters.
Tudor's parents Gold, 36, and Tolu, 39, wince as their son fails to answer a question correctly
The
show first aired in its current format last year, and — as the author
of a book looking at the damage caused by competitive parenting — I had
thought we would not see a return of this toxic mix of reality TV and
hot-housing.
I had expected the sight of children as young as eight crying to prick the conscience of the commissioning editors.
A vain hope, of course.
Each
episode consists of Mastermind-style rounds that, for instance,
challege the children to spell words such as psephology (the science of
studying election statistics) or answer maths questions such as
‘multiply 24 by 4, subtract 16 and multiply by 8, and finally divide by
2’.
At
the end of each show, the five children with the lowest scores are sent
home. For next week’s final, they will be quizzed on their specialist
subjects, ranging from the periodic table to the Battle of Stamford
Bridge.
This
year the young contestants have faced such gargantuan challenges as
learning the entire London Underground map, while a voice-over
cheerfully promises that such tasks will ‘push these bright young minds —
and their families — to their limits.’
However, so far the main role of children has been to demonstrate the fall-out from their parents’ towering ambitions.
Never
mind the trapped-in-the-headlights terror of small children blinking
under the studio lights as they face interrogation on the podium.
The
real ‘entertainment’ is designed to be found in the steely glares and
winces of their parents sitting in the audience, who look as though they
are receiving body blows whenever their child gets it wrong — and the
extraordinary justifications they give for their pushiness.
After
all, as one mother, who plasters spellings all over the bathroom walls
to prepare her child for that particular round, declares: ‘If the child
is successful, it’s the parents. If the child fails, it’s not the
child’s fault — it’s the lack of parenting.’
But
extreme though this sounds, Child Genius has tapped into an
increasingly dangerous trend in parenting; the misguided belief that
your offspring is a blank slate and if you hot-house them enough, you
can be solely responsible for their success.
Pressure: Eleanor buries her face in her hands
Parenting
is turning into a form of product development. Increasingly, we are
falling for the notion that if we cram enough facts into their little
brains we can make sure they come out on top.
The
end result is a rise in depression and anxiety among a generation who
believe they are losers if they fail, or could always do better if they
win.
Like
all offspring of pushy parents, who feel their family’s affection is
conditional on their success, children like Tudor are not just weeping
because they didn’t score well.
When
he tries to cover his tears with his hands, saying ‘What I achieved was
absolutely terrible’, after remembering the order of no fewer than 63
playing cards, he is facing a much darker fear: That he will lose his
father’s love if he does not come up to scratch.
The
first time Tudor genuinely smiles in the programme is when he gets 5
out of 5 in a test in which he successfully spells
dehydroepiandrosterone — a type of human hormone most of us didn’t even
know existed.
Although dad Tolu finally concedes he is ‘impressed’, he quickly adds: ‘There’s still a lot to be done.’
Another
poignant sight has been little Curtis Elton’s crestfallen face when he
doesn’t pass muster. Aged ten, Curtis, a tiny, wide-eyed boy, is used to
being called the next Mozart.
His
mother Hayley, 40, from Whetstone, North London, is the ultimate Tiger
Mother. A professional pianist herself, it is down to her teaching that
Curtis became the youngest child to ever pass Grade 8 piano two years
ago.
Her tireless parenting means her son is also tipped to represent Britain at ice-skating in the 2022 Olympics.
But
if that’s not enough, at the start of the series Hayley said she wanted
him to win Child Genius to prove he is clever as well as musical and
athletic.
Didn’t Hayley baulk at the uncomfortable scene in which she is shown dismissing her son’s fears as he prepares to play Bach?
When
the little boy, bugged-eyed with terror, whispers ‘Mummy, I’m scared’,
she corrects him — in a way which is clearly meant to say the show will
go on: ‘No! You’re fine.’
But
for Hayley it’s all part of the job. ‘Curtis actually wasn’t scared, he
was just a little nervous because everyone was standing very close to
him,’ she reassures me afterwards.
Curtis Elton with his mother, Hayley, a professional pianist who has already taught her son to Grade 8 standard
As part of its justification for Child Genius, Channel 4 has claimed the series is a ‘celebration of cleverness’.
Repeatedly,
the voice-overs try to give the veneer of intellectual respectability
with reminders that the series has been made in association with Mensa,
the high IQ society — as if that makes it OK. But if Child Genius really
aims to make it ‘cool to be clever’, why do the cameras home in so
unsparingly on the social awkwardness of some of the competitors?
Advanced
intellectual growth often comes at the cost of emotional and social
development — as the programme-makers are all too keen to demonstrate.
One
of the most difficult moments to watch comes when Rubaiyat, an
11-year-old doing degree-level maths, goes to his bookshelf, full of
maths tomes, to find the volumes that will teach him what he really
wants to know: How To Make Friends and How To Be Happy.
No
wonder teachers have asked why, when some of the children clearly have
behavioural, social or emotional difficulties, there has hardly been any
mention of these conditions?
Last
night, the programme crowed that the previous week the pressure had
caused Eleanor, 12, to break down before she even made it to the podium.
Yet here she was again.
Eleanor,
an obsessive book-reader who devours 100 novels a month, may have
picked up her first Dickens novel at the age of five. But she shows the
kind of extreme black-or-white thinking that children with uneven
emotional development often show.
Advanced intellectual growth often comes at the cost of emotional and social development
Eleanor’s
mother claimed she didn’t want her daughter to take part in the
competition, but that Eleanor had applied herself. The youngster
certainly displays an almost desperate determination to succeed,
explaining: ‘If you don’t do well on Child Genius, you get kicked out of
the round. If you don’t do well at your A-levels, you don’t get a place
at a good university. If you don’t get into a good university, you
don’t get a good job.
‘If you don’t get a good job, you don’t get enough money and you starve to death.’
So
was it any surprise that once again, after being flummoxed by the first
few questions in the general knowledge round, her lip starts to wobble?
When the stern-looking quiz master posed a difficult question on
chemistry, Eleanor’s face crumpled. Then her voice faded to a squeak
before she dissolved into sobs and her mother had to take her away. As
one reviewer put it, this is the kind of TV that ‘makes you feel mucky
for watching it’.
Finally,
last night the elephant in the room was addressed with the introduction
of 12-year-old Cuneyd, from North London, who has Asperger’s syndrome.
At one point, he is pictured hitting his head against a locker at school
before addressing his fellow pupils about the condition.
One
of the effects is that Cuneyd struggles with words and their meanings.
That means the spelling rounds will be tortuous. Not surprisingly he
crashes out of the contest when asked to spell ‘cochineal’. Quick — pan
to one more shot of a child close to tears trying to deal with their
defeat.
Of
course, the goal of reality TV is to entertain — but should dramatic
story-lines really come ahead of a child’s emotional well-being?
In
this country, we don’t screen child beauty pageants because it would be
seen as psychologically damaging. Why is it any more acceptable to show
contests in which children’s intelligence is judged?
Before broadcast, all the families were invited to view the episodes.
Perhaps
it’s a measure of their state of mind that some parents, such as
psychologists Shoshana and Sacha, who featured in the first two
episodes, saw nothing harmful in describing their approach to bringing
up their daughter Aliyah, nine, as though she is ‘a well-bred
race-horse’.
Shoshana
openly pities parents left to bring up children without her skill set.
She was blissfully oblivious to the fact that rest of us were watching,
slack-jawed in disbelief at how hard she pushes her child.
Far
from rushing to adopt such techniques, parents have reacted in horror.
The internet has been buzzing with viewers saying they found the series
‘upsetting to watch’, ‘heartbreaking’ and expressing concern that it
‘verges on abuse’.
Cuneyd with his father and mother. Affected by Asperger's, he had difficulty with words and their meanings
In
a statement to the Mail, Channel 4 said the programme-makers followed
‘the Ofcom Broadcasting Code and a robust set of bespoke processes and
protocols which we put in place covering both the production and
transmission’.
At
any point, the families could stop the filming. They said
psychologists, who interviewed them as part of the selection process,
were on hand if anyone needed help or advice.
But,
in reality, what is the likelihood that a child who feels their whole
life is dependent on pleasing its parents will walk away — or that some
of these narcissistic parents will admit defeat and throw in the towel?
Of course the producers may say the decision lies with the parents. But are such extreme parents really in a position to judge?
Such
shows are meant to provoke a response from viewers. But it is the
children who suffer, who have to face their peers afterwards. They
return to their schools, never able to live down the label ‘Child
Genius’, or ever being allowed to fail.
Indeed,
as eight-year old Tudor hears he is through to the final next Sunday
night, the weight of his family’s expectations seem to be too much for
his slight shoulders.
No
doubt the reality is that Tolu is also a loving father, who sincerely
believes he is doing the best for his son, and the producers have edited
the programme to make him look like the ultimate caricature of an
overbearing father.
But
for me, one question remains — and it goes beyond the normal queries
posed on the series, such as how to spell ‘haemorrhoid’.
It’s
one that should be easier to answer: How much longer are we going to
allow Channel 4 to encourage extreme parents to push their helpless
children to breaking point in the name of entertainment?
Tanith
Carey is author of Taming The Tiger Parent: How To Put Your Child’s
Wellbeing First In A Competitive World, to be published next month by
Constable Little Brown at £8.99.
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