Remember The Secret Life of 4 Year Olds?

[salviapages]

I never watched it when it was on, but I've just retrained as a primary teacher so I thought it would be an interesting watch. They're all on All4 so I'm watching it now, did any of you watch it? What did you think of it?

I just rewatched some of these on All4 - I enjoyed the series. I think that the experts were very quick to draw terribly important conclusions about child development from one single conversation but it was a bit of fun.

I think it's a really terrible invasion of privacy. How can you consent to that? At four??

I do wonder why the parents sign their children up for the show!

I'm an EYFS teacher and a child in my class was in it. It was filmed the summer before the child started school. The child wasn't portrayed entirely positively but I felt the situation was manipulated to produce that behaviour, which was a shame. I worried that some other parents may see it and judge but it never seemed to have an impact. As for how and why they sign up, this child has siblings who do modelling so I guess maybe it was through an agency?

DS was in it! He's 12 now and still talks about it fondly. There was such a huge amount of care shown to him and us as a family, phycological assessments for all of us to ensure we were 'robust' enough (including his 2 year old sister. Social media training, calls from the production crew every night to check on how he had found the day and if we had any issues or concerns. It was a fantastic experience for him.

Also, about 15 years ago there was a channel 4 programme called The Secret Life of the Classroom about a Reception class. It was lovely and one of the things that made me want to go into teaching. The teacher was brilliant, so kind and patient. I'd love to see it again but can't find it anywhere.

I was disturbed by this series, which I watched first time round. It felt invasive and worse still manipulative.

I remember one episode where all the children had a wrapped present that looked the same but one of them was a duff present, whereas all the pothers were good ones. They wanted to see what the child's reaction might be - well, let me tell you, just in case you have problems guessing - she cried.

It was dreadful to watch. And wholly unacceptable and unethical.

We signed DS up after one of the crew handed a flyer to the childminder he was on an outing with. There were 2 or 3 auditions which were fun, play based sessions with a short filmed interview, presumably to see how they came across on camera and also if they spoke freely. We signed up because we thought it would be a fun thing for him to do one half term and it really was.

He was fascinated by the cameras, the sound engineers, getting his microphone set up, watching himself on camera. They are very limited in hour many hours they can be filmed, with professional chaperones on set to ensure this was adhered to. Parents were also on set all day, in a green room, so we could watch what was happening and intervene if we felt our child was tired/upset etc. The food available to us and DC was also fantastic and there was a lovely screening event which parents and DC went to. For us, it was a great life experience for him, no negatives at all from our perspective.

@Mischance what you don't see though, is that within a matter of minutes, the child was given the same present as everyone else.

I've only seen an episode or two a while back but it seemed ethically dubious and as though the talking heads were making grandstanding generalisations about the children based on very small interactions. It seemed to me to speak volumes about the general cultural anxiety so many British people seem to feel about their children in group/school/friendship situations. (I mean, I've lived all over the world and never encountered another country which is so obsessed with the educational disadvantage of summer-borns, for instance.)

Ohhhh I'm def going to watch this again now that I have a nearly 4 year old!!

@3ormorecharacters

I'm an EYFS teacher and a child in my class was in it. It was filmed the summer before the child started school. The child wasn't portrayed entirely positively but I felt the situation was manipulated to produce that behaviour, which was a shame. I worried that some other parents may see it and judge but it never seemed to have an impact. As for how and why they sign up, this child has siblings who do modelling so I guess maybe it was through an agency?

You have a point. I rember the chocolate cake episode I think some things are totally normal and to be expected from a child.

edwinbear - viewers would not have been aware of that.

For me, it does not make any difference to the unethical nature of the original incident on film, that was broadcast. It is manipulative - bad enough, but manipulating a small child is wholly unacceptable.

Media manipulate situations to get the reaction that they want. That is in itself unacceptable; but to do it with children is unforgivable.

I loved this programme. Very charming and amusing and good to hear that everyone was well treated during filming.
I thought that the point of the set up situations was to provoke certain behaviours to demonstrate things like development milestones. The children were never blamed or held to be bad or unlikeable - all kids have their moments where they're less than perfect.

Interesting to hear from people who participated!

I do feel there are some set up situations which feel a bit unethical or a bit far. it seems to me that the children create an interesting enough show by themselves, just watching them play together, the scenes where 1 person is given a bad present for example feel a bit unnecessary.

I'm really enjoying it, I think it's good that the children are shown being nice and well as not nice, it doesn't mean they're a bad child it's just completely normal when they're learning how to interact with others and make friends. I'd hope it would make parents worry less to see it's all fine and normal!

We watched it and loved it pre children. We used to bet on how far into an episode it would be before there was a ‘marriage’. As we didn’t have children then we wondered what drove such strong behaviour across multiple groups. I loved the teachers though and thought they were lovely with the children (from what I can remember).

Loved it and the old folks one even more so

It looks like the experts are talking about one incident, but they are child psychologist who have seen similar things 100s of times and are explaining on the basis of their years of research and experience. They aren't just like gogglebox viewers.

I thought it was fascinating TV.

I enjoyed it and was actually thinking about it the other day.

Didn't they do series about different ages?

Loved this show...also The secret life of 5 year olds and The secret life of 6 year olds I think it was 🙂

What @garlictwist and @Beamur said

Really nice to watch.

I was one of the kids (Christian) from one of the first few seasons that aired in 2015, Overall I really can't find any faults with the show and the way it was handled whilst I was there, We'd normally show up they'd put a microphone of sorts on the back of our pants it would be very similar to regular nursery. We were told exactly what they would film, that there were hidden cameras, of which some were found, and excellent staff/teachers.

i was in this show and i didnt really notice anything as i was 4 lol also they asked my parents to put me into the show, they paid for all expenses and overall quite a fun time there from whatever i remember, no need to be disturbed lol