Child genius

[AnonymousTomato]

Is anyone watching on channel 4?

I feel so sorry for them. Whilst they can all do complex sums in their heads and quickly remember a lot of information, most (not all) don't seem to have many other skills.

I agree , I would far rather have a fully rounded child who has common sense, can socialise , is polite etc than a 'genius'

i think some would come across as socially awkward

i cant see Rahaul mixing with a general mix at a kids at a party,i dont think hes been allowed to have fun and fool about

could be very wrong but he seems very uptight

i do blame the parents

Some of the kids seem like mini middle aged people. I can't imagine Rahul for instance running around playing daft games with his mates. Or being allowed to. I'd rather that than a mini adult who seems so earnest and so competitive that their world's crumble if they don't come top. That amount of stress and judgement is grim.

Some come across as though they HAVE to succeed in order to feel they are acceptable to their parents. Some have been actually told that. I'm all for expecting your children to do their best but not that they MUST win and that not winning makes them failures/losers.

I think Rahul is sweet and, given the chance could be a nice, fun kid. But his parents are appalling!

Hi agree Davros. They're all lovely kids who have been denied a childhood it seems :(

I'm all for expecting your children to do their best but not that they MUST win and that not winning makes them failures/losers.

my parents' approach was that success is all that matters and that not getting 100% and always being top of the class is total failure. I think that approach is appalling. It was drummed into me every single sodding day.

Nerissa seems quite sweet

I think Rahul is a sweetheart though his dads a bit strange

kupotezanafazi. That's so sad. There were girls at my DDs school who would be inconsolable if they didn't get 100%. It's awful to drum such a message into a child that only full marks will do.

The kids were all super competitive whereas DD didn't give a stuff. She did her best but knew she couldn't and wouldn't be able to get full marks . On some occasions she did but she mainly didn't but was fine with that. Doing your best has to be the best you can do. I have no idea how you can ask for more. And have no idea why parents think they're doing their children a favour by insisting that anything less than perfect is failure.

I've never seen this. Poor little Grace, what arseholes her parents are to put her through that.

I'm surprised a child psychologist (who they have in this programme) thinks this is a good idea, surely seeing the kids so distressed would ring alarm bells.

Grace's father is vile.

Thomas Frith, 2015 winner, goes to my dcs' school. He's just got 2 more A levels today - to add to the two Maths-based ones he already had. He's going into Year 10 in September and is off to the UKMT Olympiad training camp.

I'm just catching up on episode 2. When I saw that Theo's baby sister was called Persephone I thought yep, mum is definitely a Mumsnetter

I reckon if you took any fairly academic child with a good memory and subjugated them to hothouse coaching for a year or so they'd be at the standard most of these kids are. Whether that's a good thing to do to a child is quite another question.

This. My 2 are fairly intelligent. It tends to come naturally, DS can bring spellings home, get a couple wrong, glance at them again and that's it, he knows them. He picks things up very quickly especially when he has got it wrong. But I'd never get them to do extra work, nor would DS want to, he hates doing homework at the best of times. But if I acted like the pushy parents in this programme and had them working for hours a day from a young age, depriving them of having actual fun and just enjoying being a child, then they probably would be like some of the kids on this programme, I don't for a minute think they are some sort of genius though, like most of these kids aren't. Some natural ability with extremely pushy and hard parents is more like it.

Podge me too!

I don't agree with the level some of these parents go to but a little bit of a push is not a bad thing. I have seen amazing children whose parents don't make any efforts pushing them and it's sad to see. If you have a child with an ability, help them. I don't think I have the ability to see my child not make an effort in their school work. It would drive me mad.

I've only just found this thread! I adore Rahul. His dad is a bit strange but Rahul himself is lovely.

I agree quencher - I could certainly have done with some pushing (I'm no genius though!) and I feel the difference between the obviously gifted kids and the hot-houses ones is quite marked.

I'd love to see a 'where are they now?' programme in thee future. Some of them will be completely turned off learning by all this.

One of the kids in last year's programme goes to my ds's grammar school.
he was homeschooled until end of year 6, and he is definitely an outsider in the school. his social skills are poor, he has few friends and he simply doesn't understand how the normal ebb and flow of friendships among children his age work.
In year 7 he stood out like a sore thumb, and burst into tears when he got stuff wrong in class.
BUT I suspect he may have Aspergers, which would fit with a lot of his behaviour and profile.
He is unusual in many ways, he loves learning, speaks several languages (although this was initiated by his mum who is French and so he was bi-lingual anyway from a small child) For fun he taught himself chinese and stuff like that.

The interesting thing about him is whether or not he would be the same if he had had a different upbringing. With different parents would be still be slightly weird/quirky etc, or if he had gone to a normal primary school, would be have lost that love of learning that he has?

Don't know.

I'd love to see a 'where are they now?' programme in thee future. Some of them will be completely turned off learning by all this.

One of the kids in last year's programme goes to my ds's grammar school.
he was homeschooled until end of year 6, and he is definitely an outsider in the school. his social skills are poor, he has few friends and he simply doesn't understand how the normal ebb and flow of friendships among children his age work.
In year 7 he stood out like a sore thumb, and burst into tears when he got stuff wrong in class.
BUT I suspect he may have Aspergers, which would fit with a lot of his behaviour and profile.
He is unusual in many ways, he loves learning, speaks several languages (although this was initiated by his mum who is French and so he was bi-lingual anyway from a small child) For fun he taught himself chinese and stuff like that.

The interesting thing about him is whether or not he would be the same if he had had a different upbringing. With different parents would be still be slightly weird/quirky etc, or if he had gone to a normal primary school, would be have lost that love of learning that he has?

Don't know.

whoops

Fabio's mum and Rahul's dad are annoying me now

Steppemum quite a few of the children present as autistic.
Interesting to hear about Thomas Naffedoff. I had to google him, but I recognised him straight away. He was rather endearing on the programme I thought.
I think they are featuring Susan and Rahul's father too much.
Wonder if they will suddenly feature another child who we haven't seen much of yet. This has happened in past series.