___WEDNESDAY___CH 4___UPDATE___"CHILD GENIUS"___UPDATE___CH 4___

[RTKangaMummy]

WEDNESDAY

CHANNEL 4

AN UPDATE ON THE CHILDREN FROM LAST YEAR

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Documentary
Child Genius Wednesday 16 April
9:00pm - 10:00pm
Channel 4
1/2
The subtitle of this series about megabrained children is "young and gifted", but by the end you half-wonder if it should be "young and cursed". We're catching up with kids we met in the last series - chess champ Peter (11), who wears a "genius in training" T-shirt, Adam (eight), who dissects rats in the kitchen, and Mikhail (five), who as Britain's youngest Mensa member has appeared on Oprah and Countdown. We also meet Georgia, who toppled Mikhail as Britain's youngest Mensa member. At two, she was measured with an IQ of 152 - impressive given that, being a toddler, she fell asleep halfway through the test. Her mother notes that "a lot of the pictures we take of Georgia have this white light around her . . ." That's the thing: inevitably, parents become caught up in making their gifted children into mini-celebrities, especially when TV crews get involved. It makes for fascinating TV; whether it's great for the pressure-cooker kids is another matter.

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OK just watched.

All the parents nutters barking a few sandwiches short over enthusiastic.

Thought Georgia's siblings were rather wonderful. Hope Gerogia grows up like them.

I don't know how those older kids managed. Maybe she was a bit more laid back wheh she had them. The scottish woman made me laugh 'I didn't know prep schools existed!'. In the episodes shown last year she was preparing to pack the older one off to boarding school, she's decided to pay the younger one more attention now he's gone. Strange that!

When leaving 8 year old Adam at boarding school, dad with terrible clothes urged him to "keep in touch."

"keep in touch" is not a normal reaction to leaving your 8 yr old, IMO.

it wa hilarious when the scottish woman was doing her research, tatler online. deffo a social climber but has no chance being that size.

'it wa hilarious when the scottish woman was doing her research, tatler online. deffo a social climber but has no chance being that size. '

not to mention those HORRIBLE clothes and the personal taste/style of edwina currie crossed with whoopi goldberg.

and did i mention that house?

yes, i believe i did, about a hundred times .

aw, I am her size, don't be mean

have to say, people have been really mean. Glad I won't be welcoming TV cameras into my house!

and packing your kid off and making the types of comments this mother did about state schools isn't mean?

gimme a break!

they were all too happy to let the cameras in and make crass comments.

well, i have one for them, 'stay out of the kitchen if you can't take the heat.'

Expat, have to agree with you. previous comments related to fact that parents of said children might be MNetters. But if so, so what? We can talk about it like the mature adults we are .....

I used to jokingly threaten my dcs with boarding school. Ds2 then about 3 or 4 looked horrified and said "mummy I don't want to go to BORING school"

well yes we fell down in reactive shock when we heard ds1s IQ test. ( ex p had child psych friend long not pretty story)
did it change anything.
no he is effing cleveso we got the best secondary school we could. He is not going to go to Oxford early and despite being predicted all A* he wants to be an animator.
I could push and insist on him following a more illustrious academic route of course.
but I won't.
cos I really love him and want him to be happy

I agree lilo, and I have no issues with what expat has said (and I have joined the b*tchfest with all of you), I just found the fat comment (which was NOT made by expat) a bit hurtful because I am that size, and the scottish ladies' size has nothing to do with her sending her ds to boarding school...

But apart from that she (scottish mum) deserves all she gets really.

I'm not sure it's a b*tchfest. I just feel sorry for the children. The pressure that these parents are putting on them are rediculous. It makes the parents of all gifted children look pushy. I know that I have only ever taught my son things if he has asked about them, the programme was probably edited in a way which protrayed the parents as pushy, poor chess kid home educated because he couldn't get time off school to play chess! There are a number of reasons families home ed, this shouldn't be one of them. He could play in the holidays and after school. His curriculum at home consists of chess, maths and sleeping (this is pretty much what he said). He, like the other children in the programme, were living out their parents fantasy.

The fat comment was OTT though.

Okay, maybe b*tchfest was a strong word, what I was trying to say was that I happily joined in with the criticizing of the parents.

But the comments about her size were pretty irrelevant, 'no chance of being a social climber being that size' was particularly off, and hurtful to me personally.

I wasn't moaning at you. I get so angry when people do this to their children. They have no idea what sort of damage they are doing to them. It's not easy raising bright children, it's a battle sometimes, pushy parents like this just give the public amd other parents the wrong idea.

I know avenanap, I knew you werent' moaning at me.

You are the parent of a bright child arent' you? So you know first hand how hard it must be.

It really doesn't help when there are parents like this on the TV.

No, I can imagine. I know someone further down the thread said that all the sensible parents of intelligent/genius children would have declined to take part in the programme.

But, all said and done I am looking forward to the next instalment, esp to see how Dante and author-boy are getting on (can't recall his name)

Ohh, Dante almost gets kicked out of school for taking a plastic gun in. His parents don't look pushy at all, or is this how the programme is designed? I'm not sure what to make of author boy. Pushy mum and brains? I think so. I did let ds take part in a radio broadcast, I was told he'd be asking the presenter some questions, which was fine. It didn't turn out like this. The presenter was winding ds up so ds started to be a bit mouthy. Big mistake on my part. Beware of the media!

TONIGHT

tonight

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