Child of our Time, tonight, BBC1, 9pm

[OldieMum]

For anyone who hasn't seen this before - it's a fascinating, long-term study of a group of children born around 2000 being done by a team working with Prof. Robert Winston. This is the latest instalment, focussing on how children first become aware of social distinctions like class and race and also looking at their first day at school.

Sorry, missed this programme but had to LOL at Mars' post xmas name - know the feeling!

Message withdrawn

louise I said that to DH

and still he was out in the sun without a t shirt

the mum even seemed to think it was going to teach him a lesson {I think} if I heard corrrectly she said something like hope the sunburn will slow you down when they were in house before going outside.

Sorry if I have got that wrong

why thank you Merlot. Hope life is treating you well. Have started ignoring the crying twins and am down to 5 mins of tears at bedtime. Hurrah! Perhaps my life can begin to function again.

(enough thread hijack)

Ooh, yes, they were all a bit red. That Gillian makes me laugh though - she's so more outspoken than she was in the very first programme.

I really feel for that poor little James - last year I just thought he was a brat - but his mum obviously loves them so much, and genuinely wants to make a good life for them. Hopefully in her new place (all be it a dump - can't believe councils can call that a 'house'!) things will improve.

children notice colour - trust me. Even before they reach 4yrs old. Even before he was walking DS1 (and DS2 now actually) will get excited if he saw a black man walk down the street (or a black women with short hair!) and say 'dada'. One of DS1's friends at nursery went home before Christmas and said to his mum - "Why is my friend x a different colour". However, they don't see colour how adults 'see' colour - if you know what I mean. They purely see it as what it is, a difference in skin shades - rather than, sadly the stereotypical views.

Hence the reeason I can see Tyrese's mum's point in teaching her son the positives about being black. Hopefully in the future that will stand him in good stead as he won't feel that he's 'doomed' to a certain social standing with no hope of improving himself.

William SO made me laugh - the thing about "Dominant males" - that explains a LOT about DS1

Oh right, maybe I've just not heard ds say anything about colour yet then. His best friend at nursery is Mexican and he's not said anything to me about him being any different. When he and his Mum come over for a playdate, she speaks to him in Spanish and he back - ds1 just seems to accept it and doesn't question. Maybe he's just not got round to asking me anything about it yet.

oh and another thing I've noticed with DS1 is that at social groups (toddler groups etc or family get togethers with both sides of the family) he'll tend to go towards the black members of the family (he's the only coloured one - everyone else is just black or white LOL) despite the fact that all but one of them are girls, and most of the white kids his age are boys..

my children didn't notice their colour for ages. DD2's best friend has been saying since she was 4 that she wants to be brown like my DD. When we were on holiday last year DD2 asked me if we could take the sun cream home so that her bf could put some on and be the same colour. lol

I agree though that they see shades as opposed to race, but they see friends as opposed to colour.

my almost 5 year old notices colour.One of his friends is black and when he's talking about him to my mum or someone who doesn't know him, he will say " you know,x,my friend with the brown face".We live quite a multi cultural area and so he had always been part of a community with all colours and ethnic groups.
The last seven up, they were 42. Don't know if it will carry on. Did anyone see 7 up 2000?? I really enjoyed that and am looking forward to the next one in 2007.
Feel so sorry for james and for his mum.I know she loves him and she's doing her best but when you see the chances that the other kids have incomparison,it really makes me want to shout ' it's not fair!!'

I kind of got the feeling that William's brattishness had a lot to do with his father. Each time the mother told William off when his dad was nearby the dad just smirked and thought it was funny. I also noticed that the dad didn't seem to pay any attention whatsoever to his 2 other children. William was definitely his favourite. Good on the mother though for putting some distance between her family and her MIL.

I found the differences between ds1 and the children really interesting. He just doesn't seem to notice that people can be different colours. The boys he gets on best with at school tend to be Asian despite the majority of children in the class being white. He also would never be fooled by an Action Man in a dress. A 'boy' doll is always just that in his eyes. Clothes don't affect that, in his opinion. He wouldn't have understood the rich/poor questions with the houses. The whole concept of rich and poor is too abstract for him and he doesn't yet have the imaginative skills required to guess at what type of person might live there. His answer to the question "Where do you live?" would almost certainly be "In mine house" (he still doesn't get the difference between 'my' and 'mine').

I was impressed with James' mother's determination to find somewhere better for them. I was less impressed by the system that left them living in a refuge rather than helping them out.

Help. Over the last week or so my ds has become SOOOOOO disobedient and wilful. He's very confident, and always prone to 'backchat' but more so this last week.

In fact dh and I said last night, when we saw William, "oh heck, he's just like ours"

I fume everytime I watch this prog. last nights was particularly bad - its always the same old families that get shown even though there were 20 I think originally? And those crappy 'research' experiments are totally without basis and they can't possibly come up with anything interesting.

What a brat William was though his dad clearly thinks he's great - he even looked like him whereas the other two quiet ones look just like their mum. Put me off having a third anyway

forgot to watch this but just a comment on colour.

dd is 2.2 and asked a tall (rather good-looking) bald,black guy in Waitrose last week if he was Byron (from Storymakers) so she's aware of colour difference.

(She also thinks anyone with curly black hair is Paul from Tikkabilla).

my son thinks "dave" is a popular name for black men!

I really felt uncomfortable with that test tbh. Mind you i feel uncomfortable with the whole program

Laughed my head off at Williams Mother though, she is so dry. When she was on about her MIL saying not to sell the house because 'what would you do if one of your children wants to be a vet and needs a practice in settle?" so funny

I loved the little boy who wanted to be a rabbit when he grew up.

I think it might be heartbreaking watching James grow up over 20 years.

I thought the rich poor house test was odd (even ignoing the fact that if that two up two down was in my area it would be worth quarter of a million) because they asked which child would be happy so the children couldn't answer both

Enid - we made exactly the same comment about it always being the same families - partly out of personal interest, beacause I actually KNOW one of the orginal families - remember the OPera Singer Mum & Advetising Manager Dad???

I commented to DH last night that one of two things is probably going on:

1. some of the original families have just become too 'normal' (i.e. no major life crises, kids relatively well-behaved etc) to be interesting for primetime TV, or
2. they've seen the way the series is developing and have refused to participate to the same extent as they did in the beginning.

The folk I know are relatively affluent I guess, so I suppose they wouldn't want to be set up as the 'rich arrogant' ones...

I thought the little blond girl was highly precocious, but cute nevertheless.

I hoep some good comes out of this for James mum - my heart really goes out to her - want to buy her a whole load of furniture myself for that shit hole of a house, but I guess that would spoil the TV programme if she suddenly was transported to a more comfortable existence

jane - thats the point dh made about the house test - I'd like to think dd1 would have said 'both' of course

does anyone know if this is repeated? I went out last night and forgot to ask dh to tape it. My mate taped it but I have to wait for her to watch it first. TIA

I hid under the duvet watching William and his mum have a go at each other - it was like watching ds and I .

Obviously children 'notice' colour - they notice every minute detail about everything, but don't always feel any ned to comment. I was quite shocked that all the children except Tyrese chose pics of white kids for all the positive attributes, and thought it was great that his Mum was being pro-active in supporting a sense of positive identitry - especially since she had separated from his dad, so no role model at home. I wonder, though, if it was because so many of the other (small) sample of kids didn't have a very mixed environment, so were reliant on media and outdated images of comminities they didn't mix with? (in Settle, for e.g!)

Gobbledigook - the important difference for me is that Tyreses mum was putting all that effort in to influence his views about HIMSELF. Other black kids were picking white kids for 'positive' factors, and the white kids clearly already identified an image 'like them' as the positive character. So she was having to work that hard simply to level the playing field. For me that shows how much more work needs to be done to give a wider picture to white kids - I agree with you that if all the kids gave a mixture of answers it would be an indication of a more ideal world.

I was just hoping that little James' natural abilities and personality would enable him to get the best out of his school life and thrive. Why didn't she get an injunction?

No just checked, not repeated on any of the BBC channels (more programmes next week and week after tho').

If you get Cable tv UK documentary seems to show them 3-6 months later.