Child Genius

The follow up series to Child Genius once again provides a showcase for parental obsession. The parents of Peter the would-be chess champion, Georgia the prodigious toddler and Adam the academic, are worthy of a series dedicated to their own psychoanalysis. At best they are troubled, at times they are little short of scary. The common theme linking them all is a repeated demonstration that they see their child's gift both as an identity and valuable commodity.

Watching Lucy Brown forcing her two-year-old daughter to share in her own anxieties about the child's talents was painful. To excitedly dangle an envelope from a school containing Georgia's acceptance or rejection in front of her, before bursting into tears in disappointment just seemed cruel. Georgia may be outstandingly intelligent, but she is not an adult and, not surprisingly, did not appear to act like one. However advanced she is her manner was still that of a child - and for a child to be dragged along an adult emotional rollercoaster is surely not a situation to be condoned.

Adam, the child who started Prep School this week caused concern to his parents because they feared he wasn't different enough anymore. Were they embracing the stereotype of the gifted child who can't socialise with anyone of his own age? Their compulsion to formally test their second son, Samuel to check they weren't 'missing something' special highlighted their obsession with quantifying their children. Luckily this had a happy outcome - well, relatively - he was gifted but not as gifted as his brother.

As for Peter the chess-player who doesn't go to school, at least his saddening failure to win the junior chess championship encouraged his parents to put him in contact with other kids, all be it the scouts rather than school.