Child of our Time

[Healing&Hopeful]

Hiya all

There is a new series of Child of our Time on.  I'm not sure if this is shown in the US, but it's a kind of experiment.  They took a number of millenium babies which they plan to follow their progress and what happens to them until they are 16/18.

Personally I find it a really interesting programme and have been following it from the beginning.  The children are from all walks of life... some were premature, a couple have divorced parents now.

It shows a lot about how they are developing emotionally, how they are getting on in school, what kind of problems they might face, through a series of play tests.  It also shows them at play, how they interact with others, how they make friends.  A lot of it is showing how to give a child a sense of self, how to help them to be confident, and how to recognise what maybe problems later in life for the child.

One of the tests in this programme was to see how materialistic they were... where they gave each child a new toy for 10 minutes, then took the toy a way.  They then gave the child two photographs, one with the toy and a mean looking child, and a photo of a nice looking child, and asked which they would like to play with.... most of the children picked the nice child, meaning that they value people over objects.

Here is the link if anyone is interested.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/parenting/tv_and_radio/child_of_our_time/


H&H

[darky]

yes i have seen this program, its fascinating! did you see the experiment ofthe houses,when they asked a child who lives in a house like this? that was a great experiment, demonstatrating perfectly just how children learn from an early age about judging and perceiving people.

[Healing&Hopeful]

Hi Darky

I can't remember that one.... but it does show what young children pick up.

They did another one on yesterday's programme to see if the children blamed themselves or outside sources.

They gave them a very full bowl of water.  One where they couldn't possibly not spill any.  They then told the child to walk in a straight line and not spill any water.

Most of the children blamed outside sources, the odd one really fabricated to blame outside sources.... ie. the bowl was too full etc.  One of them blamed himself... he said "I wasn't careful enough".  I just wanted to pick him up and cuddle him.  The programme stated it was healthy for the child not to blame himself for not being able to complete an impossible task.  It also showed the mother with a counsellor.... it didn't go into depth with the counsellor, but you could tell the Mum was blaming her son.  They were showing her other ways to praise the child.

H&H xx

[Healing&Hopeful]

PS:  The other thing which is really interesting about this is that the children are coming up to 6.

What do they say about N's?  They didn't progress from being 6... is that right?

[darky]

yes, ive read n's have the emotions of a six yr old.

the house experiment was similar to the one you described about the pictures of children. they showed the kids some pictures of houses and asked them what kind of people lived in the houses and what they might do for a living. a small house the children would say "a poor person probably a cleaner" and when asked which house they would live in when they grew up the children seemed to pick the houses most similar to what they lived in already.

[Cadbury]

I love that programme! Like you, I've watched it from the beginning. My eldest daughter is a 2001 baby, so it has always very closely followed her development. I find it utterly fascinating, shows how even the smallest things can affect a child's happiness and well-being. Almost (I said almost!) makes you feel sorry for the N's and what must have triggered their behaviour... Like I said almost .