the secret life of 4 to 6yr olds

[Inge]

Channel 4

Tuesday 3rd November - 8pm

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/wellbeing/mood-and-mind/children-secret-lives-channel-four-judith-woods-six-five-four-year-olds-kids-behaviour/

[BroadOaks]

This will be very interesting to watch so thank you for posting.

 

I heard about a similar program being made for the BBC a few months back. If my memory recalls it was announced in a national newspaper that they wanted child volunteers to appear in a very similar outlook to this, from a child's perspective again. We can learn a lot from this.

[Foreveryoung]

Love this programme have it set for reminder for over a week ?

[sunnyday]

Ooooh thanks for the reminder Inge :1b

[lashes2508]

Watched it last night with my daughter , it was so funny and she commented do you see this at work ... Oh yes on a daily basis

[Inge]

I did enjoy watching,have seen a few reviews that really do not like it and feel it missed the mark, but personally found it refreshing with little pressure on the children to 'perform' , but allowed them to play ( and fight!)

[sunnyday]

I also enjoyed watching........until.......they gave two of the children 'naff' pressies - I thought that was really mean and sad Yes I know they eventually got the same as the others but made me feel really uncomfortable when that dear little boy (can't remember his name) was crying in the corner.......

[Cait]

I enjoyed the five year olds this evening. Some fantastic language skills there!

[lsp]

Will always be wary of chocolate cake thats been near children now!!! lol.

[sunnyday]

I enjoyed the five year olds this evening. Some fantastic language skills there!

Do you remember that advert from years ago.........in answer to what do you want to be when you grow up - "a right little madam" - came to mind for some reason

[sunnyday]

Will always be wary of chocolate cake thats been near children now!!! lol.

"shall we just lick the top"?!

[Froglet]

I forgot it was on and missed it . I really wanted to see this one - 5 is 'my' age!

[Cait]

Can you get it on one of the catch up Internet thingy sites?

[sunnyday]

I forgot it was on and missed it . I really wanted to see this one - 5 is 'my' age!

Pop round this afternoon - it's on my Sky planner - oh and Mr S will be getting fish and chips at 5 o'clock!

[Froglet]

Can you get it on one of the catch up Internet thingy sites?

 

I hope so - I haven't looked yet, I'm trying to avoid procrastination and be very focused on my ridiculously long TDL today! Anyone want to update our SRE policy?!

 

Pop round this afternoon - it's on my Sky planner - oh and Mr S will be getting fish and chips at 5 o'clock!

 

Excellent! I'll be there (and bringing the aforementioned SRE policy with me). Freshly made (and unlicked!) chocolate cake ok? Will you be watching Strictly or X-factor or Doctor Who?

[sunnyday]

 

I hope so - I haven't looked yet, I'm trying to avoid procrastination and be very focused on my ridiculously long TDL today! Anyone want to update our SRE policy?!

 

 

Excellent! I'll be there (and bringing the aforementioned SRE policy with me). Freshly made (and unlicked!) chocolate cake ok? Will you be watching Strictly or X-factor or Doctor Who?

Lovely - choc cake sounds great!

 

So we do Strictly and X factor - that old sky box comes in handy on a Saturday evening!

 

Crikey we used to be out 'partying' on a Saturday night and now we look forward to the television :blink: what has happened to us..........

 

Oh and what's a SRE policy? :blink:

Edited November 21, 2015 by sunnyday

[Froglet]

 

Oh and what's a SRE policy? :blink:

Sex and Relationships Education! It's a joy!

[sunnyday]

Sex and Relationships Education! It's a joy!

:blink:

[Mouseketeer]

Just watched last weeks, having moved past the 'these aren't any 4 or 5 yr olds I know' they are funny...licking the cake uugghhh, but now I just keep thinking why are all the names and labels written in capital letters.

[BroadOaks]

yes i watched the 1st 2 of these, not seen the 5 year old's as yet, i will watch on catchup.

 

A lot of this program are experiments on how children deal with situations within this amazing environment. So i noticed a comment regarding the prizes where 2 children got bad gifts and how it made them feel. It was amazing to watch how they deal with this situation and i would have expected more negative behaviour towards the other children actually. They dealt with it well and they have learned a lot from this experience we hope for later life.

 

Some clever children indeed and it would be interesting to conduct some experiments with our children on a similar theme to see how they react.. i can safely say it won't be as pleasant :rolleyes:

[sunnyday]

 

 

A lot of this program are experiments on how children deal with situations within this amazing environment. So i noticed a comment regarding the prizes where 2 children got bad gifts and how it made them feel. It was amazing to watch how they deal with this situation and i would have expected more negative behaviour towards the other children actually. They dealt with it well and they have learned a lot from this experience we hope for later life.

 

 

That comment came from me - I thought it completely unnecessary to conduct such an 'unkind' experiment on these children - I also don't agree that 'they dealt with it well' - particularly not that dear little boy who took himself away from the group and into the corner where he sat and cried

 

I'm interested in what you feel they learned from this - maybe I'm missing something here :1b

[lsp]

Maybe the next series could 'experiment' on early years workers. They could film us to see how many seconds cake would remain uneaten let alone untouched!!! They could tell us how wonderful we are, promise us rewards then take it away at the last minute! Hang on - that was yesterday's spending review!!!!!!!

[BroadOaks]

Yes of course i can try to explain.

 

Children feel disappointments throughout life and even more so as they get older. How children learn to deal with this from an early age is important. Yes i agree it wasn't nice to see a child upset, but we witnessed many children getting upset from various social interactions and how they dealt with these situations from an early age will help them in later life. It did explain this during the show.

 

Life is full of disappointing scenarios and we deal with these and hopefully learn to behave positively from them rather than negatively.

 

In a different real life scenario

(Two children aged 4) If one child is behaving well and another child is behaving badly.. who should get the reward? Do you think the child who get's no reward will react well to getting no prize. It might be hard for this child who behaved badly to understand his actions at 4 years old, yet we punish them for this action to hopefully teach them to behave?! The disappointment for this child will simply help them to deal with punishment, rather than to behave. It could become normal to accept this kind of punishment for misbehaving and the child will simply carry on as normal.

 

So if we use the above example into this scenario "experiment" we saw during the show, the idea was to help the child to deal with disappointment. Like on many occasions in life, things don't go the child's way, the child can deal with it more positively because it actually doesn't feel so bad and becomes "the norm" to have these feelings.

 

Our feelings are only enhanced by feelings we have already experienced, otherwise to what scale do we use? yes during this show it showed other children receiving bubbleguns and this only enhanced the disappointment of course, but in my opinion he reacted quite well (not as well as the other child) but he did not act negatively to the other children ie snatching a bubblegun from them, and this was good to see.

 

Do you think this child will even remember the actual event in a few days, weeks time, maybe, maybe not, but i think next time he feels disappointed it will feel more normal, so eventually it won't be as upsetting and this can only help in later life.

[BroadOaks]

 

They could tell us how wonderful we are, promise us rewards then take it away at the last minute! Hang on - that was yesterday's spending review!!!!!!!

 

::1a ::1a so true yet still funny!

[Rafa]

They could tell us how wonderful we are, promise us rewards then take it away at the last minute! Hang on - that was yesterday's spending review!!!!!!!

Isp that sooo made me laugh!! I love Black Comedy!

[sunnyday]

Yes of course i can try to explain.

 

Children feel disappointments throughout life and even more so as they get older. How children learn to deal with this from an early age is important. Yes i agree it wasn't nice to see a child upset, but we witnessed many children getting upset from various social interactions and how they dealt with these situations from an early age will help them in later life. It did explain this during the show.

 

Life is full of disappointing scenarios and we deal with these and hopefully learn to behave positively from them rather than negatively.

 

In a different real life scenario

(Two children aged 4) If one child is behaving well and another child is behaving badly.. who should get the reward? Do you think the child who get's no reward will react well to getting no prize. It might be hard for this child who behaved badly to understand his actions at 4 years old, yet we punish them for this action to hopefully teach them to behave?! The disappointment for this child will simply help them to deal with punishment, rather than to behave. It could become normal to accept this kind of punishment for misbehaving and the child will simply carry on as normal.

 

So if we use the above example into this scenario "experiment" we saw during the show, the idea was to help the child to deal with disappointment. Like on many occasions in life, things don't go the child's way, the child can deal with it more positively because it actually doesn't feel so bad and becomes "the norm" to have these feelings.

 

Our feelings are only enhanced by feelings we have already experienced, otherwise to what scale do we use? yes during this show it showed other children receiving bubbleguns and this only enhanced the disappointment of course, but in my opinion he reacted quite well (not as well as the other child) but he did not act negatively to the other children ie snatching a bubblegun from them, and this was good to see.

 

Do you think this child will even remember the actual event in a few days, weeks time, maybe, maybe not, but i think next time he feels disappointed it will feel more normal, so eventually it won't be as upsetting and this can only help in later life.

Thanks for explaining your thought process to me :1b

 

I don't agree with you at all - but that's not of any importance - we are all entitled to our own opinions!

 

Or as I like to say 'it takes many different flowers to make a beautiful garden' :1b

[Panders]

I agree with Sunnyday - but have to admit to not watching this programme, saw a similar one last year and really dislike this kind of "experimenting". I don't think it is as straightforward as them putting the cameras out and recording what happens, it is far too manipulative for my liking, editing - suspicious too. How do we know that these two children were randomly selected for this experiment - did the producers or who ever pick these two children deliberately to prove points.

 

Robert Winston's programme some years ago on children born in 2000 and its various catch ups, highlights all of these issues without being unnecessarily cruel to children.

[BroadOaks]

Yes we all have our own views but the fact remains that life tends to involve these cruel moments (unless you live an extremely sheltered life) and being prepared to deal with these emotions or feelings is what growing up is all about.

 

Why is it that one person can be strong and another person can be weak when it comes to emotions or life situations? Do you think they are born this way? some people believe we are born a certain way and that it is in our DNA.. and maybe that's true, although i disagree. I believe we are a product of our environment from the moment we are born and situations in life itself create the person we become.

 

So when a child is young, let's say 4 years old, they will go through so many emotions, and like the program explained have to deal with so many social interactions and learn to deal with situations. We see these social interactions every day in our settings, and this program was to give a more in depth child's perspective and how these social interactions play a part in their behaviour and emotions. It did a great job indeed.

 

"you have to be cruel to be kind." - and people can only learn something by being given the opportunity to try it. We need to learn how to deal with situations both positive and negative.

 

The one that choked me up was the little boy who had lost his mother to cancer so young, yet he is still encouraged to talk about her so positively and interact with her through pictures. He was so quite at first and found that one friend who he could play so nicely with.. this might not have happened if he was not given this opportunity. The same occurred with the boy who didn't want to play with anybody and just wanted to play with the fire engine or trains, yet the other boy persisted and they became good friends and played so well. Again they where given the opportunity within this environment, and these simple interactions could play a positive part in these young people's lives.

 

I don't think children of 4 years old are that good at acting! i think this was a natural situation and occurrence.

[BroadOaks]

I don't mean to go on.. ohh ok maybe i do but i want to make a comparison to try to prove a point.

 

Imagine a scenario where "Child A" and "Child B" are in a room. Child A is 4 years old and an only child and she lives in a massive house and is given everything she asks for. Child B also 4, however is the opposite and she has 4 older siblings and doesn't get to play with the few toys in the house. (quick example)

 

Who do you think will react worst to receiving a bad present?

 

Child A is the natural answer of course, and in fact Child B might be happy just to get anything!

 

Child A could react more positively because she might already have better things than the prize so deems it less important.

 

Child B might not feel has upset because it is the norm for her to be left out.

 

What would you say is the most cruel situation for later life? Child A or Child B

[Panders]

Broadoaks I am not saying 4 year olds are good actors at all, quite frankly what you see is what you get with them, however, I am questioning how these children were chosen for this programme in the first place, how the children were chosen for the various experiments, what prior knowledge did the team have of these children? How many of the 4 year olds were actually closer to being 5 and the 6 year olds close to turning 7.

 

I am an old cynic Broadoaks - I simply don't believe the programme makers have as much integrity as you do.