Are these Britain's brainiest children Meet three children who took part in a search for UK's ultimate child genius By Tanith Carey At the tender age of nine, Josh Altman has grown used to being referred to as a prodigy. As the number five chess player in the world under the age of ten, he regularly annihilates adult players, and the shelves of his North London living room are lined with more than 50 medals and trophies. As he moves chess pieces on the board with lightning-fast precision, this angelic-looking little boy certainly seems exceptionally bright. But the cleverest child in Britain? His mother, Hillary - who describes herself as about "as hard core a chess mum as they come" - seems to think so. Pint-sized genius: Josh Altman is one of the best chess players in the world for his age Indeed, she feels privately educated Josh needs more recognition of what she refers to as his "delicate gift." To that end, Hillary, 48, entered her little boy for the Child Genius competition, a four-part series starting this week on Channel 4 in which under-11s compete to be crowned Britain's brainiest child. And that's when things started to go awry. In the first episode of the series, Josh, then just eight, was so tiny that he needed a step to help him get up to the lone podium in the library of Queen Mary's University in London. Facing a severe-looking quizmaster, the boy looks petrified and stumbles when faced with puzzles such as: "What is the next number in the sequence 243, 27, 9, 3 and 3?" It is hardly surprising that he faltered. As his mother admits, he woke up on the morning of the competition "filled with nerves" and promptly threw up all over the back of the car. After his poor performance, it is heartbreaking to see his chocolate-button eyes fill with tears and his lip quiver as he desperately tries to get out of taking part in the next round, advanced maths. I think I am not going to stay this afternoon. I think I might be a bit too ill," he tells a researcher, his eyes searching desperately around the room for an escape. But Tiger Mother Hillary is having none of it. While he writhes uncomfortably on the seat next to her, she informs him it's all in his mind. "I think something got in your head, not in your throat," she says, adding that he "won't feel good about himself" unless he gives it another try. If there is concern about children being reduced to quivering wrecks by Simon Cowell's judging panel on Britain's Got Talent, then spare a thought for the mites taking part in this programme. Bright young thing: Rosa Maria Merheb shows off her achievements More than 1,500 proud parents applied on behalf of their offspring, who were then given intelligence tests by Mensa to see if they were bright enough to make it onto the show. The youngsters then embark upon four days of intense testing, consisting of Mastermind-style rounds ranging from challenges like spelling words such as Triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13) to lengthy mental arithmetic problems. At the end of each day, the five children with the lowest scores are sent home. The series, which consists of four episodes, each focusing on a different day's tests, is set to a background of plucky violins and quirky xylophone bongs, presumably to make it seem "fun." But the truth is, this is car-crash TV and this time it's the children who don't have their seat belts on. Take ten-year-old Hugo, a fanatical train-spotter. For intelligence, he is classed in the top 0.4 per cent of the population, and has a photographic memory, which means he has learned the entire rail network. He is already planning a career in aeronautics and has given lessons at his private school on subjects such as plate tectonics. The programme makers take care to show that Hugo fits the usual oddball stereotype associated with child geniuses. "With stupid people - not as clever as me people - I get frustrated if they can't work it out, because of course I know the answer and I feel I have to point it out to them," he says. Elsewhere, he is seen yelling at his toy trains to go faster, going train-spotting with his father and threatening to smash two mobile phones. Even his parents Mark and Michelle, from Ashstead, Surrey, are seen despairing of him, describing their son as "hard work" and "in the top five per cent of irritating children." Insisting they just want Hugo to be "normal" instead of living "in an intellectual tower," they admit they've made him take up the trumpet in the hope it might improve his chances of getting a girlfriend one day. Another child thrust into the limelight on the show is Shrinidhi Prakash, the sweetly naïve Under-12 World Scrabble Champion. Phenomenally bright, with a love of literature and economics, she is repeatedly shown "sniffing" her favourite books - because she loves the smell. Sometimes you get a bit of trouble making friends. Psychologically, it is taxing being really clever, I guess," she says. I don't care what anyone thinks. Books are friends to me. I have 200. You can only dread to think how well that confession will go down with the other 11-year-olds in Shrinidhi's school. Channel 4 claims the programme aims to make it "cool to be clever," but the effect is just the opposite. It's all designed to make the rest of us, whose children perhaps don't shine as much in the classroom, feel OK that our offspring aren't geniuses after all. If anything, it's worse than programmes like Britain's Got Talent, because those children are only performing acts. Wordsmith: Shrinidhi Prakash cannot be prized away from her reading On Child Genius, the contestants are children who have been defined by their academic achievements - and who now have to put their entire identities on the line. Used to being the top of the class at everything, few have any experience of failure. And while that might be a good thing, national TV seems an odd place for primary-age children to be shown experiencing it for the first time. But what of the parents - mostly middle-class and intelligent - who enter their children? Clearly, the fact their offspring are already top of the class isn't enough for them. Some claim they entered their child in order to challenge them, or to help them meet other gifted children who would understand them better than their peers. Others are more honest. As one mother says of her son: "He doesn't mind if he wins. Chess champion Josh's mum Hillary is clearly as invested in her son's victories as he is. As she says: "It's great to win. It's an exciting moment for a mother. No surprise, then, when she manages to persuade him to return for another round in the afternoon - advanced mental maths - although again with limited success. "Josh, it's much more than a test," she asserts afterwards, adding that it's perhaps time to get back to the chessboard to follow through on her five-year plan for him to become a grandmaster. After all, she has drawn up a tight schedule. In the past, she has awarded Josh a gold star on a chart every time he chalks up another hour's chess practice. She has worked out he needs 10,000 hours in all - more than 50 a week - in order to claim the title of chess grandmaster by the target age of 13. As his manager, American-born Hillary gave up her own high-flying career in urban development for former President Bill Clinton's administration to devote herself to Josh's career. Pressure: Although bringing up gifted children can be challenging, they are usually a source of great pride to their parents Yet she is adamant the impetus comes from him, and that she is just there to guide him. Never does she address the question of whether being her little boy's manager is incompatible with being his mum. But, as a parenting author, it's crystal clear to me that many of these mums and dads are confusing their children's achievements with their own. And while these children are young and relatively cute now, it's hard not to foresee problems ahead when they start to feel loved, as so many children of pushy parents do, only on condition of what they achieve. After all, history is littered with stories of child prodigies who could not live up to expectations. Who can forget James Harries, the child antiques expert who was made into a figure of fun on Terry Wogan's show at the age of ten - and later suffered a nervous breakdown and became suicidal? Of course, some of the children on the programme are better adjusted than others. In her jeggings, high-top trainers and bright smile, Rosa Maria Merheb, from West London, looks like any other popular ten-year-old. Precocious: There is no universal agreement about what constitutes a 'gifted' child and its definition can vary from culture to culture and even from school to school Yet Rosa can add, subtract and multiply numbers quicker than a calculator. Her talent for numbers was first spotted by her secretary mother Paulette, 46, at the age of three, when she couldn't get enough of puzzles and would beg for maths workbooks. Since then, Rosa's trajectory has been steady. In her recent SAT tests, she got a level six, putting her in the top one per cent of primary school children. In her 11-plus exams, she scored 100 per cent in her non-verbal reasoning paper and was offered places at three grammar schools, and she plays grade five piano. But with such high achievement, Rosa has developing a worrying perfectionist streak. Paulette, a Lebanese-born secretary who came to the UK 15 years ago to join her engineer husband, says: "Even if there's one wrong note on the piano that no one can hear, she says she has to keep practising again and again. She puts herself under pressure for no reason. I ask her not to go to extremes. Rosa's maths teacher advised Paulette to enter her daughter into the competition, and Rosa agreed it was a good idea because she gets bored at school because she is far ahead of her classmates. While Rosa has plenty of friends, she finds it difficult to live up to the unremittingly high standards she - and others - expect of her. "I feel I have done something wrong if I don't get a very high mark," she says. Practice makes perfect: Behind many of Britain's brainiest children are some of Britain's pushiest parents People take it for granted I will do well. Sometimes it's hard to live up to those expectations. I don't want to be average, just above average. At one point during the series, Rosa is seen weeping, being comforted by her mother and an on-set nurse. She explains that her brain froze when she was asked to recall the exact order of a shuffled deck of 52 cards. Her mother reveals that, like Josh, Rosa didn't want to go through to the next round of the competition after that, but she was also persuaded to go back. It could have been worse, Rosa consoles herself - at least she was picked to take part in the programme in the first place. After all: "One boy got nothing." Getting nothing doesn't seem to be an option for these children, or their parents. I ask Hillary what she would say if her son turned around and told her that he wanted to give up the game to be a full-time child, rather than a professional prodigy? Hillary balks at the thought. "If he said that, we would have a pretty good conversation about why he felt that way," she says. I would be very sad. Something tells me it isn't a possibility this competitive mother will be considering any time soon. Child Genius starts on C4, 9pm, tonight. Tanith Carey's book Where Has My Little Girl Gone? How to Protect Your Daughter From Growing Up Too Soon is out now.