[00:00.00]3 Pushy parents help children succeed

[00:04.37]Pushy parents may be doing their children more

[00:06.79]harm than good,says Washington-based childcare

[00:09.53]expert Matthew Melmed.

[00:11.91]Professional parents frequently overstimulate

[00:14.42]babies and toddlers and buy them educational

[00:17.16]toys that are too old for them in the belief

[00:19.69]that they are improving their prospects.

[00:22.41]In fact,faced with such demands,the children

[00:24.85]may become frustrated and give up completely.

[00:28.00]Worse still,the children recognise that they

[00:30.78]are disappointing their parents and this sense

[00:33.05]of failure eats away at their self-esteem.

[00:36.29]The warning comes as an ever-increasing range

[00:38.60]of educational material is being produced for

[00:41.46]the very young.

[00:42.96]In the US,"hyper-parnting"is rife,

[00:46.11]says Joanna Coles in The Times.

[00:48.69]Expectant mothers are pressured into buying CDs

[00:51.55]such as Mozart for Mothers to Be("Build your

[00:54.27]baby's brain!")while no self-respecting baby

[00:57.27]would be without educational videos including

[01:00.70]Baby Einstein and Baby Shakespeare.

[01:03.11]By the age of one,enrolment in a plethora of

[01:06.01]classes,from languages to arithmetic,

[01:08.35]is expected.