Eight-year-old Tudor Mendel-Idowu (pictured above) and his sister 11year old Hazelle Mendel-Idowu (pictured below with brother) of Nigerian parentage kids took part in the child genius 2014 competition in the UK. There were 20 contestants in all, aged between age 7-13. The UK reality TV programme’s aim years was to hunt for genius children in the UK.

Tudor was visibly upset after he lost the final 10-6. His parents, Tolu, a 39-year-old pastor, and Gold, a 36-year-old NHS administrator, had put him through a rigorous coaching regime and were shown wincing or shaking their heads when he got a question wrong

At the tender age of eight, Tudor Mendel-Idowu has been picked to play soccer for no fewer than three Premier League junior teams: QPR, Tottenham and Chelsea.

This achievement alone would be enough to make most fathers’ hearts burst with pride. But, unfortunately for Tudor, he appears to have a very long way to go before he meets the sky-high expectations of his demanding dad, Tolu.

So far, the most heart-rending scenes on Channel 4’s Sunday night reality series Child Genius — in which 20 gifted children are subjected to a terrifying barrage of tests — have been the sight of this small boy hiding his face in his hands as he weeps.

The reason? He has not scored as well as his father tells him he should have done.

Never mind that Tudor was asked to perform tasks beyond the reach of the vast majority of adults, such as recalling the order of two packs of randomly shuffled cards in less than an hour or answering such general knowledge questions as: ‘What is the measure of the ability for a substance to become magnetised?’

Child Genius has been the perfect opportunity for Tolu, a pastor, to showcase his parenting philosophy which is ‘the right combination of happiness — as well as fear — produces genius.’

However there is little happiness seen in the training regime Tolu, 39, and wife Gold, 36, have organised for Tudor at their neat home near Wokingham, Berks.

Not even tea-time is a revision-free zone. As Tudor eats his meal, surrounded by dictionaries, encyclopedias and banks of Post-It notes, he is filmed being quizzed by his father on the spelling of ‘cybernetics’

Any wrong answers are dismissed by his mother, Gold— a power-dressed NHS administrator who is just as fearsome as her husband — with words such as ‘ridiculous.’

In recent episodes, Tudor was deliberately pitted against his big sister Hazelle, 11, who was also in the running until she was knocked out last week, leaving her too sobbing inconsolably.

Yet rather than commiserate with his son after a disappointing performance, it is Tolu, who declares that he finds the contest ‘emotionally draining’. He then tells Tudor: ‘Maybe you’re not as good as we thought.’

Indeed in last night’s episode, Tolu admitted what we already knew. ‘It’s now obvious this is more of a competition for parents than clever kids’. 

Even for a nation well used to the mercenary exploitation of spy-on-the-wall television, this has raised concern.

Tudor was visibly upset after he lost the final 10-6. His parents, Tolu, a 39-year-old pastor, and Gold, a 36-year-old NHS administrator (pictured above), had put him through a rigorous coaching regime and were shown wincing or shaking their heads when he got a question wrong.

Last night Claude Knights, chief executive of children’s welfare charity Kidscape, criticised the show for ‘exploiting’ children by filming them in ‘visible emotional distress’. She said: ‘A number of the parents were sadly too preoccupied with the end goal and their own ambitions to realise that their children were being taken beyond safe levels of endurance.

‘We also have to ask what aspects of intelligence were being tested, and what was the point of pushing these bright young minds “to their limits”, in for the most part, pointless tasks devoid of real context. The need to consider the nurturing and development of the whole child was ignored in favour of cruel entertainment.’

The competition is overseen by British Mensa and featured children aged seven to 12.

Story and photographs courtesy of Daily Mail.