Bettie's Books

bookshelves: winter-20142015, london, mystery-thriller, published-2012, play-dramatisation, ouch, gulp, fradio, radio-4, under-20, britain-england, epistolatory-diary-blog, psychology

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0536jpg

Description: A mother (Emma Fielding) fears that a child parenting expert (Matthew Marsh) is endangering his own seven year old son Henry by testing out his theories of early independence on him.

A thriller which asks whether our society bubble wraps children, whether we have the right to interfere in other people's children's lives and how we become parents with the spectres of our own childhoods still looming over our shoulders.

1 - When Anna finds a boy alone and barefoot on Hampstead Heath, she accompanies him home for his own safety. But she is horrified to discover that he was left there on purpose to develop his independence, by his father, the famous parenting expert Professor Horace Henderson.

2 - When Anna discovered that famous parenting expert Professor Horace Henderson had left his 7 year old son alone on Hampstead Heath, she reported him to to police. She now feels that she must start following Henry to keep an eye on him.

3 - Professor Henderson is becoming increasingly angry with Anna's interference with his parenting and Anna's own mother and grown up daughter make her question her own parenting.

4 - Anna felt sure that Professor Henderson's son Henry was being exposed to real danger. But Anna's mother seems to be taking Henderson's side and she is beginning to doubt herself.

5 - Anna has been forced to question whether her own problems with empty nest syndrome and with the way she was raised have made her over-obsess about Professor Henderson's son. But she finally meets Henry's mother Nancy and is horrified to hear that Henderson and Henry are missing.

Mock helicopter-parents all you like but this is an extreme example of the opposite. I loved the way Anna 'owned it' in the last episode.

"the test is not for Henry anymore, it's for me"