Child of our time

Dr Tessa Livingston is an executive producer with the BBC and has worked on the Child of our Time series since its inception. She studied psychology, physiology and philosphy at Oxford before taking a PhD in neurophysiology. She is the mother of two teenage children.

• How did the idea for the project come about?
• How is your book different from other parenting manuals available?
• Nature vs nurture. What is your view on this debate?
• Are we becoming less emotionally attuned to our children precisely because we look at child-rearing so analytically?
• How did you find parenting? Did you have this helpful knowledge when you were bringing your children up?
• If you could give parents just one piece of advice or wisdom to take away, what would it be?

I first became interested in this area when I trained in psychology and brain sciences. I went into primary schools to study children for a seminar and was hooked! I did a first degree, a PhD and some research before I started work in television and I have been enormously lucky in that I have been able to pursue my passion for the subject through making wonderful BBC programmes, covering subjects as diverse as premature babies, genetics and the psychology that lies behind everyday life.

One major reason why I wanted to write this book now is that society is changing so fast. Childhood isn't the same as it was a generation ago - or even a decade ago - and parents have a huge variety of choice, very different from those faced by their parents or grandparents. Three quarters of mothers now work, expectations are higher and children have to learn different things faster than ever before. In this rather turbulent context, this book looks at the questions that we all ask: Why are children happy? How can we encourage good relationships? How can we help a child become confident, enthusiastic, friendly and keen to learn?

This book deals with first five years of a child's life, drawing on a vast amount of academic research in psychology, neurosciences and sociology. It gives really well-supported advice to parents and anyone who looks after children. It is also one of the few books that allows parents to make informed choices about how to bring up their own children, by offering a range of good options. I think that is very important because every family is unique. While there isn't a specific recipe for bringing up all children, there is a great deal of very useful information that any parent will want to know.

The book suggests how to praise and discipline your child and how to read your child's body language and looks at the pros and cons of TV and video games. This isn't just a manual; there are also games, tips, fun tests and questionnaires so every parent will find lots of surprising information and useful ideas.

This is a big question! What makes us who we are? The answer is that we are all enormously influenced by both our genes and our upbringing. However, for some personality traits, genes are in the ascendance and for others our upbringing is more important. Being very outgoing and active or shy and inhibited, for instance, is likely to be quite strongly influenced by our genes and scientists have already found one gene that is strongly associated with risk-taking. On the other hand, self-belief is probably more linked to our environment - encouragement and praise can work wonders! I wrote a list of personality traits in the book and worked out where genes were crucial and where the environment we live in is more the master of change and that proved very interesting.

Everyone has always needed help bringing up children. The old adage - that it takes a village to bring up a child - is still true, but where is the village nowadays? Many parents appreciate and need the help that books and TV programmes can give them because we live in an age where families are dispersed - sometimes across the globe - and support networks are more fragile. Add to that the pressures of this century: mothers and fathers often out at work, a long-hours culture, the need to employ relative strangers to look after our children and the profound influence of technological changes - TV and so on - and it would be alarming if parents didn't turn to books for advice.

The manual is really about giving parents expert advice coupled with the 'gossip' that you get in a village, in the form of the Child of Our Time families speaking to us about their personal experiences. I think this combination of real-life and genuine professional knowledge is exactly what is needed nowadays to allow parents to be emotional and loving with their children (we all are!) and be confident about what they are doing as well.

The parents find being on the series hugely rewarding and fun but they also continue to live their own lives very much unchanged. They enjoy the information they get from us and from the programmes and use the bits they find useful - as many people do - but I don't think it goes much further than that. And it may look as if we are with them a lot, but in fact we only visit a few times a year!

I have two children who are now 16 and 18. They are lovely young people but I would have had an easier time if I had known when I started what I know now! Having said that, I enjoyed having young children very much indeed and, like everyone else, found it exhausting sometimes too, though my experience of working with children and talking to my psychologist friends proved very helpful.

Stay on your child's side, observe them, laugh with them, think about what they need as individuals and have confidence in yourself. Your child is unique and very special.

Where to next?

• To buy your own copy of Child of Our Time, click here
• Do you believe in parenting manuals or would you rather trust your instincts (or is it a bit of both!)? Chat about your ideas with others on our Discuss Debate and Deliberate forum!
• Find out about your baby's development from birth to two
• On the couch: tackling your parenting problems
• Find everything you need to know about your baby on our special features page!