Children on television have always walked the line between cuteness and horror.

Show a bit of talent and it's endearing; show too much talent and it's disturbing, particularly if there's any suggestion of a pushy parent working the controls.

Where the series Child Genius (Channel 4, Tuesday, 9pm) is on that spectrum, it's hard to say - there are children on the programme who would be better at running the country than the grown-ups. There are also children on there who deserve to have their lunch money stolen from them every day. I would happily do it myself. For their own good. And for the money.

The problem with the series, from the start, is that it looks a little like it's setting the children up as unusual and odd. If this was an American show, that would be fine because Americans celebrate and whoop at kids' intelligence and ingenuity. But because this is Britain and we are slightly embarrassed by achievement, our reaction is to mock and gawp at the children's intelligence instead as if it's something that's weird and even shameful. This is why so many boys struggle at school in the UK - they are afraid of being good.

Having watched the start of the new series, I realise I am not immune to this reaction and as the children, who were aged between eight and 12, powered through the general knowledge questions (Which is the largest and brightest of all the globules that exist near the milky way? Which of our organs is located just below the diaphragm?) I felt more irritation than admiration. I also took great delight when one of the little brats got a question badly wrong. Question: Which king was known as the Lionheart? Answer: Er. David Cameron. Hah! David Cameron! It was Richard I. Not so clever now are you, you little snot.

A series about child geniuses was always going to elicit that kind of response, but in following 20 children through the final of the UK's Child Genius competition, it fails to explore it in any depth or question whether what we are watching is fair to the children, or even morally right. The competition is also run by Mensa, a group that is supposedly for intelligent people but is based on the very stupid premise that there is only one kind of intelligence.

We also have to be careful about how we turn the screw on young children who might be bright but don't necessarily have any kind of mature emotional intelligence - 11-year-old Holly for example. Ahead of the final, she stood next to her mother but kept her eyes on the floor. She played with the tag on her hoodie, her teeth tugged at her lip, her face withdrew further and further into her long hair and later when the general knowledge questions got too much for her, she started crying and had to stop.

But interestingly, it was Holly herself who had entered the Child Genius contest and most of the parents seemed, in the end, to have a healthily tough and realistic attitude to competition and how it can prepare you for life. Holly burst into tears, but she came back for round two. Some of the other kids didn't get through but their parents could see that competition was making them tougher and better. There was no nonsense about everyone being a winner, just an acceptance that competition exists for children, and adults, and is a good thing.

On balance, Child Genius is also a good thing for television. In recent years, programmes such as Big Brother and The Only Way is Essex have increasingly celebrated the fatuous, the stupid, the feckless and the dim. As long as you look good in tight clothes and aren't old, it's okay to be stupid. But Child Genius, even though it gives us an opportunity to mock the swotty, is one of the few programmes that, in its own way, idolises and celebrates intelligence. Being stupid will get you a reality show. But being clever is better.