We used to shove children up chimneys; now we shove them in front of a TV camera. Both are cruel and both can be damaging to a youngster's health, but at least when you bunged them up a chimney you could be pretty sure that when they came back down they wouldn't have mutated into a teenage anorexic drug addict with silicone implants and a psychiatrist surgically attached to their wallet.

Children's preoccupation with fame is frightening. Ask any seven-year-old what they want to be when they grow up and they are far more likely to squeal "pop star, movie star, soap star or footie star" than "doctor, brickie, teacher or bus driver".

And the emphasis, unfortunately, is always on the "star". They don't want to be classically trained musicians, they want to wear a skimpy frock on Top Of The Pops while they mime to their first number one; they don't want to perform Shakespeare at The Crucible, they want to snog Brad Pitt in Dolby surround sound; they don't want to play Third Division footie for their local club, they want to be David Beckham (complete with the chewed hair and the stick insect wife); and they certainly don't want to live in the real world, they want to live in soapland where they can earn a hearty crust by doing sud all.

Of course our children's relentless desire for fame is not helped by us adults and our sad desire to relive our lost youths by encouraging our kids to lose theirs. If little Johnny or Janey (or should that be little Keanu and Kylie?) show even the slightest glimmer of talent we are straight on the phone to Ant and Dec to ask for Pete Waterman's phone number. Or - and this is the cruellest cut of all - we are entering them for talent contests, which are banal at best and, at worst, downright damaging.

Which brings us very neatly to GMTV's latest contest, Tot Idol, where five to 11-year-olds will be judged on their singing ability in a bid to find - and I quote - "a future Charlotte Church, Britney Spears or Will Young". The entrants will be whittled down to 15 by April 28, when they will be asked to perform in front of a live London audience including eminent judges such as Claire Sweeney (the one from Brookie who looks like a chipmunk) and DJ Jono Coleman (the one who looks like he has eaten his own bodyweight in chipmunks every day for the past 24 years).

The viewers of GMTV - every last one a fully paid up Mensa member - will then be given the final vote on which poor little devil is going to be crowned as Britain's Tot Idol and given a place at stage school and a recording contract with Universal Records.

I'm sorry, but this competition is the dumbest thing to hit daytime television since Kelly Brook's breasts were given the job of co-presenting the Big Breakfast.

Children should not be thrust into the limelight like this, especially as 99.99 per cent of them will be told at the end of the day that they are just not good enough. Five to 11-year-olds are not emotionally equipped to deal with this sort of pressure and rejection, in the same way that the eventual winner will not be capable of handling the subsequent pressures and rejections that make up a large part of the fame and fortune package.

Maybe the bods in charge at GMTV should think for a moment about some of the children whose lives have been destroyed by fame - children whose stories they would no doubt have featured in tasteless tear-jerking segments on their sofa-bound programme.

Do they really want to give us another tot idol who goes on to publicly starve themselves to death like Lena Zavaroni, the pitiful Scottish singer who was obsessed with hanging on to her infantile figure for the sake of her career, or who tortures themselves physically with plastic surgery and mentally with messianic delusions like Michael Jackson, who has now become the dictionary definition of wacko?

These are extreme cases, but it is still true to say that child stars rarely become well-adjusted adults. So why don't we just leave our talented youngsters alone until they are mature enough to deal with the lows that often follow the highs. After all, if a kid is talented at five, odds-on they will still be talented ten years down the line. My question is simple: what's the rush?

Updated: 10:09 Tuesday, April 02, 2002