Violent soap operas and bullying behaviour on television shows harm children

Sue Palmer, the author of the book Toxic Childhood, said children are losing their core language skills because they watch television instead of interacting with adults.

She is also concerned that children are learning bullying behaviour from programmes like Big Brother, soap operas with violent storylines and, more generally, celebrity culture in magazines such as Heat.

She said: "It seems to me the bullying behaviour we see in things like Big Brother is good telly, but it is being replicated in playgrounds because children learn by repetition and they think if they see Jade Goody saying it, it must be OK."

Speaking at a conference on children's issues in Glasgow yesterday, Ms Palmer said reality television has become a "theatre of cruelty", showing painful confessions, while soap operas, traditionally watched by the whole family, now broadcast an enormous amount of cruelty and nastiness.

Louise Burfitt-Dons, director of Act Against Bullying, the anti-bullying charity that dissociated itself from Jade Goody over her behaviour on Celebrity Big Brother, said the programme has legitimised a growing trend of bullying behaviour in classrooms around the country.

However, Eric Wilkinson, a professor of education at the University of Glasgow, said to blame bullying on Big Brother was "outrageous".

Instead, he said, society should concentrate on how to deal with a natural part of childhood.