Introducing the £250,000 child

There are only two topics of conversation at dinner parties these days: property prices and the cost of bringing up a child in London.

Investment-banker types have been known to whip out their calculators mid-course and tot up the figures - which are rising all the time. According to a recent survey conducted by researchers from King's College, parents now spend up to £4,000 on tutors per child before they turn 12. To give you an idea, 30 hours of GCSE French classes at the Institut Fran?ais cost £210. Some parents send their children every week for two years before they take their exams.

The dizzying sum most frequently quoted is £250K. This is what it costs from the moment a child arrives at the Portland Hospital (the meter starts ticking at the 12-week scan) to the day he or she finally graduates from university. It includes private-school tuition fees and all the extra coaching and educational 'specialists' that are now part of the hyper-parenting London package. A quarter of a million pounds will also stretch to childcare, children's activities, holidays, clothes and the obvious medical bills which anyone who has ever visited an orthodontist will tell you makes the £6,000 Portland bill look like a bargain.

My friend Leslie (not her real name) often sits at the computer doing the sums. She has three children, one of whom is six months old. 'I'm just doing the nursery schools now,' she says. 'I figured I would put her down for a few. Each has asked for a deposit of £50 to £100 and that's no guarantee: they take your money then they "ding" you.' In other words, 'Sorry, your daughter didn't assess well, try another school and thanks for the cash.' Step two is putting the child down for the next school. These costly applications have to be filled in at about the same time as the baby is learning to 'latch on' at the hospital.

Leslie was on waiting lists at four pre-prep schools (at £100 a go) when one called to offer a place to her one-year-old. 'I was having contractions when the registrar called. They put her right through. She said: "Fine, I understand you're in labour but we need a cheque by tomorrow." My mother had to send a cheque for £1,000 even though the school wasn't our first choice.' The schools know the parents want to have a good selection and will cough up for that privilege. So they demand a deposit knowing full well the child probably won't show. 'The girls' schools are the worst,' says Leslie. 'They often assess [at £50 to £125 each] and then they call and demand a deposit of £1,500 that day, knowing that other schools won't get back to you for another month. It's a scam.'

And that's before your child even gets to school. There is one subject that people lie about more than age, and that's coaching. In my son's former school, a fancy pre-prep in Kensington, they all denied it furiously. The only problem was that the children all saw the same woman, Jane Ravell, a former teacher. She teaches groups of children on Saturday mornings and Wednesday afternoons and prepares them for the next school's entrance exam. Even though the schools they're cramming for all claim the children have either got it or they haven't, no one cares. They're not taking any chances. Schools are status symbols, particularly for frustrated stay-at-home mothers. The pushy ones blurt out where their child 'got in' before they even say hello.

But even though Ravell is happy to coach these children, she doesn't approve. 'Coaching is all part and parcel of the system,' she says. 'I don't agree with children sitting exams at age seven and eight - it's proven that boys don't mature as quickly diagnostically. Basically, those who gain the entry places to schools such as Westminster and St Paul's are of a "type"; they're looking for mature and independent children who can deal with the pressure,' she says. This rules out the creative, the unusual and the immature. Though everyone claims the children don't feel the pressure of the exams, it's simply not true. Peter Kendall, a chartered clinical psychologist, sees the victims. 'These exams have all sorts of consequences,' he says. 'They're setting children up for failure. Coaching makes it worse. Just because they get in the front door because they've been coached doesn't mean they can do it. Moreover, children aren't stupid,' he adds. 'They know you don't sit an exam without a result. It's pass or fail and they know it.' Most, needless to say, fail? and they always blame the school.

The next step - especially as GCSEs approach - is tutoring. A-Star Tuition is one of the many organisations that help speed children along. Started by two Oxford graduates, James Howarth and Will Stadlen, A-Star sends tutors to work with children from the age of six. Generally, tutors charge £25 an hour, though it can be much higher. Some even go with the family on holidays. Mostly, they work on French, English, maths, literacy and numeracy (often several each week) but it is not uncommon for them to assist with homework. 'Sometimes we do it because the parents don't have time or they don't know how to do certain things,' says Howarth. 'And sometimes, bringing in an intermediary person really helps.' One neighbour employs A-Star to work with her son on his French homework. 'Everyone uses them and everyone lies,' she says. 'If it wasn't for them, I would have to do the homework with him. This frees me from so much guilt and pressure.'

Another expense - and one that is very much on the rise - is the cost of child 'specialists'. If your child is not ranked in the top four of his class, he will be diagnosed with something or other. This ranges from dyspraxia and dyslexia to ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), speech and fine motor skills to a wide variety of spatial and balance problems. Many children in my son's pre-prep were seeing several at the same time, including psychologists.

Here's where you really get hit with the bills. Top consultants charge as much as £250 for a session, after which they pass you on to several others who charge from £75. And that's just referrals. The child then works one-on-one with a specialist (from £25 to £100 plus per week). One friend's child, who was diagnosed with several 'syndromes', including dyspraxia, was costing £200 a week. When they moved to New York, where children only start school at six, all his syndromes mysteriously vanished and he is now among the school's top performers.

Of course, children are involved in many other activities including more coaching with Kumon maths (£41 per month) and the endless roster of ballet, horse-riding, tennis, judo, climbing and swimming lessons, which cost anywhere from £15 to £50. Again, the sums are startling. But after the school, the real expense is the nanny. Sadly, they're always moving ahead of inflation and making more and more expensive dents in our wallets.

Most working mothers have to keep a nanny virtually until their children grow up. A live-in nanny costs at least £250 a week (£325 plus for live-outs), on top of which one has to add tax and national insurance. The total weekly bill, according to Nanny Tax, for a £250 live-in is £347.73. If you do what many now do and provide her with a car and a flat, you pay for that, too (they're considered company perks). Of course, most nannies will not do housework, so add in the cleaner who averages £8 per hour. And finally, when she quits, there are the agency costs. They take up to six weeks of her salary - that's roughly £2,000.

School trips can cost up to £800 (for a Nile cruise). For an average earner it's crippling, but it's a question of supply and demand. There are enough rich people in London to keep all of the schools, coaches and specialists in business. In fact, there are far more of us lining up for fewer of them. But as long as there aren't enough good schools to go round, kids will continue to have to sprint, despite the fact that - as Kendall says - many children end up suffering from burnout long before they face real academic challenges, such as GCSEs and A levels. Yes, the child does brilliantly in English at Westminster but they say: 'We expect you to be brilliant in all 11 subjects.' 'Stressed children either suffer from "fight or flight", where they cause disturbances and get agitated, or they go quiet, which is often a sign of depression,' he says.

We're not doing our children any favours by putting them in aca-demic straitjackets and making them jump hurdles before they're out of nappies. In fact, we're setting them up for future unhappiness and failure (there's a direct inverse correlation between early academic achievement and future success, says Kendall).

'It would be so nice if all of these people who invest in coaches, tutors and educational specialists banded together and opened a school where all children were welcome, creativity was encouraged and normality was allowed,' says Ravell. Better still if we didn't have to mortgage the house to send them there.

Hyper-parenting support teams