'I AM stressed out," my three-year-old told staff at her nursery, when asked why she wasn't playing. They laughed when they told me, so did I, despite being a tad embarrassed - it was obvious from whom she had picked up the expression.

That may have been brushed off as a humorous incident but in reality, children as young as two are becoming stressed. They have so much on their plates that they are developing ailments more commonly associated with middle age. Serious conditions like depression.

Many are in therapy.

Of course, some are plagued by such problems due to family difficulties, but, according to a survey among doctors' practices, many are there simply because they are over-burdened.

Whereas when I was a child, out-of-school hours were spent playing in our bedroom, out in the garden or at a friend's house, nowadays every minute is accounted for with some tuition or other - playing the violin, tap dancing, singing, ballet, French, drama.

Children aren't allowed to be children any more, they are child protges.

They are whisked from one place to another, as if no stone should be left unturned in the bid to create a multi-talented child that will grow into a mini-Mozart, a pint-sized Pavarotti, a cute little Kenneth Branagh.

I wouldn't mind either one of my daughters following in J K Rowling's footsteps - anything to keep me in the manner of the Queen Mum throughout old age - but I wouldn't dream of enrolling them on a creative writing course.

Yet there are parents who seek out professional tutors of all descriptions for children who are barely old enough to hold a book. It all puts pressure on other parents.

"Are you taking Joe to pottery class?" I asked my friend when a note came home from our children's school offering the extra-curricular activity. She wasn't.

I heaved a sigh of relief - it meant that I wouldn't be pressured to partake.

It did cross my mind that she may secretly have bigger and better plans for her five-year-old son - part time PhD in hand-blown glassware, night classes in etching crystal, a working holiday painting fine bone china.

You can get paranoid in the so-called parenting game.

I'm ashamed to admit my eldest daughter does ballet - I didn't make her go. In fact, I wasn't keen (the thought of all those 'ballet mums') but her friends did it.

Now she likes it, so I'm stuck with it. But, and I make sure everyone knows, it wasn't my idea.

Some children never have a moment's break. No time to slump in front of a video, to fight with their sisters and brothers, to generally hang around doing nothing.

No wonder they are stressed.

It's not that I want my children to be empty-headed.

To be honest I'd like them to grow up with a little more multi-skilling than I had.

I should dearly love to be musical, to be able to play an instrument. I'd like to speak French without sounding like an idiot, and I wouldn't mind having an Equity card.

But that's now. If, as a child, anyone had asked me whether I wanted to devote my free time to music, modern languages or drama, I'd have told them where to go in no uncertain terms.

I suppose I had what many of today's parents call a mis-spent youth.

But at least I wasn't in need of therapy. It's taken 41 years for me to get to that stage.

Updated: 10:45 Monday, March 11, 2002