Children and host Li Rui dress as cavemen during the third season of the reality TV show Dad, Where Are We Going? in October.

"Shows involving kids initially aimed to display family love at their core, but as more and more programs emerged, the fierce competition meant we had to make more eye-catching programs to improve our ratings," he said, adding that the shows' producers exploit the fact that most viewers have little understanding of the program-making process.

"Reality shows are products. I guess the audience rarely realizes this when they watch cute kids who are prone to tantrums laughing and crying. Reality shows do not record the real lives of the participants, who are exposed to the ever-present cameras all day long. Everyone in the show has a role to play.

"It is a highly industrial production process. We used 40 cameras to shoot each episode, and the videotape of each episode was about 25 hours, which then had to be edited down to 90 minutes.

"The viewers think they are seeing the children's natural reactions to events, but after all that editing and reformatting the responses may not actually be all that genuine. What's more, some of the most-discussed scenes were engineered by a director on the set to make the story more interesting," he added.

Jiang Liang, a director of Hunan TV reality show Deformation Plan, said the artificial nature of the product is a major problem because the format makes the programs unsustainable.

"Kids in the shows look stereotypical - some look irritable, some look nice and sweet - but that's the result of cutting video clips together. How do they (the children) feel when they watch themselves on TV?

"Most people have never taken performing arts classes, and they know little about making TV programs, so it's hard to expect them to tell the difference between reality shows and reality," he said.

Liu Yan, a professor at the Institute of Early Childhood Education at Beijing Normal University, expressed similar concerns, saying hidden problems may arise when children are overexposed on TV, and that it can have a long-term impact on their lives when the show is over, especially if they have participated for several seasons spanning many months.

"Unlike shooting a film, where the kids can easily identify their given roles, children involved in reality shows may be affected later in life by everything they have experienced - the reactions of their peers on the show and the response from the public, including online bullying."

Liu used the case of Gary Chaw, a Malaysian-Chinese singer-songwriter, as an example. Chaw decided to stop updating his account on Weibo, a Chinese Twitter-like service, after he discovered that his son had become the target of malign comments that amounted to cyber-bullying.

Online rumors claimed that Chaw's 6-year-old son, Joe, had deliberately pushed 5-year-old Feynman Ng Chun-yu down a flight of stairs during the shooting of Dad, Where Are We Going? in 2014. Ng Chun-yu, the son of Hong Kong actor Francis Ng Chun-yu and now age 7, sustained an eye injury that could affect his vision permanently.

Chaw furiously denied the allegations. "Let me clarify. My son did not hurt Feynman. If my son was the one who injured Feynmen, I will bear all responsibility. Such accidents are unexpected, but why do my son and I have to endure all (the) scolding and humiliation? I also feel sorry for all of the kids (on the show). Since last year, every one of them has been scolded and insulted by netizens. Enough!" he wrote on his Weibo account shortly before abandoning the platform.

Francis Ng Chun-yu claimed that Hunan TV failed to ensure his son's safety, and later reached a settlement with the company over the injury.