Wii set up problem

I've got my granddaughter a Wii for Christmas. I've plugged all the cables in, put the batteries into the controller and the started up. I get to a menu screen and this is where things go wrong. All the controller buttons work, home, A, off etc, but there no cursor on screen where I can flick through choices. The dpad does nothing at all. I really want to get it up and running while she is here, can anyone help?