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I think you've hit the nail right on the head, elh.

I agree that the difference between hothousing and true GT is the difference between memorization and understanding.

There's nothing whatsoever wrong with exposing kids to learning opportunities, but kids have ALWAYS been exposed to learning opportunities. Certainly those opportunities have changed over time, but that's not necessarily *better* learning, just different stuff. Is knowing all the instruments in the orchestra somehow "better" than knowing all the wildflowers in a farm's pasture? I'd argue no. It's just different.

I really think it comes down to the motivation of the child. Is she learning just to please you? Then you're hothousing. Is she learning because she can't NOT learn? Then she's GT.

And it is possible to have both GTness and hothousing at once. GT kids don't always want to learn all the time. Or they'll want to learn through play instead of through drill-and-kill. You can hothouse the love of learning right out of a GT kid. I really think it's generally better to follow the lead of the child.

I'm not a fan of "competitive parenting." I don't think what someone else's child is doing has much of anything to do with what my child is doing. I only worry if one of my boys seems behind what is normal, not behind what is GT, not behind what the neighbor kids are doing.

<shrug>

I'm not sure you can hot house a non gifted kid into scoring above the 98th percentile on an IQ test. Especially the newer ones which more heavily weigh processing speed and working memory index.

I

Agreed. Though we just took the WISC and I was surprised at how much FOK stuff there was in it. That stuff could be hothoused if you knew it was on the test.

First, I was trying not to be competitive with my friend. But it has come to the point where I don't talk about DD achievements, besides people notice and say enough already.

Two, you can hothouse to get great scores. There was a study done on the SB. You can use the SB to hot house or use the pre-k books etc. You can gain an average of 13 IQ points, almost a standard deviation. So you could go from 66th percentile to 95th, approximately. But I think it only works in the younger set.

Third. I think that is why I asked people for your opinions on what they look for and thank you for your answers. Like when we did the test a few weeks ago, DD whipping through this one section in a flip book. She was actually giving wrong answers then at one point, where it got harder, she stopped, went back and corrected herself. She wasn't bored anymore -- according to the tester -- this was towards the end of test. The tester says that what was telling was her self-correcting, because a 3 year old doesn't self correct. But that kind of thing doesn't neccessarily happen in an evaluation.

And although everyone said very interesting things, I have to admit that at 18 months DD did not ask why the elephant had a built in shower. We were delighted that she started using 3 word sentences.

Another question. There was a question whether your child was so interested in a topic that they "researched" it and learned as much as possible about it. They are talking about 3 and 4 year olds.

A couple of mothers asked if Disney princesses counted, because that was the only thing their DD were interested in to any extent. My DD doesn't research on the Internet and we do go to the library, but she seems interested in so many things. She looks at the globe and wants to know where certain places are, she knows her planets, about the asteroid belt, as mentioned she asks a great many questions about things. Is that "researching" for a 3 year old? What is your experience? It seems like she is filling files -- and she does use it, sometimes strangely in a story.

Though many times it is working to apply it to her life, like at school they learned about liquid, gas and solid. So asking questions about the butter melting in the pan, the solid is turning into liquid. But there a bunch of questions when she first learned the concept to figure it out and put it somewhere in her brain and then it was done, she understood it.

But I do not know, I trust the psychologist, who has tested twice now, to have a better opinion.

Ren

Here is what I think they meant. My son goes through what we call "obsessions". He picks up a topic and learns as much as he can about it. He talks about it all the time, reads about it, asks questions, writes about it, draws maps/graphs/pictures, wants us to look up this or that. Basically 50% (if not more) of his free time evolves around it. This lasts a few months and then the topic fades away and something else will eventually come up. Within those few months he learns enormous amount of information. It makes him really happy. As a matter of fact he is pretty miserable when he is done with one topic, but hasn't found a new one yet.

He is 5 now, but he did it when he was 3 and 4 (even 2). He was into reading, geography, space and such.

I think Kriston's son does something similar. Look up the math post, I think it's there.

Thanks, that is very interesting. His penmanship must have been much better than DD at 3 to write about it, draw maps and graphs.

My husband is like that by nature. He was "obsessed" about the Dark Ages and found obscure texts to read, books, then it is something else. He was like that as a child. Though he is HG not PG. As mentioned before he will read 2-3 books a week, but he is definitely an auditory learner. DD is non-linear by nature, though she seems inclined both ways. Astrologically she is anyway

Ren

I've gotten a bit obsessed with learning about DS's test scores--does that make me PG?

Probably....

Isn't that ND for the mom of a PG kid?

(tee-hee-hee!)

LOL. I sure hope so.

Ren, I meant typing on the computer. His writing didn't really take off till K, but he was always a good speller. As for maps and so, you can trace them and you don't really need too many skills to draw the Solar System or comets.