Twinkletoes... why can't I find a you around here IRL?? LOL!
Well put and thank you for articulating exactly what I was thinking and saving me the time of typing it all out. Right down to the battles over math facts. My children just WON'T be taught what they don't want to know. There is no chance to hothouse my children because they would not stand for it. My kids are stealth learners... we often wonder where they learn something only to realize it might have been mentioned in passing a month earlier. When DS was 18 months old I pulled out the shape-o-ball and showed and named all the shapes for him. He only paid half attention and left a few times. I did this two or three times and then put it away. When he was 2.5 and finally able to talk a little he pulled the toy out (it was in the same spot for one year and never touched) and named every shape. Sure, he was probably exposed to some shapes in books and on TV shows, but we certainly don't talk about pentagons, rhombuses and quadrilaterals on a daily basis. When he did this for his grandmother she asked me how much tutoring it took to teach him that trick. The whole point was that I didn't push it because he clearly wasn't interested. And, obviously, I don't have to push. Hopefully, I can teach him how to do housework and grow up to be a good husband via osmosis as well, LOL!
If you follow your child's lead, it can't possibly be hot housing. Someone mentioned earlier that it is hot housing if it is done for the parent's pleasure instead of that of the child. There are some instances where that is true in our house... but I don't see how making my child take two years of piano (which she HATED) so that she would have a basis of music in case she decided later in life to pick up three instruments, as her father did, to be hot housing. I think you have to talk about expectations when speaking of hot housing. If, as a parent, you place lofty goals for achievement on your child, that they do not share, and then you push and push for them to learn and suceed and excel and you take great pleasure in bragging about it... THAT is hot housing to me. Torturing my child by making her learn math facts is just good parenting. ;-)
Last edited by kathleen'smum; 08/25/11 04:42 AM. Reason: more to add!
