Originally Posted by KJP
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The hothousing comes in with addressing 2e issues. If he is asking to play Angry Birds, I might say "Sure, after you sit and read with me a bit" or "You can after you do 3 pages in your HWT workbook" or "Let's work on math facts or sight words first".

I don't see addressing 2e challenges with work outside of school as hothousing at all - I'd put that under the "therapy" category. I also have a number of friends who's cultural background emphasizes a lot of time spent on homework and music lessons starting at an early age, and I don't really see that as "hothousing" either - I see it more as a cultural value placed on the importance of putting time into learning that is rooted in a history of needing to work hard to get ahead. My perception of hothousing is that it refers to parents who think that by insisting on a ton of extra work outside of school they will be able to "up" their child's prospects in life - get them into gifted programming, get them into competitive private schools, get them into great colleges - but the race to do all of this is more tied into the parents ego than it is child-led. I don't see sending a child to after-school math tutoring as hothousing if the child loves math...or because a child is behind in math either due to a learning challenge or poor instruction at school or simply not understanding math - but if the reason the child is in the tutoring is because their parent wants them to go to the head of the class in math when the child is already performing well and really doesn't give a flip about math... that's hothousing.

I also don't think it's possible to hothouse anything into a young child that they aren't ready for developmentally. If a child wasn't meant to learn to read at age 2, they aren't going to learn to read. OTOH, I think there is probably a semi-large portion of children who are capable of working ahead of what the average early elementary school is offering (at least in my mellow part of the woods). This is part of the reason there are so many parents in early elementary latching on to outside enrichment and attempting to get their kids into gifted programming - the programming in the regular classroom really isn't all that great for most kids, not just for out-of-the-ballpark ability kids.

polarbear