Hothousing is very easy to spot. For a start, the amount of unscheduled time a child has. Then there's the second guessing the parents engage in. It's really very very obvious.
I don't agree with this. One of my children has more capacity for activities than the other, and may ramp up the intensity of one activity in particular a lot (his choice). The other is more stressed out by commitments. We know some kids here are consumed by their passions. They may not have a ton of free time. And? Obviously, some children are overcommitted against their will, but...
Hmm, I interpreted the unscheduled time comment to mean unscheduled time allowed by the parents, as opposed to by the child.
If someone saw my son's unscheduled down time, they would be convinced we were guilty of child abuse. But DS13 simply does not get mentally tired doing anything normal people do (very unlike the rest of us in our family). It is no exaggeration to say he could do demanding mental tasks from sun-up to sun-down. He actually has a NEED to do a minimum amount each day, even on vacations. And so he loads himself up with activities and has very high goals for each one (which we often discourage). He works harder than anyone else in the house, but because he wants to.
And he is far from a withdrawn kid--a girl asked him in class if he planned to run for class president, because if he didn't she might have a chance.
