Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion I am a hot housing helicopter parent?

It is hothousing if there is a journalist or blogger looking for an easy idea for some parent bashing.
Seriously, the chattering classes can go from bemoaning hothousing among the middle class to bemoaning that lower class kids never get to learn an instrument or play a sport. Whether it's the one or the other depends on who is to get bashed that day for doing too much (parents) or not doing enough (politicians).

DS8 is one of those kids who has to be pushed into everything, usually weekly. So I insist he goes to Judo, because it really helps his muscle tone coordination and confidence (I had to accept he just hated swim class too much, and because he has swim class every other week at school, I am confident he'll at least keep up his moderate skill and not drown) and insist he practice the violin - he does not want to practice, but wants to play, and he hates being among the worst in PE, so off to violin and Judo practice he goes. And I freely admit I subscribe to a "one music activity, one sport" philosophy. Is it hothousing?
DD4, on the other hand, wants to do everything her brother does and then some. So she goes to kiddie Judo, and swim class (or did until the life guard came out of her cubicle and said the screaming had to stop and what was wrong with my parenting anyway), and to early music education, and because she wants to learn violin too and her best friends mum was all gung-ho about organising a Suzuki class, off to violin class she goes now, too. Is it hot housing? She wants it all, even swimming, and we are currently working on the screaming part.

For my husband, it is hothousing whenever a kids schedule interferes with his plans for the day. If his plans for the day happen to involve some cool college level physics stuff to enjoy with DS8, that's fine.

It's my youngest who is over scheduled,p. He does PT twice a day with one parent each (and we should do it both twice a day, really). He sees a private PT weekly. He has PT twice weekly in preschool. He could do swimming in preschool (we have held out till the weather gets warmer). He goes to speech therapy weekly. We could and should do more (have gait orthotics prescribed and work with that, work more on standing, do more massage, work on speech daily...I am maxed out, and happy to just see him play with big sister. Am I slacking off?
Really, no one from the outside gets to determine what is and isn't hot housing. And if anyone did, I'd proudly declare my three little hothouse flowers, and I am their gardener and know what's best.
On the subtopic I have been reading with great interest about:
Is it true that there is NO space left even in post secondary that would be right for a PG kid like HK's? For DH (who is NOT in her league at all) I have always been thinking that if there was no program at a continental university to be found that would suit him, I might look across the channel towards the UK or even across the Atlantic towards the US. Fuelled by the trend that I observe as well that the volume in high school appears to be steadily cranking up and the intellectual level cranking down - admittedly from a very low level, since In most of the exam driven continental secondary and post secondary systems, no one cares how much work you do or even if you work at all as long as you make the grade (flip side: no one tells you what to work on to that grade, much). So, a system in which a kid might continue to be bored and at loose ends a lot of the time, and have to work hard to find their peeps - but certainly not having to work hard at anything else.
I have read up about colleges that have come up here, like Caltech or Reed, or Swarthmore - wouldn't these be the places to go, where a tiger kid or a hothouse kid or any kid for whom learning =working hard would just flounder, and others be able to actually spread their wings for the first time?