To some extent, soft skills like persistence and risk taking have to be modeled and inculcated more assertively in the gifted set because, frankly, so few challenging opportunities present themselves organically. If academics are the instrument of choice through which they are taught, then so be it. Most children are intrinsically motivated to learn these lessons in sports or extra-curriculars, or find challenge in routine curricula whereas, for many gifties, their passion is more academic.
I think of it this way: if my child had a motor disability that prevented walking, I would coach him until the point of zero marginal benefit to get his skills up to speed. Likewise, I would see myself as depriving my son of necessary soft skills if I didn't ensure he had at least one academic outlet that was challenging. Let me be clear: the academics (or whatever) themselves would be secondary to the goal of learning resilience.
I am, quite frankly, scared of what an "appropriate" challenge will look like as DS gets older. He is a black hole of hunger for information. I fear my brain is turning into a sponge that fills and subsequently empties itself into DS' head. Anything less than a breakneck pace is met with a behavioral regression, so I guess that's an answer-- follow the child until diminishing returns set in (or you collapse, the latter probably first.)
ETA: other potential constraints = you run out of time or money for more activities.
Yes yes yes! I'm so sick of people saying that a child should never be made to work for anything academic. And that goes double for kids who sit at school for six hours a day vegetating. I am the product of that sort of schooling, and you do not want my work ethic. It took many years after school finished for me to figure out that if you didn't understand something instantly there was a way to figure it out. Why do our kids get thrown under the bus just because they're more difficult?
