Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Hothousing- did you, didn't you, will you?

Afterschool, like homeschooling can follow the child's interest or a set curriculum or fall somewhere on the spectrum. Afterschooling is an activity.

Hothousing is a pejoritive term (that I would like to change to a neutral term) for parents who "push" their children to learn, before the child shows any interest. There is a suggestion that the parent is offering love and attention in exchange for the child's participation in the parent's scheme. There is a whole industry that promises to sell materials and techniques to make a smarter baby/toddler/preschooler. The real research shows that the normal paying attention to a child, talking with a child, and giving the child choices where appropriate actually can make a child smarter and more 'school-ready.'

Of course the term hothousing also is part of the way it's so difficult for U.S. folks to deal with class differences directly. Instead of saying, 'Gee, we interested adults notice that kids from homes with more resource and who have parents with more lesuire and less stress come to school with more skills and ready to learn, as a group, than many kids from families with more stess, less resource in time and money. How do we feel about that? What are we going to do in response to what we see?'

Instead many interested adults will feel more comfortable saying "Bad Middle Class(or higher)parents! You ruin your children's childhoods and Hothouse your children so they can dominate other kids at school, and from then on, in life. How dare these parents have the nerve to insist that their children are 'special' and have special learning needs. They have priviledge and just want more and more."

Of course it does look like that in the U.S. the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting left behind. There is fear and insecurity for many College educated parents. Some parents aren't particularly thoughful of their children. It's actually a pretty new idea that it is the parent's job to be thoughtful of their child's individual needs, and this idea has some drawbacks. It's actually a pretty new idea that anyone has individual needs. For a long time people did what everyone around them was doing, and that was that.

Personally, I think there has to be some kind of balance between "knowing yourself, and being thoughtful of one's needs" and "sucking it up" and being pleased just to get to participate in the larger community. Both perspectives have value. Balance.
((Please don't ask me how I got to here from Hothousing! I sure didn't expect this!))

Smiles,
Trinity