acs - I think that unstructured time is extremely important and bad hothousing definitely involves taking away that time. I also think alot of bad hothousing is when the child's accomplishment is for the parents to be able to preen over and not for the welfare and benefit of the child. My kids go to a VERY competitive accelerated magnet and some of the parents want to play the game of who's at what level (I do not play) and usually it is so they can brag or whatnot and really has nothing to do with their kid. It has to do with them. At least that has been my experience with some people.