Another good reason to rein it in early, though, is that advanced coursework in middle/high school often has these embedded "projects" for independent learning. DD always did more-more-more-more-more on this stuff. She was chasing peer reviewed literature on altruism when she was 8 and 9, spending time in the local university library stacks, etc. On the other hand, getting her through to the finish line on a huge project was hellish.
I see this one as a scope-and-time-management problem, and it's one where it really is pretty critical to emphasize accurate estimation of one's own ability and time needed, and hope that they get it down by the time they reach post-secondary and beyond.
Agreed.
I was thinking about this post the other day when DS6 had an assignment to summarize a book. (I wasn't watching him--usually, his HW is duh-easy, but this was a bit more demanding, clearly.) 20 minutes and one excruciatingly long and complex paragraph later, he'd gotten through about 1/8 of the book and was feeling worn out...whoops. I guided him to finish up in two more sentences. I know his teacher will know what happened. These kids WILL bite off more than they can chew, so you have to keep an eye on them or they'll wilt. partway through.
