I don't know if I'd consider what I'm assuming many parents do with young children hothousing. You can't buy a toy nowadays that doesn't have some educational aspect to it, it seems everything has letters, numbers, colors, and/or shapes on it or in it or under it or whatever. I bought some of these toys for DS--some he enjoyed, some he didn't. Some he wore out and some never saw the light of day after they were opened and investigated.
If he had an interest in one over another, we went with it. If questions were asked, we answered. Sometimes we showed him something new just because it was there or we were expanding on whatever the toy could do alone (because we were tired of the same old thing for the millionth time). Most times he came up with questions on his own. We never had the plan to create some little genius, but rather to nurture a curiosity about the world he was a part of. I hate the assumption that I've worked with my child simply because I enjoy(ed) spending time doing things that I do with just about everyone else - talking, listening, interacting, etc.
One thing I personally don't do is do anything extra at home - structured, that is. DS does his homework and that's it. He has lots of unstructured play time and in the course of that, a lot of learning still takes place. We've looked up the lifecycle of a butterfly when he found a caterpillar and wanted to know if it really was like The Very Hungry Caterpillar and things like that. One of the main reasons I don't do anything structured is that then he'd be that much further ahead and I'm not sure that the schools he'd be going to could/would accomodate him. He's already skipping one grade and all evidence is pointing to it being a success. I'm looking forward to him having to struggle just a bit to learn how to work at something. I want him to have the self-satisfaction of having worked hard to get whatever grade he gets. I'm afraid if I gave him anything extra at home, I'm going to negate the grade skip, kwim? I'm happy to help him if he needs help with assigned work, but I don't require him to do anything in excess of what the school assigns him.
Just my thoughts.
