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Definition: Hothouse children are children whose parents push them into learning more quickly and earlier than is appropriate for the cognitive age of the children.

The term comes from the verb "hothousing," which researchers coined to refer to parents' attempts to create a "superbaby," in other words, a genius.

http://giftedkids.about.com/od/glossary/g/hothouse.htm

Think of the parents from Parenthood. A common mis-perception is that we hot house our children.

JB