Hi Lucounu,
I have to admit I am not sure what your question is now, as you seemed to have decided on your answers to the questions you posed in your initial post already (though realise that I often find an answer to a question as soon as I have asked it!) I do agree to an extent that it is possible to coach kids and that of course kids do benefit from active parental participation in their education (though I don't believe in hot housing as I view it - forcing a child to do something they do not wish to do). But I think there is a limit to what you can achieve based on either the child's intellectual capacity and/or desire to learn at that point in time. Can that desire be taught? I suspect it can to a certain extent, but not everyone is academically motivated and so that needs to be considered in the context of what inspires a child. Do I think that your son is working to a different level than he would have if you hadn't taught him those things in such a structured way? Well I obviously don't know you or your son well enough to say definitively, but I would guess that he is. But if he has a real love of learning then that would have become evident anyway. Certainly my daughter, as I mentioned, is not particularly interested in structured learning, but loves to think about maths problems when we cook or play in the park or play 'schools' and loves to read what she can outside books (though loves to be read to for hours a day, and will read to herself at night). I probably could sit down and force her to learn from flash cards, or a structured maths lesson but only in the same way I could force her to eat broccoli - through coercion (please don't think I am suggesting that you are forcing your son - it's just that my daughter isn't excited by that kind of instruction at this point). But look at the world around us and find words or number problems - she loves it. So it's a different approach to perhaps the same thing.
I do agree that a child will be formed in part by how and what kind of attention they receive and I do believe that kids who come from loving homes are generally going to be more open to learning and new experiences that will continue their growth. But I don't think that that accounts for the whole picture. I have gifted parents (whom I love, I don't mean this as a 'woe is me' statement) who were not at all interested in my education and for various reasons were not able to provide the environment we're talking about here. Did that impact on my motivation to learn and achieve? Definitely, but I still have a base level of intelligence that is above average and I, despite my early experiences, have achieved more than many. I guess it could be argued that the adversity I experienced acted as a different kind of motivator - but I guess my point is that I don't believe that all giftedness is created through attention and learning. I feel uncomfortable with the idea that a parent would have so much influence and I suspect there are many millions of wonderful parents out there who have 'normal' kids who might feel a bit put out that since they hadn't 'created' gifted kids, perhaps they hadn't done everything they could to help their kids reach their potential.
