Hi Ren,
I watched a really interesting documentary about this (well, about over scheduling generally, not specifically for gifted kids) not long after the flurry of posts about the Chinese mother article. The show was called Lost Adventures Of Childhood.
It basically focussed on research in to what the impacts of over scheduling are. What the researchers featured found is that kids who are really scheduled, who don't have significant free time playing by themselves, - as well as unstructured play dates - had lost a variety of important life skills (of course I didn't pay enough attention to who did the particularly studies they mentioned, though they were from respected universities). In particular they lost the ability to use their initiative, to take calculated risks and they didn't develop leadership skills or normal social skills. They never needed to. Everything they did was organised and instructed by adults. Adults defined how they should behave, instructed them on what actions they should take - and the structure meant that in group and team sporting activities kids never really spoke to each other or worked with each other other than within the narrow limits defined by adults.
Now I appreciate that this was one show and I haven't looked in to it any further - dd only does one class a week and could do with a bit MORE scheduling I suspect! But the outcomes they spoke of seemed logical enough and I guess I don't see how these outcomes would necessarily be any different for a PG kid than an ND kid.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have an issue with extra-cirricular activities and giving kids lots of opportunities. I also think that when it comes to parenting, each to their own (not withstanding abuse of course), which is why I didn�t get involved in the Chinese mum thread. However, for what it�s worth, I know for certain that my initiative, common sense, and my leadership and social skills are more useful to me than anything else I've ever learnt in a class. So I�m going to aim for a mix � as �they� say, everything in moderation
