Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Hothouse Spinoff

Twinkletoes... why can't I find a you around here IRL?? LOL!

Well put and thank you for articulating exactly what I was thinking and saving me the time of typing it all out. Right down to the battles over math facts. My children just WON'T be taught what they don't want to know. There is no chance to hothouse my children because they would not stand for it. My kids are stealth learners... we often wonder where they learn something only to realize it might have been mentioned in passing a month earlier. When DS was 18 months old I pulled out the shape-o-ball and showed and named all the shapes for him. He only paid half attention and left a few times. I did this two or three times and then put it away. When he was 2.5 and finally able to talk a little he pulled the toy out (it was in the same spot for one year and never touched) and named every shape. Sure, he was probably exposed to some shapes in books and on TV shows, but we certainly don't talk about pentagons, rhombuses and quadrilaterals on a daily basis. When he did this for his grandmother she asked me how much tutoring it took to teach him that trick. The whole point was that I didn't push it because he clearly wasn't interested. And, obviously, I don't have to push. Hopefully, I can teach him how to do housework and grow up to be a good husband via osmosis as well, LOL!

If you follow your child's lead, it can't possibly be hot housing. Someone mentioned earlier that it is hot housing if it is done for the parent's pleasure instead of that of the child. There are some instances where that is true in our house... but I don't see how making my child take two years of piano (which she HATED) so that she would have a basis of music in case she decided later in life to pick up three instruments, as her father did, to be hot housing. I think you have to talk about expectations when speaking of hot housing. If, as a parent, you place lofty goals for achievement on your child, that they do not share, and then you push and push for them to learn and suceed and excel and you take great pleasure in bragging about it... THAT is hot housing to me. Torturing my child by making her learn math facts is just good parenting. ;-)

I think it is becoming relative. How many kids are in preschool now compared to 30 years ago? Kids are expected to do math and read in K. And I bet that curriculum will become even more demanding because of global competition.

Think about Chinese kids that spend preschool learning a second language, math and piano or violin. That is the norm for millions of these kids. I read there were 10 million Chinese kids in these types of programs. The whole thing of pushing our kids came about because the Japanese car industry took over ours and we started talking about the Japanese way of doing things and "we" started pushing our kids.

So is hothousing going to be the normal curriculum in 10 years?

We are at the ocean in NJ and it is so common to red shirt so your kid will be at the top of the class. I am not sure what the bottom level is to pass, since we haven't been there, but it seems strange that the majority of kids who have a summer birthday are not ready for K and need to wait, yet in NYC all those kids have to go to K with a cut-off 12/31 compared to 10/1 in NJ. So you have even younger kids going to K in NYC because they have to (unless you decide to private school). If you show up a year later for public, they put your kid in grade 1.

I think hothousing is here to stay and I do not have a problem with it, because every parent gets to help their kid any way they want, abuse aside. I am glad my kid is who she is and I don't have to worry about what it takes to pass, just how far she can go to challenge herself and have good habits of discipline and application.

Ren

What a beautiful post Grinity. And Wren I see where you are coming from too.

Very interesting discussion--this board really makes me think.

I will just throw in here that some of the best times I have with my DD are when I am teaching her something. We clash a LOT, but rarely during the teaching process. That isn't to say it doesn't happen--and when it does, look out--but it's not usual. She is happy and engaged when learning--the wheels stop spinning ruts into the ground and she focuses. So at times I have sat down to work with her on...something (could be spelling words or math concepts or teaching her a new word game) just because it tends to be a positive time for us.

This is why I say that DD is really a teacher's dream, given the right teacher.

What a great thread! As I'm reading, a couple of thoughts that are popping into my mind...

I see the tension around hot housing as primarily related to the impact it has on other parents and kids.

First, kids who teach themselves (by which I mean, they leap to new skills and/or interests with light exposure rather than persistent parent drill) probably have different instructional needs than children who don't. This speaks less to whether or not they are or are not gifted than it does to what they need in order to continue moving forward. Not distinguishing between these different learning styles can really wreak havoc with a parent's attempts to secure appropriate learning conditions for their child and--I think--creates a tense dynamic in which parents of leapers see acheivement scores leading to their children placed with children who may be gifted, but are not leapers. This becomes a big deal because it shapes how instruction is delivered to the detriment of those who "leap".
Unfortunately, parents of kids who are not leapers may view the attempts to distinguish needs as "my-child-is-more-authentically-gifted-than-yours" competitiveness.

Secondly, those who hothouse in a "Tiger Mom" kind of way create a lot of anxiety in some families who would not normally choose to do that. It is the lucky parent indeed who does not worry that they are hurting their child either by pushing to hard or by not pushing enough. When other families adopt an uber "go-go-go" approach to preparing their child for the world, other families may feel pressured to do the same. I don't think that all families have a need to see their child be the best, but most probably experience anxiety if it seems that their children could be left behind. As a parent who wants my kids to enjoy being kids (and as a teacher who thinks we have taken too much recess, creativity and joy out of school), I find that pressure unhealthy, and I have to remind myself to stay true to works for my kids and not worry about what someone else is doing with their kids.

I can also speak for the under three set here. I have noticed that there is definitely a spectrum of parental involvement in early childhood education. There have been many times where I felt uneasy about how another parent seemed to be pushing their child, burdening them with such high expectations to be advanced, or creating a dynamic where love and attention becomes conditional on academic progress.

But, I will say that since DD has turned three I have found myself longing for a teacher's guide for her. It is hard. What do I teach her? What do I shield her from? What is the answer to her question, anyway? (Do insects have blood? I think. I dunno.)

And, wouldn't it be nice to have an idea about what is appropriate to teach a three year old about history? Can I have faith that she will guide me in the right direction? I don't know.

For the record, DD learned her letters after we told her it was a "g" sewn on her pants (for Gap. And, then we had to correct her when she labeled every other letter she saw as a "g.") She learned her shapes from a book with her favorite character, a monkey named Mimi, in it. She learned her colors one day sitting on my FIL's couch fiddling with a "quiet activity" book they had gotten at a garage sale.

We have always shied far away from learning toys. I went crazy about purchasing open ended toys sans batteries that would grow with my child. So, we have never did leapfrog or vTech. I have never bought a single workbook or curriculum. My DD does not watch educational TV.

Don't get me wrong, we are teaching her a ton. I admit to letting her play starfall and buying her hundreds of books, and, I will surely take all the credit on teaching her to read, thank you very much. Do you know how much I friggin' talked about phonics with this girl? But, this gives you an idea how it went.

I remember bribing her to take bites of food (she is a horrible eater,) with state facts and calming her down in the car with word games before she turned two. Even now, we goad her to bed with a promise of a "conversation" (about photosynthesis, cells, US presidents, etc.) The other day she came up to me with a tambourine and said, "give me a word, and if I read it right go crazy!"

Anyway, that is all to say that I do feel like I am at a crossroads here, and that I do feel some pressure to take a more active role in structuring her education. But, how do I do that without expecting to much of her? Also, I guess I do believe that IQ is inborn and will develop naturally. So, as long as I don't "coleslaw" her... Truth is I'm kind of lazy, and I fear I will just muck things up. So, maybe that is what it comes down to.

Beautiful analogy, Grinity. I always appreciate your unique angles.

My DD did learn to read very effortlessly very early and so I got to be "lazy" about many things. She somehow learned octogon and trapeziod and so forth by one visit to grandma's where grandma named shapes. I wasn't one of those parents who was always saying things like, "There is the RED ball. There is ONE ball. The ball is ROUND..." I remember meeting a lady at the park like that and I wondered if I was dropping the ball (pun intended) by my less conscious approach. Many friends were using workbooks and flashcards and were dumbfounded that I never used them. It wasn't that I was such a purist. My DD would just not have any part of it. I did buy flashcards once when she was two and starting to read because I was excited by it, and the first time I showed them to her, she knew every word and so that was it for us. I waited until she was almost five to try something a little more structured since we were preschool drop outs and I felt we should try a little something. In general, she learns best and most from reading books and asking questions, so that is what we do. I am still lucky and still get to be lazy because she gets most things with very little exposure. As for math facts, it was a brief time of practicing them, which simply meant I would write down problems or ask them aloud, for short spurts every other day. I am not sure most people would call it hothousing but in many ways I felt like a closet hothouser because this wasn't her activity of choice. Now that she has many math facts mastered, she doesn't mind it as much and we don't do it as often.

Wow - I'm so glad! My DS hated multiplication math facts when it was time to learn them at school, and I just couldn't figure out what to do with them (I still have trouble with 7x6,7x7,7x8) but luckily for us, DH who is like a human calculator took over and just rote quizzed DS on his rides to school - over and over and over and over and over again for months. Maybe I should ask DH to do that for me? (kidding) With me, I learn and forget, learn and forget, learn and forget again.

So yeah, I think the younger the child learns the multiplication tables the less chance there is they will get 'too old' to be interested and stuck with teachers thinking that they aren't good at math because they aren't fast enough for those 'Mad Minutes.' Assuming of course that the parent can find a way to teach them without irritating the child 'too much.'

Love and More Love,
Grinity

He does hear stuff once and then it pops up months after I've forgotten it too. He also learns other lessons through homeschooling. I'm just betting on the wisdom of the educational system in years of refining what should be taught to children. If there's no real advantage for the future then why is it taught?
Fwiw I'm not raising mg. We have a long family history on the border of pg. I shrink as I type this.