Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Do some gifted children hothouse themselves?

This has been a really fascinating conversation. So many interesting things to think about.

Dad22, you sound like an awesome parent.

My kids all love starfall, and each one at a younger age. My 18 month old is currently obsessed. I will have to think about whether I should limit her time more. She's so strong willed though and I confess to taking the path of least resistance at least some of the time.

In actually fact you might argue that she IS hothousing herself. She went through 4-8 week stage of being obsessed with television, strictly her favourite shows only, and could not be interested in anything else (when we were home). I was getting quite freaked out about it and feeling like such a terrible parent that my toddler was TV obsessed. She then made a dramatic leap with her speech and lost all interest in the TV. Instead she moved on to books and starfall, I see signs that she will loose interest in starfall soon, she's not as obsessed as she was. Mercifully her interest in books continues to increase and her list of acceptable books is widening steadily. I look back at the last few months and it seems pretty clear to me that she is determinedly spending as much time as she can working on whatever it is she wants to learn at that point in time. But she absolutely WILL NOT move on to an activity that I want her to do until she's good and ready. Books being a great example, she would scream and throw them across the room if you tried to read to her only 6 weeks ago. Not ready, not interested and not having a bar of it, now it's a favourite activity.

Perhaps she'll be ready for puzzles soon, I am so ready to move on to puzsles, or lego, or block towers that she will at least let me get past 3 blocks before she knocks down...

Pru - I tend to agree with PTP that it's not your job to help your DD realise her projects, and that they don't necessarily need to be measured against adult standards of failure and success. BUT I do wonder is there a point at which she maybe does need SOME guidance to figure out the follow through and completion to a really great result? I am thinking here about the difference between you getting completely on board with ever project and making sure every single one suceeds from an adult perspective v. figuring out at what point she really needs a hand up to the next level so she can see/feel what "doing it properly" would be like and can then run with that.

Vaguely related story - We have always bought blank cards so that our kids can make cards to go with gifts for friends and family. I have always let them just go for it. I have come to realise lately that I probably should have provided more guidance and direction as to the standard that they should be aiming for relative to what they are capable of. I feel I fell too far on the side of not meddling with their creativity and self direction at the expense of them learning that putting in the effort to make something really great will mean a lot more to the recipient (I am thinking particularly of my eldest child who spends the same amount of time now as she did 4 years ago and produces a similar quality result, when I KNOW she is capable of more). I think it's something I need to address, but given I can't draw to save myself and would NEVER hand craft a card myself I haven't the faintest idea what to do about it.

Oh and pencil grip - I can't remember what my first did but my 2nd and 3rd children have held a pen quite well from the first time they have picked one up. But have then seemed to go backwards when trying to figure out how to make it work. Both my older girls have low tone issues, the 2nd mostly in her hands so that may be at play. I certainly do see that some kids would just get this "right" from the start, either because it feels right to them or because they are copying what they see.

MumofThree, I remind my DD that she is free to draw however she likes when drawing for herself, which of course is 98% of the time. But if she's choosing to make something as a gift for for someone else (her choice), then I do point out that when we make something for someone, doing one's best work shows that we really want to give them something special. I am okay with saying, "Hey, is that your best work?" in this situation. YMMV, of course.

Re this:


I didn't read the article posted above. I will say this, though. DD has beautiful handwriting and incredible fine motor skills--however, her grip is not really "right." I have gone back and forth about whether this matters. MY grip is not right--it's really not right--and I can't write longhand for more than maybe 10 minutes without significant discomfort. One can argue that this doesn't matter, and in fact it matters very little to me as an adult...but most kids can't keyboard all their work at school (yet?) I don't know. It caused me some trouble in college.

I like that! I have done similar things but I think I need to do it more.

Thanks for sharing, and thanks for the compliment. Your daughter sounds fascinating! She could be the poster child for self-hothousing with intensity like you've described.

Perhaps there's a simple way to explain this to people unfamiliar with these types of children, though I'm not sure it would be believed:

"It's not that I'm a Tiger Mom/Dad... it's that DD/DS is a tiger cub."

I wish you the best of luck keeping up with your children.