Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How to Hothouse Your Kid

For one thing, not parents who are following the Doman TYBTR method, which I think is the original (there are lots of imitators). I got rid of the book, but as far as I remember they recommended seconds or at most a few (under 5) minutes of reading exposure at a time, and only when the baby was happily paying attention. I decided against it because it seemed pointless, not because it seemed wrong.

The distinction is generally between activities which the child finds intrinsically rewarding, determined by child's depth of interest, natural curiosity, and the child's own sense of work well done (curiosity satisfied) -vs- activities which are parent-prodded and possibly evaluated as work well done by an adult who determines whether the child has achieved the adult's desired outcome for the child's achievement or performance.

The adult world of work is a different context entirely, then that of hot-housing children.

This is an interesting thought and one that some may disagree with... as alluded to in this article discussing whether children's abilities even out in third grade (link- http://giftedkids.about.com/od/schoolissues/i/even_out.htm).

It is my understanding that having books available is considered a positive and enriching environment. There is nothing inherently wrong with any particular resource or tool, only how it may be utilized... the difference being the degree to which something is genuinely of interest to the child or is parent-pushed.

It is my understanding that for some this may depend upon their neurological development, and for others it may be lack of stimulation.
I've not heard of this, but your account of it does not sound good. I share your concern. That being said, babies do spend an amount of time in "restraints" such as car seats, child swings, cribs, pack'n'play playyards, bouncers, exersaucer activity centers, snuglis, boppy nursing pillows and the like in the company of their parents and caregivers... having something play in the background may be common, whether it is the radio, tv, or a program...?

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment. Caricaturing a little, people have been suggesting it's hot-housing, i.e. undesirable, if

a) the child would learn whatever it is faster or more easily later. But almost everything is easier to learn later (languages maybe an exception), because you develop emotional maturity and learn how to learn in a deliberate way. It may be that reading is taught too early in our schools, but I don't think evidence that children who are only taught later learn faster is necessarily evidence of this. You have to start somewhere.

b) the child has any reluctance to do the work required. But doesn't everyone go through a process of learning that you don't dissolve if you do something that's hard work, maybe even to the point of being mildly unpleasant, and that sometimes the result is worth pushing through the hardness and unpleasantness for? I venture that very, very few professional musicians never had anyone insisting against at least mild resistance that they had to practise. Are academics different, or is there just a tradition of letting schools be the bad guys?

ETA noone's put my favourite irregular verb in this thread yet, have they? It goes:
I support
You push
He/she/it hothouses

The problem here is that you're painting with a brush that is much too broad. In many contexts, the process of a parent prodding or otherwise motivating a child through activities the child does not find intrinsically rewarding is called parenting. They don't always like sitting on the potty chair, picking up their toys, rinsing their dishes, or doing their homework. If parents don't prod in these circumstances, they're not doing their children any favors.

Posit one sliding scale here of ratio of effort... one end is 1 to 1 the other is 100 times the work. Somewhere on the path to 100 it gets fuzzy. I was comfortable with 10x being in the "too far" zone; not so confident that 2 or even 5 is.

I'll let you know when/if I learn that. But I'll again suggest a sliding scale here.

Let's toss in a nebulous additional sliding measure:
Trained or learned? At one end the product is empty repetition... say a kid who successfully says "Stop" whenever they see the word stop (and receives their animal cracker treat,) but doesn't even have a guess at "Slop."

Painting with the brush provided by information in the links to articles on hot-housing, by experts.

Agreed. However the activities you list would not be mistaken for hot-housing, therefore attempting to apply the criteria typically used to distinguish enrichment from hot-housing simply does not fit.

Actually, we're hot-housing dish-washing skills right now. Long story.

LOL yup. With my two it was pencil and paper to simply illustrate the concept, and then they were off and running. "Practice" was too repetitive and totally killed the joy.

My DD was a really early reader (she was obsessed and followed me around with books in her hands) and I was perfectly happy to take credit for doing the time and teaching her, until a friend asked me to teach her toddler son too, and he just stared blankly at me. I then realized it wasn't my fabulous teaching skills (lol) that resulted in my daughter's early reading, but rather her voracious fixation with it.

I'm not really sure what the real definition of hot housing is, although I do agree that it's connected to a lack of interest on the child's part (excluding 2e therapy/support, obviously - that's just good parenting).

WOW.

I seriously do not remember that being a feature...

ETA: ahhhh-- yes, like Colinsmum, I simply decided that it was foolishness of the first order and ditched the ideas not because of a sense of wrongness, but of pointlessness.