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

That's what brings me to the funny thing about Amy Chua, is that while I'm reading her Times article, I'm appalled at certain things, and nodding my head at others.

My DD8 is extraordinarily self-critical. She's always quick to make excuses for her successes, and to point to any slight imperfections in her results to show why she's not any good. She avoids certain activities because she's afraid she'll fail. This mindset makes her her own worst enemy, holding her back from realizing her true potential.

So when, in the Lulu anecdote, she dropped this line, I was like, "Oh yeah. I've been there."


And like Chua, I was put in a position where an option in front of me was to push my DD through, so she can come out on the other side and say, "I DID IT!", rather than cripple herself with, "I CAN'T!!!"

Unlike Ms. Chua, however, I did not push the issue when the ultimate outcome was not very important. My DD took up guitar at 6. She decided she was no good. I continue to encourage her to pick it up again, and it's available for her at any time, but when it comes down to it, guitar playing is unlikely to be a life skill that is vital for her adult happiness, success, or survival.

In other occasions, I pushed or pulled, as appropriate. She didn't want to learn her multiplication tables, and it was early for most kids, but she was developmentally ready, and failing to learn it was going to halt her math learning in its tracks. That's a vital skill, so we pushed. Once she got over that hump, she got access to new math operations that she found intrinsically rewarding. But she had to get through the irritating part of rote memorization first.

Once when DD was in 1st grade, she was in a play in school, and her fear of failure and avoidance had prevented her from learning her lines. We found out the night before the play. Rather than let her suffer the natural consequences by making a fool of herself on stage, and reinforcing her negative self-image as a result, we hothoused her through memorizing the lines that night... a process that involved a lot of nuclear meltdown before she was finally ready to work.

Coming out the other side, she discovered a new passion, and she's in an after-school drama class, has performed in two plays, and is trying out for the school's Talented Theater program tomorrow. I heard her performing her monologue last night, and I have to say, it sounded fantastic.

So there's a story that proves another of Chua's points... if a parent pushes a child through to a success, the child can enjoy that success, and discover a passion that becomes intrinsically rewarding. Or, as she put it:


However, where I would strongly disagree with Chua is:

1) Which battles to fight.
2) How to fight them.

Of course, Amy Chua also forbade her children to be in a play, so there's that.

+1 Dude. {nodding}

I also recognized myself-- a lot-- in Amy Chua's memoir... but with the exact same caveats.

I suspect that we have children with a similar mindset/outlook. Have I mentioned Mom's Carnival Funhouse of Math and the 42% midterm exam? Have I?

Not a proud parenting moment-- in fact, it was one of those where I got served by my 7yo every BIT as much as Dr. Chua got served by HERS.

It's called irresistable force (mom) meets immovable object (child with will of iron). Bad juu-juu. Most of the time, it's not worth it.

There are some things where it is worth it, however. I think that is what some of us are saying about "hothousing" (whatever you choose to call it or how to define it).

To use United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's words (on obscenity/pornography)...

Hothousing...I know it when I see it (other people doing it that is).

Can I wind the conversation back I am not sure how many pages to those of you who had precocious readers, such that they were reading before talking? Do you think your kids learned to read so early BECAUSE talking was harder for them (than talking)? My own kids are clearly not developmentally ready to read early (12-36 months being "early"), but were talking between 9-12 months and particularly the last two never really had a stage after that where they couldn't make their desires reasonably well understood (without resorting to spelling it on the fridge with magnets). I am fascinated about what leads one kid to be verbally precocious and another to be able to read and spell before they can talk. I honestly can not imagine my kids doing that - because talking seems so deeply fundamental to their reading foundations. I absolutely believe it, I am just curious about how that process even works and what might make one child take one path while another goes on a different journey...

Reading is input. Talking is output. Output is harder.

DS learned to read at around the same time he learned to talk. Let me clarify that by saying he said words when he was 1, put phrases together at age 2, but having a conversation with him was extremely difficult until he was around 4. Since he started to read around his fourth birthday, for a while his reading actually sounded better. But he is dyspraxic and had delayed speech/language. When he read aloud, his articulation, prosody, voice pitch, etc. actually sounded a lot more normal. Even the neuropsych noted that last spring so it may still be the case. DS is very visual and had very high scores on the non-verbal section of the WISC and also hit the roof on the TVPS with things like visual memory and visual spatial ability. So I think that seeing the words and sentences in print and decoding them helped him to gain language skills. I know it sounds hard to believe. When he got to kindergarten and now in first grade his speech therapist had him read (for instance conversations in stories) in order to learn how to speak with a normal pitch/prosody and rate. He sometimes reads more quickly orally than he speaks naturally. We are now at the point where I think his normal speech sounds about as good as his reading.

At 18 months, my dd barely met the developmental milestone for talking (6 words?). One of those words was "readabook," which she said as she plopped in your lap with a book for you to read to her. Because she was obsessed with books. By her 2nd birthday, she was reading AND talking up a storm. I have no doubt reading aided her acquisition of spoken language, although I don't think it was because talking was hard for her - just an unusual affinity for the written word. By age 4, she didn't want us to read aloud to her any more -- it was painful for her because it was just so darn slow compared to her reading silently to herself.

She (now 13yo and still obsessed with reading, and lightning fast) has always acquired a large amount of vocabulary through reading, and you can tell because she often mispronounces words when she says them, in ways that sort of make sense from the spelling.

I always thought it was weird that she learned to speak and read at the same time - it is comforting to see in this thread that she is not the only one!

Some find Forvo helpful for pronunciation (link- http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....4664/Free_resource_gives_pronunciat.html)

This thread is really interesting to me...one because we have definitely been on the receiving end of the "you must be drilling/hothousing" your child" conversation..but also because of the loose definition of 'play' in this house. My DS 3.5 is so...literal - he is not (or hadn't been until very recently) interesting in pretend play so much. He loves numbers (and letters) and has since forever. he could happily play with his number magnets and letter magnets, spelling out words, making numbers, making equations, writing on his easel the same sort of things etc etc, for hours at a time. Lately the numbers have become people (with faces, arms and legs etc) doing things like playing at the park etc...it's pretty cute). but I digress...

His play time is so very academic-y...math and science especially...that it sometimes feels like he it almost 'hothousing himself' (though not really, since it's fun and interesting for him). But it's just weird, because I'll say, "hey DS, wanna play cars?"
"No, mama, I'm doing numbers/magnets/multiplication tiles etc"
"...oh...ok."

We do have a lot of reading time, and he has started looooving drawing/writing stories (we go through a lot of art pads here). But for the longest time, it was like school at home, as per his interests. So it's just a sort of fine line, I guess.

In regard to actually drilling a kid...maybe if they were the agreeable sort of toddler, (does that exist??) but I know my stubborn DS and getting him to do ANYTHING he doesn't want to do is a lesson in futility. I simply loved the image of sitting on the child to brush his teeth, too funny!