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Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 7,207
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Joined: Dec 2005
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Here's a snip of mine from another tread. I'd love to know what you think Hothousing is, and if you did it or didn't and why, and what you've learned: Hi Mia, We were also "carful to avoid hothousing" and it blew up in our faces in exactly the same manner. LOL! We didn't want to be responsible for his future bordom! I am glad you are able to "wake up and smell the coffee" at this early stage, and let's face it, your son is going to need to do some work at home in order to not fall behind in the "learn how to learn" catagory.
I think the popularity of full grade skips is due to the various difficulties with subject acceleration, but if your school will offer the subject acceleration after a little 'teaching to the test' when it is worth jumping through the hoops, if you can live with the uncertianty of year to year planning that comes with the greater flexibility of subject accelerations.
If it helps, I now think of hothousing as a communication issue. When one is trying to communicate a difficult concept (Ruf Level III and up kids are a difficult concept) to a person who has a differnt set of mental images, it helps to be concrete whenever possible. What's the concrete picture of a child who need an accomidation?
Well behaved, compliant, can rapidly do every skill that will be taught in that grade, and the next one. I can't really modify my son's personality, but maybe some hothousing would have helped communicate the situation in a way the school could understand. So for all those parent's of Level III kids who will need to go to school, pull out those math books and hothouse away. You have my permission.
Trinty
Coaching available, at SchoolSuccessSolutions.com
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Joined: Nov 2007
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Ah, hot-housing. First, I'll give my definition of hot-housing. I see hothousing when a parent takes a preschooler (3-4 years old) and starts drilling reading and math facts so that their child will have an "edge" come school time. Hothoused kids are the ones who can perhaps decode CVC material or slightly higher come kindergarten, who have memorized math facts, etc -- all on the parents' instigation, not by following the child's interest. There is no particular love of learning or interest in facts, but just rote memorization. These are the kids who "even out" as all the children are introduced to the coursework. The lines can get a blurry to ND parents when looking at EG/PG kids. But I think all of us here would know hot-housing if we saw it. These "hot-housed" kids are the ones that make it so difficult to work with schools, in my (limited) experience -- the school assumes that you are a pushy stage parent who has worked hard to "make her kid smart", and a "control freak" when accommodations aren't given. As mentioned on the other thread, we are about the farthest thing from hot-housers as they come! The kid could barely write his name when he turned 4. We just bring up topics as they come, if he seems interested. If not, we drop it -- end of story. However, this may change if we can't find a decent education for the kid ...
Mia
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What's the difference between afterschooling and hothousing?
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Joined: Apr 2006
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Our kids picked up sight reading on their own. I didn�t even consider it true reading because they made mistakes. The teacher, who accepted my daughter for early entrance to K, looked at me as if I were a neglectful/distant mother when I downplayed my daughter�s reading ability after her evaluation.
Educational computer games were THE favorite past-time for my kids since they were three (dd) and two (ds) through approximately 4th grade. We did not sit with them and explain what to do in any way. The software was intuitive to the kids and they worked together quite well.
They have always had books, Lego�s, art materials and a backyard at their disposal. We also tried our best to answer their questions. I know they are fortunate, but definitely not �hothoused�.
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Afterschool, like homeschooling can follow the child's interest or a set curriculum or fall somewhere on the spectrum. Afterschooling is an activity.
Hothousing is a pejoritive term (that I would like to change to a neutral term) for parents who "push" their children to learn, before the child shows any interest. There is a suggestion that the parent is offering love and attention in exchange for the child's participation in the parent's scheme. There is a whole industry that promises to sell materials and techniques to make a smarter baby/toddler/preschooler. The real research shows that the normal paying attention to a child, talking with a child, and giving the child choices where appropriate actually can make a child smarter and more 'school-ready.'
Of course the term hothousing also is part of the way it's so difficult for U.S. folks to deal with class differences directly. Instead of saying, 'Gee, we interested adults notice that kids from homes with more resource and who have parents with more lesuire and less stress come to school with more skills and ready to learn, as a group, than many kids from families with more stess, less resource in time and money. How do we feel about that? What are we going to do in response to what we see?'
Instead many interested adults will feel more comfortable saying "Bad Middle Class(or higher)parents! You ruin your children's childhoods and Hothouse your children so they can dominate other kids at school, and from then on, in life. How dare these parents have the nerve to insist that their children are 'special' and have special learning needs. They have priviledge and just want more and more."
Of course it does look like that in the U.S. the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting left behind. There is fear and insecurity for many College educated parents. Some parents aren't particularly thoughful of their children. It's actually a pretty new idea that it is the parent's job to be thoughtful of their child's individual needs, and this idea has some drawbacks. It's actually a pretty new idea that anyone has individual needs. For a long time people did what everyone around them was doing, and that was that.
Personally, I think there has to be some kind of balance between "knowing yourself, and being thoughtful of one's needs" and "sucking it up" and being pleased just to get to participate in the larger community. Both perspectives have value. Balance. ((Please don't ask me how I got to here from Hothousing! I sure didn't expect this!))
Smiles, Trinity
Coaching available, at SchoolSuccessSolutions.com
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Thanks for the explanation!
No, we didn't hothouse dd. She started reading on her own before she was 4 and had a natural desire to read, write etc so we just followed her lead.
I will say that we work with dd on math that she is not doing in school yet. We do this because she wants to learn more complicated math and her class is still working on early addition/subtraction and fractions. DD absorbs information and masters what she's learned at a very rapid pace and since her school isn't working on more difficult math we do it. All is at her request, though, and if she doesn't want to continue we dont.
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Joined: Oct 2007
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Interesting quote.
No, we've never hothoused. Our girls have always been interested in learning. If anything, DH and I wish they'd leave us alone more often, but they always want to do things with us (spelling games, math games, etc.). I don't want to discourage them, but sometimes I just don't have the energy.
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Joined: Feb 2006
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Well, if the explanation is as above, I am guilty of hothousing my kids before they entered school. Let me explain. I quit work when my daughter was born and Ghost was 2 years old. I was a "full time stay at home mom " for close to 5 years. Ghost has always been quite a noisy child (put gently), so we needed some good, long down time/quiet activity time when his little sister was sleeping during the day. I did not want him to watch TV, we limited that activity VERY CAREFULY, so I read tons to him but only in my mother's tongue. Well, as you can imagine, I also wanted to take advantage of the fact that one of my children was out of the way (asleep) to do some chores. So after short reading sections, I introduced Ghost to coloring books. But as you remember, at that tender age of 2 or 3 or 4, there is no activity that would occupy them for longer than 10-15 min. There was a need to change activities frequently. Different coloring books were changing into activity books . But funny as it may sound to you now, since I never speak to my children in English, I was always translating the text into my mother's tongue. Then I had an "aha" moment. Why not get him preschool books in my native language? And that is how I began a journey of teaching my son to read in my native language. By the time he hit kindergarten age, he was a fluent reader in both languages, of course only of books at his level (Bob Books, Dr. Seus books etc.)My mother's tngue is very phonetic, so he absolutely had no problems reading phonics books. My daughter followed the same path. So I guess it was hothousing, because there is no way Ghost at 2.5 years of age would tell me, hey I want to read in two languages. Did my kids enjoy it? Tremendously! Once they started K I stopped teaching them my language, I just made sure that whenever we go to Europe they do not have any English books with them so they have to read in my language :-) If it wasn't for the hothousing, my kids would not be able to speak and read two languages equally well.
Last edited by Ania; 12/12/07 11:16 AM.
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What about music? Would this be hothousing as well? Both of my kids started formal music lessons before the age of four. Both wanted to do it. The first one because he saw some kids playing and thought it will take him A LESSON to play like that, the second one because her brother was doing it (she actually got her first violin for her second birthday because she was dragging and damaging mine). At first they wanted to practice, but after a few months it became, and is to this day, a chore. I have always made sure they did they daily practice, bribing them when they were little, making sure that their schedules are not hectic right now, as they are older. So this can also be categorized as hothousing. But I do not think there are many musicians that were practicing their instruments at 13 years old for a couple of hours a day and loving it. Do not get me wrong,they LOVE to play. Practicing is different. Did you know that Beethoven's father was spanking him as little Ludvig refused to practice :-) We are a different society now, but maybe if it wasn't for that spanking we would not have the 9th Symphony (my personal favorite :-)
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