Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Pushy parents...our continual debate

One of the reasons I finally felt comfortable making posts here in this forum was when I read a regular poster say they were sick and tired of seeing so many parents bludgeoned with the labels of hothouser, pushy parent, helicopter parent, when describing those who are really just involved parents. �I believe the exact quote was, "regarding the conjugation of hothousing, it goes- I encourage, You push, He/She/It hothouses". �(ROFL) � It does seem to be a sort of a witch hunt.
What bothers me so much about articles like the second one, and it's believers, is that if gifted children are supposed to be both rare and unique then why do So Many strangers have one-size fits all keys for how we should be raising all of them.
Thanks for this opportunity to vent. �

Wren, I love your life. �Travel has been and will continue to be central in our life as well. �Although we have yet to "jump the pond". � Someday ((sigh)). �We did go to a couple places in the Carribian and a few places in Mexico already. �And the boy has been to Disney twice while visiting grandma in Florida. �I'm glad we didn't wait until he was "old enough" too. �I want more of it in our lives, not less. �Awesome.

Thanks for the advice and hope there's no hard feelings since I hijacked the original thread. Here are some updates: DD8 says she finds choir boring. I saw a girl from her new school with an instrument yesterday and talked to her mother. She says orchestra starts in 4th grade and is twice a week with 10 minutes of practice every day.

So the plan is to try for another year of choir this year and she can switch to orchestra next year. DD seems agreeable to this plan so I think we've avoided a battle of wills. If she starts to act distressed about choir or negative feelings start spilling over to church in general, it'll be time to quit.

Hard feelings? I've done my share of hijacking on this forum. I think we all have. Every topic means something different to everyone. Some might see it as more general while others have a direct link and bond to it through personal experience.

And I think you found a great compromise.

Early on we told our kids we had a rule that we expected them to be involved in one sport of their choice and one musical endeavor. We didn't care what it was, just that they were well-rounded through the experiences. When our middle son informed us that he hated piano lessons despite being quite talented, we let him quit once he'd lined up a plan of action for something else. He chose school band and absolutely loved it.

It's been our philosophy that kids need the freedom to try things and decide they don't like them, but they also need the structure and boundaries to keep from giving up on things too easily or becoming lazy and deciding to major in Halo.

This is a good thread, and so is the one about social anxiety. I am going to have to address these issues head-on in the next few years with my DS5.

Even now some of them have started to crop up. I am sort of half-bought in to the ideas behind unschooling, with limitations, so for example after discussion with my son (who tends to go off on one thing for a while), I told him I was fine with him doing whatever he likes on any particular day, but that we would have to make sure that we get fairly regular doses of math and reading. He was fine with it.