What's wrong with hothousing?

[justanotherdaduser]

That's it really. Hothousing is often mentioned here in a derogatory tone and I was wondering why people dislike it?

Back to your original question , hothousing implies that your desire to educate academically is to the exclusion of other elements of childhood eg not allowing play dates or parties because they get in the way of nightly tutoring similar to places like south Korea where 2-3 hours of after school extra school is common. Or pulling your children from going to school so you can teach more intensively at home but not allowing any extra curricular

And this is why I despair to send him to a regular school in the UK. So many primary school teachers have this kind of attitude. We just don't seem to take pride in excellence do we.

I know parents from Asian countries whose kids aren't that bright (parents aren't either) hothouse their kids since they were born 🙄 and failed the 11+ miserably. Those poor children who couldn't just be kids.

It's called taking pride in your child's achievements. Try it sometime - it feels good!

@ThunderDad Really? I had previously read the cut-off for perfect pitch is 6 or 7. I certainly missed it for my kids, but I also never had it.

I’m not a primary school teacher so my question doesn’t imply anything about the wider schooling system but I also don’t really get the shape thing. It sounds like a party trick to me. Where is this knowledge of shapes taking him? Was this just a highlight of his wider geometry skills that you used as an example?

My child could recite the alphabet at 18 months because they liked the song. Their nursery key worker would run through it with them while changing their nappy and we’d get them to do it for relatives. It didn’t mean they could read. The shapes sounds similar.

You're bang on the money here. Thank you. Each child is different and so we need streaming in schools, a culture of getting the best potential out of the brightest and the least academic children according to their particular needs. What we have instead is an egalitarian education system which aims to have every child equally dumb by the end of it.

Private schooling is a partial solution for those lucky enough to be able to afford it. But we did away with excellence in schooling in the UK some time ago.

Another gripe I have is why are there so few boys' schools left in the UK when there is overwhelming evidence that boys do better (academically and in terms of pretty much every other success metric) when educated alongside only other boys?

Sucks. There are two girls-only schools in my local area and no boys schools, despite evidence that single-sex schooling does nothing for girls but a great deal of good for boys.

It's a bad state of affairs. I have a lot of sympathy for parents wishing to homeschools. But I digress.

ThunderDad.

I am incredibly proud of my children and THEIR achievements. What I don't do is attempt to pass them off as my achievements. Their hard work, their positive attitudes, their intelligence. I support and encourage, love and nurture.
Your post is very rude. I would never make out that my children's many successes are my achievements. That's the difference. Your post claims that your child's successes are your achievements, and suggests that you are proud of yourself rather than proud of them.

The thing is there's nothing really wrong with teaching your toddler a few party tricks. Your child learning the alphabet at 18 months is a great achievement, at the very least it does no harm and probably does some good. I believe (yes this is my own cranky theory) that deep understanding of concepts likely derives from assembling all those party tricks into something coherent later on. This is why children learn their times tables before they really grasp what multiplication is.

Learning about shapes ties in with learning numeracy skills, as the shapes all have different numbers of sides. Increasingly my toddler is starting to grasp the relationship between the number of sides and the type of shape. Some shapes (such as heptagon) are quite visually challenging for the toddler and the effort of figuring out what it is compared to say, an octagon, presumably does stimulate some neat brain wiring which is likely to be useful later on.

Congrats on getting your kid to know the alphabet at 18 months though. I haven't succeeded in this yet (although we haven't really worked on it specifically) but I have deep respect for the effort it takes to achieve this.

Your post was extremely rude so you got a rude post back. Maybe if you had worked on more shapes as a toddler you would have realised how this works. 😂

@ThunderDad - are you happy with your own achievements in life or are you trying to live through your toddler/improve his lot? Genuine question. I have friends who flashcarded their DC, taught them multiple languages etc etc - all of them are now divorced because the other parent eventually could not witness more of the like.

There is absolutely no point in hothousing children. They grow up to be their own persons and make their own choices. If they are pushed too much they tend to resent their parents, even if they become millionaires etc. Musicians, in particular, who start too young, there is a risk no? Both to their bodies and burn out, in particular.

Middle class educated parents can’t help but hothouse a bit and should stop themselves from doing it. That is my view.

I suspect it is nearer to 3. Probably earlier in girls as they develop faster. I've developed a system for teaching perfect pitch myself which I'm thinking might be good enough to publish. It's certainly worked for my son. Like I said I don't have PP although I have a reasonably good ear otherwise. I expect genetics plus very early training (or in some cases mere exposure to the right musical environment) are the keys to developing PP.

But it didn’t take any effort. My child just picked it up. At that age they were meaningless sounds too - they didn’t understand anything from it. They are pretty bright in general and find learning quite easy (within the bounds of mainstream ability) but that knowledge didn’t transfer to anything more once they started learning to read.

Shapes and music have some obvious connections but putting it loads of effort to achieve this recognition feels like very odd use of time. If you want to start your child off, wouldn’t you be better with number games? Do they watch Numberjacks or Numberblocks? Both huge favourites from an early age with the mathematical children I know, including my own.

I'm trying to figure out whether this post is a joke ....

ThunderDad

I wish you all the best

Educational pressure in Singapore (and similar countries in East Asia) long ago went beyond the level of what is societally or economically useful and has just become a miserable competitive zero-sum game that has made childrearing expensive and stressful for parents; it’s been cited as a major reason why fertility rates are incredibly low in these societies.

Singapore and other similar countries would actually be better off if everyone just chilled a lot more, accepted somewhat lower (but still good) levels of educational attainment, and felt confident enough to have another baby. They won’t, of course, because once a society has got itself on the educational competition hamster wheel, nobody is sure how to step off. Many of these countries will be giant nursing homes in a generation or so.

Yes I'm very happy with my achievements! Thank you! Also needn't worry about my marriage as it is great too. My wife is a stay at home mum and does a fantastic job with our son. She really supports my hothousing does lots of stuff herself, although more in the reading / arts and crafts department.

Regarding hothousing, well I'm inclined to think it might be worth looking at it from a more objective point of view. Perhaps there is some value in it? Who knows. But I can say that seems to be working well for my son.

Likewise. Your original post was very insulting and if you are in a sulk now then its not my problem lol.

ThunderDad

I'm not in a sulk. My point, however poorly made, was that I recognise my children's achievements as their own, I do not see them as a reflection of my parenting.

What I do see as a reflection of my parenting is their manners, their outlook on the world and their kindness to others. Rather than academic achievement.

I'm honestly not really a fan of Singapore as a place to live. But they are great on education. They produce a lot of very smart and successful people for such a relatively small place.

I suspect that hothousing toddlers probably doesn't increase mental health problem incidence. I don't have the stats but I suppose if hothousing toddlers were causing mental health issues later on then you would expect, for instance, to see much higher suicide rates in Singapore compared to Western countries where hothousing toddlers is not the norm.

As for birth rates, again I doubt that there is any real correlation here. I'd need to see some data but its hard to see why there would be. Birth rates are also very low throughout Europe despite there being no hothousing culture for toddlers.

https://www.ft.com/content/d38a9fea-d587-42d6-b62d-089087011796 The relationship between education fever and East Asia’s “lowest-low” fertility rates is well documented and widely discussed among demographers.

It’s the sign of a population under stress and is not a psychologically healthy way of organizing a society.

Yes, I think it depends how you define hot housing, the child, the age etc. One of my children is genuinely curious and engaged, so I do do a little hot housing. Another is really resistant to anything that looks like work, but I insist they do their homework and practice an instrument. But both go to birthday parties and play dates - relationships are an important part of education.

Oxford is now very resistant to taking on anybody younger than 18.

@ThunderDad - your DS is probably just gifted. Don’t hothouse him further would be my advice…

In the long run, it really doesn’t help children to be too different from their peers. Much of being happy in life is about building successful relationships with other human beings, first at school, then at university, then in the work place, then finding a life partner. Being too different and having different interests at a young age makes things harder for children to bond with other children as they don’t have common interests/want to play totally different games etc. It can be really lonely and sad for such children.

If they are gifted academically and musically they will do well anyway, as long as they are happy and settled. Making them too different doesn’t help them. Plus why risk early burn out? Makes no sense to me.

There are so many stories of child geniuses who were unhappy later on. They might have been much happier if less emphasis was put on their minds/talents and more on them fitting in, having friends, just being children for as long as possible rather than performing zoo monkeys enslaved to their talents with overenthusiastic parents.

Omg...what a weird advice. Everybody is different and it is the diversity thay makes us stronger as a society. Definitely a gifted child should not aspire to be mediocre. Intelligent children will appreciate to have outstanding buddies.