This is one of the first posts I’ll make about concerted cultivation, a form of parenting in which parents place an emphasis on organized activities in their kids’ lives In addition, parents practicing concerted cultivation encourage their children to think critically and to assert themselves around adults. This is a parenting style associated with middle- and upper-class families.
In contrast, lower-class families often encourage their children in the accomplishment of natural growth, in which children have more unstructured time. This results in children creating their own games, for example.
One of the main benefits of concerted cultivation is that children learn to perform better in structured environments such as school. In addition, they become more comfortable with interacting with adults (whom they consider their equals). These together help children stand out in many settings — school, for example — because the children appear more intelligent.
I first learned about concerted cultivation while reading the excellent book Outliers by Malcom Gladwell. The Wikipedia article about concerted cultivation is also a great source of information on the issue.