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Ask HN: How do I give my son a head start?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I give my son a head start?

#151

Post by ft5 »

zootar wrote: post #17

Kids can start programming a lot earlier if their introductory experience really minimizes frustration and time to gratification. Python is probably a good starting language for teenagers, but for pre-teens, who are much less cognitively mature, you'll have a lot more luck sooner if you introduce them to an IDE with great code completion and the power to make a GUI. Obvious candidates are Visual C# and Visual Basic,…

I agree Flash is a great tool to teach kids. Actionscript is a great foundation language. I've taught some primary school kids Flash before and some of them made some pretty impressive games.

Re: Ask HN: How do I give my son a head start?

#152

Post by 9ec4c12949a4f3 »

Tichy wrote: post #111
9ec4c12949a4f3 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up confused and depressed, meanwhile, my parents did their best to show me every day they loved me and still do, but I feel entirely distant from them. I'm over 20 years old. GG logic, gg.

Any idea why?

Could be anything from my wildly different views on the world (theism vs atheism; government's place, opinions of other people, etc...), to being the middle child. My two sisters seem to get along fine with them.

Re: Ask HN: How do I give my son a head start?

#153

Post by signal »

Tichy wrote: post #107
araneae wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, I really dislike this answer. Obviously this guy knows that he should love his kid. He was looking for specific answers on how to introduce the kid to computing. And you gave him this glib, content-less, greeting card answer. I cannot believe this is the top comment.

Why is it obvious? If it was so obvious, there wouldn't be so many parents failing in it (many perhaps unwillingly).

People fail at obvious all the time. Examples: Belief in god, Smoking, Voting conservative, Racism, Drinking and driving, Eating junk food, etc, etc

Re: Ask HN: How do I give my son a head start?

#154

Post by antareus »

9ec4c12949a4f3 wrote: post #77
edw519 wrote: post #58

Love him. Unconditionally. And make sure he always knows it. Everything else is just details. With this, things will inevitably fall nicely into place, no matter what tactics you take. Without it, he will be fucked up no matter what you do and will be coming to hacker news in 2028 posting, "Ask HN: I'm confused and depressed and don't know why."

I grew up confused and depressed, meanwhile, my parents did their best to show me every day they loved me and still do, but I feel entirely distant from them. I'm over 20 years old. GG logic, gg.

This may sound extreme but one way to choose to view the confusion and depression is that it is a necessary part of growth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_disintegration

Mind you, even Dabrowski (who created the theory) differentiates between depression that instigates changes vs. depression that leaves you spinning your wheels. I'd venture that anyone who has been seriously depressed has experience with both types.

Re: Ask HN: How do I give my son a head start?

#156

Post by mbubb »

silvestrov wrote: post #104
GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #31

I would just forget about computers and programming completely and focus on the building blocks by a playful approach to solving day-to-day problems with logic and reasoning. Like how do we decide which things belong together? You can also play progressively more complicated iteration games like for-each-time-this-happens-let's-do-this-this-and-this! Or make complicated rube goldberg devices out of household objects…

Learning how to think is much more helpful than any programming language introduction. When you have learned to think and investigate stuff, then programming comes naturally. Richard Feynman's father spent a lot of time teaching his son how to think and what thinking is. That was more important to Feynman than any mathematical lessons his father could teach him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=695Flhmjmg4#t=2m56s Pare…

Nice.
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