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Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

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Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#171

Post by brudgers »

rr808 wrote: post #152
brudgers wrote: post #3

Ask her what she wants to do.

If its like my daughter its watch tiktok 16 hours a day.

So install TikTok and sit together on your phones doom scrolling and see what happens.

Good faith means living with answers you don’t want to hear.

I mean if you ask and then say “I don’t want to do that” to her answer, what do you expect when you ask how about a hike instead?

You can choose which routes are available for a child to express their personhood, but you can’t prevent its expression.

Holding their expression of autonomy in contempt has consequences that you probably don’t want.

Learning from your child, on the other hand, will probably pay off for the rest of your lives.

TikTok is more interesting than most people.

Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#172

Post by Simon_O_Rourke »

hpcjoe wrote: post #154
oblib wrote: post #141

I became a single parent when my daughter turned 1 year old. When she got old enough we'd go fishing, bicycling, swimming, and hiking a lot. We'd also go to a used book store twice a month (on pay day) so she could pick out a few books to read. She loved doing that. She had no interest at all in learning how to code or gaming but she loved helping in the garden and in the kitchen prepping and cooking meals. When she…

This should go on twitter as "Dudes posting their massive W's" :D Mine is 22, about to start grad school for a Ph.D. in applied math (I'm Ph.D. in theoretical physics, but am a secret math nerd ... wife is also a math nerd and an M.S. Physics). Early on we discovered how much she loved reading. So, we read to her, every night. For a while, I could quote whole sections of "The Sleep Book" (Dr. Seuss) from memory. As s…

Good for you, and good for her. What you guys have done is the most inspiring thing I've read today!

Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#173

Post by brudgers »

_benj wrote: post #14
brudgers wrote: post #3

Ask her what she wants to do.

This, but I think it could be more nuanced. Notice her interest and explore further what she wants to do. All she might want to do is watch some cartoons, notice the content and after some time propose to record your own little video with a similar content, or to model and 3D print one of the characters, or to use scratch to program one of the characters to do something. Alternatively, give her options, not only verb…

take her places

Road trips were great bonding experiences for me as a parent.

Sure their headphones were on a lot when they weren’t sleeping.

But it was all happening someplace they hadn’t been.

And they saw me out of my comfort zone dealing with the unknown laughing at fart jokes on the XM comedy station.

Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#174

Post by nickysielicki »

HideousKojima wrote: post #169
nickysielicki wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have such a weird culture around how we treat teenagers in this country. We all remember drinking and smoking as teens, but parents tends to rule with an iron fist and convince themselves that they have more control than their parents did, which means we force healthy normal curious kids to go out to a secluded area (probably by car) to get high or drunk or explore in other ways, away from an adult that could help…

>We all remember drinking and smoking as teens Speak for yourself, worst thing I did in high school was play too many video games.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/...

Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#176

Post by sharkweek »

landemva wrote: post #70
social_quotient wrote: post #65

Might be off topic but a nugget from having two girls (5 and 11). Kids don’t care about budget or how much things cost. We have toys we’ve spent hundreds of dollars on only to have the near free to free one be a hit. I say this to make sure you know your employment status likely only effects your kids if it effects you. Or said differently, to the extent it effects you it will effect them. Kids will generally have fu…

Yes, time with dad. Get outside and walk or hike. Play in dirt. Explore plants and flowers. Splash in a creek. My daughter really enjoyed the affordable bow&arrow with foam target.

There is nothing my oldest (4.5 years old) enjoys more than going down to the creek by our house and exploring.

We’ve learned pretty quick with both kids that spending a lot of money on toys etc resulted in a lot of one-and-done play sessions before they’d quickly lose interest.

As with all things and especially kids… YMMV!

Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#177

Post by uranium »

hpcjoe wrote: post #154
oblib wrote: post #141

I became a single parent when my daughter turned 1 year old. When she got old enough we'd go fishing, bicycling, swimming, and hiking a lot. We'd also go to a used book store twice a month (on pay day) so she could pick out a few books to read. She loved doing that. She had no interest at all in learning how to code or gaming but she loved helping in the garden and in the kitchen prepping and cooking meals. When she…

This should go on twitter as "Dudes posting their massive W's" :D Mine is 22, about to start grad school for a Ph.D. in applied math (I'm Ph.D. in theoretical physics, but am a secret math nerd ... wife is also a math nerd and an M.S. Physics). Early on we discovered how much she loved reading. So, we read to her, every night. For a while, I could quote whole sections of "The Sleep Book" (Dr. Seuss) from memory. As s…

"I'm Ph.D. in theoretical physics, but am a secret math nerd"

Uh...you know that secret got out some time before your doctorate, right? =^>.

Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#178

Post by Buge »

nickysielicki wrote: post #174
HideousKojima wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We all remember drinking and smoking as teens Speak for yourself, worst thing I did in high school was play too many video games.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/...

>By late adolescence, 78.2% of US adolescents had consumed alcohol

I guess I fall into that group, since I had a few sips, given to my by my parents.

> 47.1% had reached regular drinking levels defined by at least 12 drinks within a given year

So less than half.

> drug use by 42.5%

Also less than half. I wonder how many tried it just once.

> drug abuse by 16.4%

Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#179

Post by Wowfunhappy »

I don't know if you're looking for something less technology focused, but—have you ever seen Scratch? I teach classes in Scratch to kids professionally, and I happen to think it's a really excellent tool. Kids enjoy it a lot, and it teaches a mode of thinking that I consider essential for the modern world.

https://scratch.mit.edu/

My company's curriculum is all public. I frankly don't love all of the projects, but some are pretty darn good. A few of my favorites:

Ghostbusters (Level 1): https://coding.space/launchpad/GqrsER3FnGgSZwyTYgkkDdyyty92-...

Apple Catcher (Level 2): https://coding.space/launchpad/703c1a8d-0c55-4bcb-b3ef-832ee...

Flappy Bird (Level 3): https://coding.space/launchpad/703c1a8d-0c55-4bcb-b3ef-832ee...

This isn't necessarily the be-all end-all way to teach Scratch (there are also official tutorials you can check out), but especially if you as the parent have some coding knowledge, they might be a fun way to learn together. Our philosophy is to provide a goal and some direction (for students who need it) without ever saying exactly what to do. This forces students to learn how to figure things out on their own.

Tiny note, notwithstanding my earlier praise of Scratch, it has one very frustrating design quirk that you might want to be aware of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31932147

Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#180

Post by steve_adams_86 »

HideousKojima wrote: post #169
nickysielicki wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have such a weird culture around how we treat teenagers in this country. We all remember drinking and smoking as teens, but parents tends to rule with an iron fist and convince themselves that they have more control than their parents did, which means we force healthy normal curious kids to go out to a secluded area (probably by car) to get high or drunk or explore in other ways, away from an adult that could help…

>We all remember drinking and smoking as teens Speak for yourself, worst thing I did in high school was play too many video games.

Hell yeah. My parents would have been very stern with me if they knew just how many hours I spent gaming.

I also taught myself programming into the wee hours of the night.

It was a wild time alright

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