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Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

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Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#211

Post by jgwil2 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #183
jgwil2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.5 hours a day seems like an immense amount of time for that age, but if the kid is pushing for it, good for them both.

Kids have a different relationship with time. As a kid who was intrinsically interested in programming, 1.5 hours was a joke and a non-starter. I didn't really feel comfortable doing any coding until I could secure 2-3 hours of time for it, and I would easily spend 8+ hours on the rare days when my parents were otherwise engaged and didn't call me away to do other things.

At age seven? Again, if the kid is up for it then great, but I think most kids that age have a hard time committing that amount of time to any single activity.

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#212

Post by TeMPOraL »

jgwil2 wrote: post #211
TeMPOraL wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids have a different relationship with time. As a kid who was intrinsically interested in programming, 1.5 hours was a joke and a non-starter. I didn't really feel comfortable doing any coding until I could secure 2-3 hours of time for it, and I would easily spend 8+ hours on the rare days when my parents were otherwise engaged and didn't call me away to do other things.

At age seven? Again, if the kid is up for it then great, but I think most kids that age have a hard time committing that amount of time to any single activity.

It's not commitment if it's voluntary play.

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#213

Post by FraKtus »

I tried several things but what got the interest of my daughter(10) is code.org

She also uses it at school, and she regularly enjoys working with it on her own.

Because she seems to go more toward the graphical creative side, I made her work on the logo of a personal project I work on at the moment, and she did enjoy it a lot.

Sometimes I ask her to edit some c++ code I work on and see how the result is when running the code from Xcode; we have a lot of fun doing that!

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#214

Post by sjg007 »

jgwil2 wrote: post #12
colinmhayes wrote: post #9

Your kid is 7. I'm pretty sure hat I was eating dirt when I was 7. If he has showed you he's interested in programming then go ahead, but make sure you're not projecting your own interests onto your kid. It'll lead to resentment in 7 or 8 years.

1.5 hours a day seems like an immense amount of time for that age, but if the kid is pushing for it, good for them both.

My 7 years olds will spend 1.5 hours minimum playing roblox and minecraft. So... I think designing and building a game with them is a great idea!

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#215

Post by gairhgfqiu »

gfxgirl wrote: post #190
colinmhayes wrote: post #9

Your kid is 7. I'm pretty sure hat I was eating dirt when I was 7. If he has showed you he's interested in programming then go ahead, but make sure you're not projecting your own interests onto your kid. It'll lead to resentment in 7 or 8 years.

I am not a parent but I am a product of parents. I have friends that were pushed to learn a musical instrument. They hated being pushed as a kid but as an adult they are so happy to have been pushed. My father was a musician but his POV was unless I showed an interest he didn't push. I'm jealous of those who got pushed. Similarly I have American friends that speak a 2nd language because their parents forced them to g…

Another data point, one of my friend plays guitar, was part of a few bands. He was pushed by his parents to learn an instrument. He has complained multiple times about what a waste guitar playing been. He has spent his twenties chasing dream of making it as musician.

Now he has finally given up on his rock star dreams and working in his career but he is far behind his peers. His family struggles financially right now. He wishes that he was never into music and was focused on more productive stuff. He thinks his parents wanted him to play an instrument because they wanted him to impress their friends.

So the lesson is children will find any excuse to complain about their parents.

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#216

Post by demygale »

Didn’t work.

I could tell from an early age that my son wasn’t interested in coding. But still I showed him what I did and the basics of programming. In high school when he had a class that required Java programming, I helped with the assignment. But it was always drudgery.

Eventually I convinced him to look into engineering professions and he went for a year to a top engineering school in environmental engineering. But he never had an engineer’s mind.

He switched schools, got a degree in biology and now works with animals.

I knew he would most likely work with animals from the age of five. I just wanted him to see other options. He’s very, very happy in his profession and that’s rewarding to see.

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#217

Post by schwartzworld »

colinmhayes wrote: post #9

Your kid is 7. I'm pretty sure hat I was eating dirt when I was 7. If he has showed you he's interested in programming then go ahead, but make sure you're not projecting your own interests onto your kid. It'll lead to resentment in 7 or 8 years.

I honestly believe that programming should be considered a vital skill on par with reading and writing. I'm not saying everybody needs to be able to solve LeetCode or build production ready apps, but anybody who works with a computer could benefit from being able to do a little scripting. Programming is a skill that can be a foundation for thousands of different hobbies.

Why do most adults know how to read and do basic math? Because we consider these to the important enough to teach them to children whether they are interested or not. Obviously the thing that differentiates good teachers from bad is the ability to make learning interesting. So in the case of reading, we have books specially written for children of all ages.

Programming is a much younger subject than reading, and it's changed a lot in the last few decades. I am happy to provide my kids with the tools I had available, but honestly I never got good enough at BASIC to build anything useful and LOGO was fun but again, useless. Scratch and other modern kid-focused languages are much better for the job.

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#218

Post by ramtatatam »

nutanc wrote: post #204

Got my 6 year old to write a python program. He was so excited the computer did the homework for him. This is a fun way to introduce programming. Example session: >>>number_of_passengers_travelling=672 >>>number_of_passengers_got_down=21 >>>total_remaining=number_of_passengers_travelling-number_of_passengers_got_down >>>print(total) His only question was, do I have to type so much and I said yes. There is no way I am…

Homework at the age of 6? Wow, I'm glad I did not have real homework until I was 8ish

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#219

Post by jbboehr »

centimeter wrote: post #86
Aeolun wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is TV a drug too then? Just like alcohol, I think there’s nothing unacceptably wrong with it in moderation.

Yes, absolutely. “Moderation” is a cope used by addicts.

“Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.”

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#220

Post by colinmhayes »

schwartzworld wrote: post #217
colinmhayes wrote: post #9

Your kid is 7. I'm pretty sure hat I was eating dirt when I was 7. If he has showed you he's interested in programming then go ahead, but make sure you're not projecting your own interests onto your kid. It'll lead to resentment in 7 or 8 years.

I honestly believe that programming should be considered a vital skill on par with reading and writing. I'm not saying everybody needs to be able to solve LeetCode or build production ready apps, but anybody who works with a computer could benefit from being able to do a little scripting. Programming is a skill that can be a foundation for thousands of different hobbies. Why do most adults know how to read and do bas…

Sure, but are 7 year olds ready? As this thread has shown some clearly are, but in my experience he vast majority are not. Why not wait until middle school instead of pushing them toward something they aren't ready for. It would be like teaching an 11 year old calculus.
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