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Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?

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Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?

#21

Post by redleggedfrog »

Organically, like just about everything else.

Both my sons showed interest in programming at various times. We toyed with Scratch, then Visual Studio Community Edition to try textual input. Then some Python through Khan Academy and "Learn Python the Hard Way." Enthusiasm for it came and went and sometimes came back just like most things kids do.

One son went on to be a fairly competent programmer, using Mathematica in pursuit of his engineering degree. The other still dabbles in it from time to time, but likes other technical subjects more.

The important point is they really don't need a lot of programming when they're young, just like they don't need a lot of any specific technical field. They just need to know it exists and maybe pique their interest.

Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?

#23

Post by sosborn »

procrastinazy wrote: post #8
deepnotderp wrote: post #3

By cultivating interest, not by forcing them into it.

And how to do that ?

You have to let kids latch on to things they are interested in. The best way to do this is to expose them to as many experiences as possible. It is very likely that your kids will not latch on to the same things you did. As a parent, the best thing you can do is to let that go and focus on what your kid actually wants.

Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?

#24

Post by spike021 »

johnny313 wrote: post #6

This has been an interesting topic for my wife and I. Our kids have very limited screen time, and do not have access to a computer / smart phone / iPad on a regular basis. Recently, though, my 1st grade son, the oldest, found the book "Coding Projects in Python" ( https://www.dk.com/us/9781465461889-coding-projects-in-pytho... ), and read through it for about a week before asking if he could use my computer to try so…

If he doesn't have internet access on that box, won't that be a problem once he needs some library from PIP or elsewhere? I'm sure right now he's just using the standard libraries, though.

Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?

#25

Post by deepnotderp »

procrastinazy wrote: post #8
deepnotderp wrote: post #3

By cultivating interest, not by forcing them into it.

And how to do that ?

Find out what they enjoy and are good at. As cheesy as it sounds, cultivation of self interest is the best way, forcing only works for a decade or two.

Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?

#26

Post by vxxzy »

I tend to give my kids (3 and 5) verbal logic puzzles to get their conditional down. Something along the lines of "A cat has a tail and four legs and a dog has a tail and four legs, so a cat must be a dog". It normally ends with them pointing out why they are different... Just as an example but there are all kinds of everyday occurrences that can be used to initiate a logic puzzle.

Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?

#28

Post by lucozade »

When my children were young I wrote them some games using Love2d in which they and their pets were the characters.

It was just intended to be a bit of fun, and it was, but they were actively involved in the game design and the artwork. I also worked through some of the maths and physics with them and they saw how it all came together in the code.

I'm not sure they did any coding per se other than tweaking parameters for gerbil speed etc but I think they got an appreciation of where programming fits in and how it's part of an interconnected whole.

Subsequently they have used Scratch at junior school and they all took to it without any help from me.

None of them have shown a particularly strong interest in pursuing computing either academically or as a profession and I haven't seen any need to push it.

If your children do show an interest though, I do recommend something like Scratch or Love2d (I'm sure there are equivalents for other dynamic languages). It's easy to produce a game that's surprisingly good and the feedback loop is essentially instantaneous.

I particularly liked how, with a game, it naturally brings together art, maths, science, computers and programming without feeling forced.

Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?

#29

Post by Cozumel »

procrastinazy wrote: post #8
deepnotderp wrote: post #3

By cultivating interest, not by forcing them into it.

And how to do that ?

>And how to do that ?

Just get excited and show enthusiasm, if you're genuinely excited about it, then it's contagious and kids pick up on that.

Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?

#30

Post by 5ilv3r »

danpalmer wrote: post #4
nether wrote: post #2

I would not. Kids should be outside playing and interacting with other kids, not coding.

Why are those two things mutually exclusive?

I learned php on a handspring visor with the manual downloaded into a offline browser app while on the playground. Couldn't even run my code until I got home and hotsynced it!
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