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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

#101

Post by dpz »

brailsafe wrote: post #90
credit_guy wrote: post #76

My son is 12 y/o, and he's into Minecraft. Yesterday he discovered the server mc.openredstone.org. He spent all day yesterday and about one hour today, and he ended up building a 4-bit adder. On this server players learn how to build logic gates, and mix them so they eventually build CPUs. It's fully gamified, so beginners are called "students" and more advanced players are called "builders". To become a "builder" yo…

I've been programming for 15 years and had to google what NAND was. Had a sense of XOR

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

#102

Post by eloeffler »

Haven't tried this with kids yet, but "coloring computers" might be a cool thing.

You can find it here: Coloring computers: non-electronic computers that work when you color them https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmYz7DPRWypGQcbAHr7Mi8EKB6ntSPsEnUsCXbA...

And the recent HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31393501

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

#103

Post by mrcartmeneses »

tokamak-teapot wrote: post #16

Try lots of things and see what she gets into. Do some gardening. Make stuff with your hands. Cook. Play lots of different musical instruments. If you don’t have any, play rhythms with your hands. Listen to some music. Ask her what she likes or doesn’t like about it. Sing along to it. Read lots of books to her. Take her to visit woods, hills (with good views), rock formations, streams, lakes, old buildings open the p…

My youngest and I love gardening together. She’s got so much gusto! Sunflowers grow really fast. Get loads of random seeds and a plastic tray to grow the seedlings in. Then once they’ve sprouted you can plant them in the beds or in bigger pots of you don’t have a garden. More steps more fun

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

#105

Post by mlyle »

stevekemp wrote: post #27

Being unemployed probably means you don't have a huge budget, but some for our child I've tried to do a little bit of "everything" to see what he enjoys. When I ask him what he wants to do he says "I don't know", so I say "We're going swimming in the sea", "Lets plant some seeds", "Today we're cooking / sewing", "Lets pick a spot on the map and go visit it by bus/tram", or "Lets draw pokemon evolving". (maps are kind…

> Electronics is interesting to him, as is listening to "Daddy music". (Goth/Rock/Metal.) "Mommy music" doesn't appeal as much which I find a little fascinating. Does he genuinely prefer my music, or is it something about me? I know that he behaves and plays differently depending on who he's spending time with ..

There's not an A or B answer to this kind of question. Parents are influential, and the response to parents' recommendations and preferences are inseparable from the actual relationship.

My oldest son is now 13. Most of what I played for him isn't so interesting anymore. But we spent a couple years earlier in his life where we went to my workshop and I'd play Kraftwerk and he'd get one on one time and we'd do "serious" things. Kraftwerk is still treasured to him, and I doubt that it's because Kraftwerk was more intrinsically appealing to him than those other things...

Or, conversely, my dad always listened to music from rat pack performers. It was a subject of curiosity when i was 6-11... awful when I was 12-17 and had a terrible relationship with my dad, and now it's evolved to a mild appreciation tinged with nostalgia. If I was still mad at my dad I think it would be hard to like it.

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

#106

Post by stevekemp »

prionassembly wrote: post #87
stevekemp wrote: post #27

Being unemployed probably means you don't have a huge budget, but some for our child I've tried to do a little bit of "everything" to see what he enjoys. When I ask him what he wants to do he says "I don't know", so I say "We're going swimming in the sea", "Lets plant some seeds", "Today we're cooking / sewing", "Lets pick a spot on the map and go visit it by bus/tram", or "Lets draw pokemon evolving". (maps are kind…

Baby had a starting preference for things we put with headphones over the mom's belly. This might sound insane, but I was in the OR for the C-section and once the baby was put on the mother's arm I started to play one of these music tracks and the baby stopped crying, appearing to recognize stuff from the older situation. That said, the pregnancy music selection was mostly daddy's music because daddy has a music educ…

I think our child seems to like us both "equally" these days, though it is clear some days that nothing Daddy does is correct, and mommy would do it better/properly.

I can also see that when she works overnight he tries to outright punish her, by ignoring her, when she returns.

But those kinda things aside I don't see anything like your story there. I guess it goes to show that kids, and personalities, are so varied.

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

#108

Post by sircastor »

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…

My wife frequently says to me “this is why I don’t buy my kid toys” as we watch our Son playing with some random bucket or cardboard box around the house.

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

#109

Post by vivegi »

Play.

I remember playing with my father who passed away a few years ago simple word games. We called that Word-building, a game where one player says a word and the next one has to say to word starting with the last letter of the previous word eg: Apple, Egg, Goose, Elephant and so on. Occasionally my father would say an uncommon word and when I asked him what it was, he casually pointed me to the dictionary, asked me to bring it and taught me how to use it.

Another game we played then is what we called Name-Place-Animal-Thing where we pick a letter and then have to say a proper name, a place name, an animal and a thing that starts with that letter. For eg: V -> Victor, Virginia, Viper and Vase.

Kids that age love to learn new words and concepts.

Paper-folding and origami are also great to spend time together.

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