Ask HN: My 8-year old nephew finally wants to be a hacker. How should he start?

Hey @runesoerensen! We are going to be at the Creativity Museum in SF during the month of October, so tell him to keep his eye out and come by to play with the bots while we are there!

-June

(Play-i)

I don't think he'll be in the Bay Area by then, but I'll make sure to tell him about Play-i. I might show up and play with the bots though :)

I'd take your question in good faith, but the phrasing of the title seems somewhat suspicious. "Finally". Did he do this himself, or have you given him subtle signals?

A far more common story than any parent pushing their kid to accomplish anything is a parent burning their kid out so severely that they hate it for the rest of their lives. See forced piano practices etc etc. It's much easier to burn out a kid than the opposite. I'd be cautious.

When I was eight years old, I self-learned HTML and CSS, which eventually lead to learning JavaScript, then Java. Currently, I volunteer at CoderDojo[1] (Silicon Valley chapter[2]), an organization that teaches kids to code at free sessions. If there's a chapter near you, I definitely recommend that you check them out.

For the programming/coding aspect of hacking, it's important to have something visual, like Scratch[3]. Web coding could also be a good starting point, starting with HTML/CSS and moving into JavaScript.

[1] http://coderdojo.com [2] http://coderdojosv.com [3] http://scratch.mit.edu/

I see what you mean and I agree that parents sometimes end up pushing their kids too far. I'm not his parent and I've not tried to make him do something he doesn't want, but I'm excited that he's excited because I recognize his potential - hence the "finally". I might've had some small influence on this interest, in the same way my older siblings have influenced me by doing what they do, but what's really wrong about that? It seems a lot better to influence somebody in a direction that can be immensely productive and rewarding than, say, negatively influencing somebody by being a cracked-up rockstar. Positively influencing and affecting each other is a feature, not a bug, of good families.

Even if I had given him obvious signals I fail to see the problem. It's like suggesting a kid who's naturally comfortable around a football to try out soccer. Whether he likes it or not, trying it will be a net win: You've either helped him discover, or rule out, at least one out of an infinite number of things he might want to do in life. To your point, it becomes problematic when he tries it, doesn't like it and you insist/force him to continue, or otherwise make him feel bad - particularly if the motivation for doing so is anything but his own best interest.

Having said that (and going a bit further off topic) I also think that there are cases where you actually want to "force" kids to do things they're not immediately excited about. Think about how a big part of most educational systems work: Kids often don't like doing homework, but most continue to study for years out of their own free will. Many don't like math, but end up loving when they start to understand how it works, and giving it a fair chance is necessary to get to that point. Even if you don't like math you'll still benefit from and need to learn the basics because it's used everywhere. The same argument can (to a rapidly increasing extent) be made for coding.

Trying new things is a crucial part of developing as a person and learning what we like and don't like. It's also pretty much what being a child is all about (disclaimer: I don't know nearly enough about kids to claim that, but it seems reasonable to me :)). It's our responsibility as adults to help facilitate this learning process for the children close to us (and ourselves for that matter), and they will benefit from it as long as we're respectful about their choices.