Don't force your kids to do math

I have three kids (19, 13, 11) and I agree with them completely.

My son at 19 is building websites for companies, still deep into manga and video games but is started to get out more with the gym. He still lives with us, but essentially has his own life and seems to be doing well.

My 13 year old daughter is the one who loves to try everything. She's in dance, show choir, volley ball, tennis, violin, clarinet, etc. She even signs up for college for kids classes over the summer. All self motivated. Just yesterday her and her friends walked about 5 miles around town to different stores. She has her own phone.

My 11 year old is the smartest of the bunch. She has an amazing vocabulary and reading has always seemed to be "natural" for her. She's straining my policy of buying my children any books they want. She's bored of the advanced learning classes she's been put in. She also plays tennis and flute and cello. She learns her own crafts and sciency projects to try at home from TikTok. She will likely get a phone this year, but has an iPad.

All of them have had practically unlimited screen time since they were double digit ages. They are on TikTok and YouTube and SnapChat. They just have many other interests as well and it doesn't consume their lives. They manage their own bedtimes (within reason) and are responsible for getting themselves up and ready in the morning.

The only times we've forced them into activities is when they were too young to make those sorts of decisions for themselves. So all of my kids played soccer while young until they could suggest an alternative activity they would rather do more. They all started in music, until they could find other creative alternatives. None of them are screen zombies that so many HN posters swear is inevitable without banning things. I'm not sure where the panic is coming from, but leave me and my children out of it.

This is one of the reasons I'm really happy that my daughter found show choir. Choir sucks. My kids hated it. I hated going to watch it. Bunch of terrible old songs that no one knows. Now she's singing and dancing to pop songs and show tunes on the stage and it's far more engaging for her. I do think it also helps that show choir is a tryout based program so the floor for interest and talent is far higher than with the regular choir.

> why pretend that such a low bar could prevent anyone from understanding?

I don't know why this is a startling take. If you encode your ideas in an unfamilar symbology, of course that's going to make it more difficult for someone who isn't familiar with the space.

I'm not arguing that we should teach real analysis this way, or any other high level math class. I'm only contesting GP's comment that there is NO value to be had in using more familiar language to explain a new concept to an unfamiliar audience.

This is the entire reasoning behind "word problems" at the elementary level; they're meant to ground the abstract modeling of a math problem (193 - 3 * 12 = ?) into something more intuitive for a child to understand (If you start with 193 eggs, and you take three dozen away to bake a cake, how many are left?)

> are you really saying that "let function(argument has type RealNumber) has type RealNumber be a function from a real number argument to a real number" is somehow superior to "let f(x) : R->R"

No, I'm saying the there's tradeoffs on either side, and our educators ought to be aware of this.

> math notation is by and for professional mathematicians.

I agree, but we teach math to plenty of people who aren't professional mathematicians. I wouldn't want to do formal abstract algebra proofs in a more verbose form, I'm perfectly happy using the domain notation, but my friends from biological sciences who have to take a calculus course now have to learn both a new symbology alongside the problem domain. I've watched enough of my (clearly intelligent) biology friends slam face first into calculus and spin out. They're not dumb, they can do circles around me when it comes to chemistry, yet they Just Can't wrap their heads around calculus-style math, which leads me to wonder what the difference is between how we teach complex chemistry vs complex math. Questioning the pedagogy is a fairly logical extension of that.

Every kid that I know who was forced to do their 20 minutes of piano a day now doesn't play piano and can only play with sheet music in front of them. They can't improvise, they seem to take no joy in the music.

I was the kid who wanted a keyboard and guitar but didn't get one until I could afford one in my twenties, then I learned just enough to be able to be creative. People say I'm good at piano but technically I suck, I'm just creative and expressive with limited tools.

It's an interesting phenomenon, the adults who are technically great at piano, but can't play anything without it being written in sheet music.

I feel false dichotomy here - you assume helping child to go through plateau must be forced.

It doesn’t have to be and some people need a little bit of help - you didn’t and that’s great.

Conversely there will be kids that need to be forced or nothing good will come out of them - there will be kids that should be left alone because pushing them will just break whatever they should be doing.

It is delicate balance and difficult choices - but there is no white and black here that will be right for everyone.