As well as the fundamentals such as reading, writing & mathematics, I fully intend to introduce my son to computing from a very early age.
I was thinking that I could introduce him to things like BASIC not long after he masters the art of counting to ten but I would love to hear from you guys.
How would you suggest I give my son a head-start in an IT orientated world? He's 6 months old currently so I have plenty of time!
Computers would be just a distraction from the real work of building a foundation in cognitive skills.
What your child will need regardless of where he/she goes is critical thinking and problem solving skills. After all, all the desirable jobs in the world center around this.
Strong associative ability, strong spatial skills, organization, learning attitude, critical thinking, logic, all of those things you should encourage in your kid. Particularly learning attitude - if your child starts hating learning, you're basically screwed.
Richard Feynman's father spent a lot of time teaching his son how to think and what thinking is. That was more important to Feynman than any mathematical lessons his father could teach him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=695Flhmjmg4#t=2m56s
Parents need to keep an eye out for what kind of person their kids are. They might not be a carbon-copy of yourself, they might have completely different interests and abilities and learning styles. I did, very much so. Many parents erroneously assumes that their kids are like themselves because "it is their kids", their genes, their upbringing. But neither genes or kids work like copy machines when it comes to personality.
Our innate playfulness seems to be beneficial to creative processes. At the very least, it makes learning more fun, engaging.
My dad used to hide notecards around the house, with a little clue ("turn around 90 degrees and walk 2 * 3 - 1 steps"). At the location specified, there'd be another little candy and a clue. Worked wonders for me, and it gave me a lifelong desire to learn and grow.
Anyhow, just a +1 for keeping it playful. It helps a ton. And it just might make your child more creative.
Everything else is just details.
With this, things will inevitably fall nicely into place, no matter what tactics you take.
Without it, he will be fucked up no matter what you do and will be coming to hacker news in 2028 posting, "Ask HN: I'm confused and depressed and don't know why."
Obviously this guy knows that he should love his kid. He was looking for specific answers on how to introduce the kid to computing. And you gave him this glib, content-less, greeting card answer.
I cannot believe this is the top comment.
We all want what's best for our children. Unfortunately, this frequently turns into crazy helicopter parenting and a hyperfocus on academics, sports, and activities.
I love my son and I want him to be the best he can be, but I'm more than willing to trade a few of his future IQ points to never ever let him wonder if he's loved for himself, or just his accomplishments.
Unconditional love is hardly a guideline anyways. Kids need rules, instruction, challenge, inspiration and just generally good examples to follow. That's the tough part. Loving your own child is an achievement akin to dressing yourself.
My father loved me unconditionally and I can't think of a single moment of my childhood where I ever questioned his love for me but with that said, my childhood was a mess. I sincerely struggled at school, I lacked any decent social skills and I was incredibly naïve when it came to how the world worked.
Whilst I'm happy that I've overcome these obstacles, I can think of plenty my father could have done to counter-act them in the first place.
Like every other father (and mother) that participates in this community, I would move mountains for my boy. I would happily lay my own life on the line to protect him and the question I initially asked was based on the assumption that the basic fundamentals of being a good parent were a given.
Now that those bases are covered, what can I do to ensure that he is at least one step ahead of the average kid growing up in a world where technology develops at an incredible rate and those who embrace this change storm ahead of the mean?
GG logic, gg.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_disintegration
Mind you, even Dabrowski (who created the theory) differentiates between depression that instigates changes vs. depression that leaves you spinning your wheels. I'd venture that anyone who has been seriously depressed has experience with both types.
Actually, I guess there was a lot of text-based interaction going on, come to think of it. Telnet, etc. Hm.
My son has grown up in a house of readers and loves to read. He consistently tests above grade level, doesn't have his own computer (allowed to use my wife's occasionally) or TV (only one working TV in the house). Meanwhile, his friend down the street who is a year older and has his own laptop computer, TV, XBox, Nintendo DS, etc. spends his summers in remedial reading classes.
If you feel good about not letting your kid mess with that stuff, more power to you, but don't confuse correlation with causation.
[1] Actually I had my first computer, running MS-DOS, well before I could read. That was kind of an exercise in futility though. I did get a laptop later on (elementary school) and I learned and practiced writing HTML on it.
Actually evidence suggests that this is not true. Energy spent reading to kids helps a bit, but what makes a long-term difference is to be seen frequently reading for yourself. Otherwise you wind up in the trap that the kid learns that reading is for babies.
Encourage a love of books, even if its just the picture books to begin with. Story before bedtime. Feel sad? Lets go read a book? Waiting for mom or dad to come home? Lets read a fun book.
Aside from that I do those large jig-saw puzzles with my daughter and those match the wooden shape to its equivalent spot on the board.
It should all be fun, playful and something you you're happy to do. No one wants to read with a grumpy dad.
Anyway, I'm doing it with my two years and half son. He loves it and helps him to relax and rest(he's very active).
Kid will come up a winner.
I was very excited when my daughter, around the age of 10, showed interest in programming. I showed her Scratch (from MIT), but I think my enthusiasm scared her off-- and she dropped it quickly. I regret that I didn't play it a bit cooler.
See Berkeley's Half Full blog:
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/raising_happiness/post/the_r...
In this case, though, it wasn't that I praised her-- just that I got excited about how cool Scratch was. Suddenly, it wasn't that cool to her anymore.
Similarly, she also hates the Beatles. I mean, how is that even possible?
Now we just cultivate whatever interests he has, and try our best to answer any questions he has. He's interested in marine life, but is a bit too young to help out at the Seattle Aquarium. We've enrolled him in a few robotics classes and a programming class that used Game Maker [1]. He loved the Game Maker class, I'd bet that it was a gentler introduction than what I tried with Scratch.
FWIW, he's into video games too (we have a 360, NDS, Wii, PC), but we limit his time and prioritize digital entertainment last.
Teach him about managing money. Get him into the habit of saving from a very early age. And writing down all the expenses.
(Rockefeller had a rule for his kids. He gave them money for all the chores they did. And they had to donate 10% to the Church. And save 10%. But because they had to donate exactly 10% to the Church - and not 9.5% or 10.5%, they were required to keep an account of every penny they received. This: keeping track of money from an early age is the trick to making sure you never end up poor.)
2.
Teach him confidence. Elocution and public speaking and drama classes.
3.
Make him love reading. Dr. Seuss. Comics.
4.
Teach him how to delay gratification. The trick is to focus on other things.
5.
Teach him discipline in exercising early on. And healthy eating. Sports.
6.
Play all the wonderful board games besides the popular ones like Monopoly. Excellent for math and logic building skills. And figuring out the winning strategy.
These above are the building blocks. Its ok if he learns to code a bit late in life too.
Games are also good for bartering and other social skills, besides math and logic. Settlers of Catan may be the obvious example in the English speaking world. Though Bohnanza is probably better.
Of course there are also lots of games you can play outdoors. Including just running around with your friends.
Honestly programming isn't that hard. If he finds it interesting he can start teaching himself at any age, so I wouldn't focus on that. All that said, IANAD. congrats on being a dad!
Don't limit his abilities, or options.
Perhaps he will not be interested in IT? He could be the man to cure Cancer.
Your job is to enable them to identify their interests and follow their curiosity. Not so much to direct it.
My parents have never shown any interest in IT whatsoever. My brothers, never. Me, as soon as I started messing around with a Commodore-64, I was hooked.
Give your kids the opportunities to explore everything and anything that they can. Something will click, if it's IT, then you can offer your guidance.
My parents actually sort of discouraged me from liking programming. If I would have, say, been really interested in chemistry and experimented with chemicals, they would have been less worried than when I would work on the computer for long periods of time.
It's also worthy to note that your son may not be interested in becoming a programmer, so don't try to consciously influence him. Surround him with the tools he needs. He'll find a way from there.
Allowed to be curious, he'll get critical thinking skills, passion for exploring the unknown and street smarts out of the deal. He'll immediately be better at anything he sets his mind on than those who have been forced into learning only through written and verbal means.
Your son will come to you to play board games, whereas teaching programming is something where you'd be driving what your son learns.
Building a Go game on the computer is also not that difficult-- but developing AI for it leads deep into math and computer science.
Plus the simplicity of the rules is helpful for learning for younger players. The rule of thumb is that if they are old enough to not eat the pieces, they are old enough to try playing.
You may be able to start with Go earlier, since the rules are so easy. Just be sure to start with a very small board.
You do indeed. Don't forget that. You have at least 8 years left before your kid should start doing this kind of thing. Just let him use a computer in a completely natural way, don't force anything on him. Programming is decidedly different from, say, playing the violin!
Also, less importantly, skip the shitty languages phase. It's not necessary to go through Pascal or BASIC before you can get to the good stuff: Python will do from the very beginning.
This is absolutely true. One of the risks that you take when you have a child is that he'll turn out totally different than you. My father was a farmer, and so we're from basically two different worlds. He could never understand why I wanted to be on the computer on the time, I couldn't understand why he wanted to be outside all the time. But since neither of us tried to force each other on the issue, we got along just fine.
> It's not necessary to go through Pascal or BASIC before you can get to the good stuff:
</blatant-self-promotion>
> This is absolutely true.
I disagree, sort of. I have a 5 yo and an 8 yo. If you let kids use a computer without guidance, they will learn how to use a computer from their friends at school. And what they learn is to fire up a browser (chrome if you've got it, otherwise Firefox) type "<some word> games" into Google and play thousands of really mind-numbing flash games. Go ahead. Try it.
I see no reason to learn Pascal, or BASIC, nor do I see its effectiveness.
And ++ on not letting your own enthusiasm scare him off. My mother started me on piano when I was 2 years and 10 months by playing herself and not letting me play (she already taught me to read music using flash cards). Depending on the kid, reverse psychology works pretty well.
The best videos (IMHO) are from "My Smart Hands" at http://mysmarthands.com/
The founder has free videos on YouTube, an iPhone app, and a new Android app (which I use).
Is there any evidence that this actually has any benefit?
Dr. Marilyn Daniels at Penn State University has found that hearing students in pre-kindergarten classes who receive instruction in both English and ASL score significantly higher on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test than hearing students in classes with no sign instruction. Her studies demonstrate that adding visual and kinesthetic elements to verbal communication helps enhance a preschool child's vocabulary, spelling and reading skills.
This citation and many more studies are listed on http://sign2me.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=vie...
The most recent meta-study (as far as I know) has this to say...
Doherty-Sneddon concludes by arguing there are three different levels of support for the benefits of baby signing: indicative, if not evidentially strong, evidence from baby signing research; related evidence from deaf sign and hearing gesture/language research; compelling anecdotal support from families who have embraced the approach.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_language_in_infants_and_to... Wikipedia has a Daniels, M. (October, 1994). The effects of sign language on hearing children's language development. Communication Education, 43, 291-298.
Daniels, M. (1996). Seeing language: The effect over time of sign language on vocabulary development in early childhood education. Child Study Journal, 26, 193-208.
Daniels, M. (October, 1994). The effects of sign language on hearing children's language development. Communication Education, 43, 291-298.
Daniels, M. (1996). Seeing language: The effect over time of sign language on vocabulary development in early childhood education. Child Study Journal, 26, 193-208.
Other researchers have found evidence that sign language supports early literacy skills.
Felzer, L. (1998). A Multisensory Reading Program That Really Works. Teaching and Change, 5, 169-183.
Wilson, R., Teague, J., and Teague, M. (1985). The Use of Signing and Fingerspelling to Improve Spelling Performance with Hearing Children. Reading Psychology, 4, 267-273.
Hafer, J. (1986). Signing For Reading Success. Washington D.C.: Clerc Books, Gallaudet University Press.
Koehler, L., and Loyd, L. (September 1986). Using Fingerspelling/Manual Signs to Facilitate Reading and Spelling. Biennial Conference of the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication. (4'th Cardiff Wales).
From there, you have plenty of time. I know my dad started me out with BASIC when I was ~5: 10 PRINT "HI DADDY" 20 GOTO 10
After that, I didn't touch code until I was 13. So ultimately, my advice would be to not push them. If he wants to learn, he'll learn.
Just make sure they are familiar with technology, and you'll all be fine. Aside from that... read to him. Now. They pick it up quickly if you keep doing it consistently.
But really, don't worry about it and let him be a kid. The inner geek will come.
[edit] when the kids old enough: legos - lots and lots of legos
I would say introduce him to at least one foreign language like spanish, french, german, portuguese, japanese, or chinese. I learned spanish as I learned english, by age 3 I was fluent in both. I had the advantage of having a spanish teacher for a mother, but it gave me the building blocks for understanding the rules and concepts of other languages (on 4 so far, working on 5th). These rules, grammatical, syntactical, etc. can help with picking up things like computer programming later. I mean they are called languages for a reason.
I think that giving your son excellent communication skills will give him a huge leg up on all his peers. Make sure to include reading in both english and another language too if possible.
2. Make him talk for himself. Encourage him to meet and talk to as many different people as possible. This starts early, when he wants to hide behind your legs, and it's probably the most valuable skill he can have.
Mind you - I'm not blaming them - on the contrary I'm fully aware that every step I've made lead me to the point I am at in life and only I am responsible for my position.
Other than that, there are 2 books which cover kid prodigies which might be applicable. "In Code - A Mathematical Journey". [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Code-Mathematical-Sarah-Flannery-Dav...] It's the story of Sarah Flannery, who got interested in cryptography at a young age due to her family environment.
Another interesting book is "The Art of Learning" by Josh Waitzkin. [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Learning-Journey-Optimal-Perform...] Josh Waitzkin was an American chess champion, before burning out at around 20. He then picked up Taijiquan, becoming the Taijiquan world champion.
I would start him on games and other "fun" stuff. Teach him to make his own games via BASIC or some equivalent thereof. If it's fun, he'll want to do it on his own. If you're just shoving it at him and it's not fun, he'll resent it and may even rebel against it.
Sometimes you get a gem too.
After explaining something at work I asked him what he thought of my job and he said, "It sounds like your job is hard dad."
Just by being your son, he is guaranteed 1000s of hours of practice and exposure to these topics.
For example, for me, it was Chinese math textbooks from an early age. I ended up attending Stanford, but my social skills suffered. For your son, I would guess reading, writing, math, and programming are covered.
Other things are invisible to you, and will be nonexistent to your son unless you identify and pursue those topics despite your unfamiliarity to them. For example, I didn't know what "sports" were, and still do not to this day. It's such a large part of society, but does not exist to me.
You should figure out what's "free" and what's "missing" for your son simply as a result of growing up in your household, and plan your educational priorities with that knowledge in mind.
One last thing: expose him to as many different people and social situations as possible. Camp, church, sports, etc etc etc. Whatever involves heavy interaction with other kids and people. The more the better. You may have to get heavily involved yourself to do this properly. Social skills, just like any other human ability, is simply 1000s of hours of practice.
I have two kids and had massively complicated plans on how to 'program' them (and I mean that with nothing but respect for what you're trying to do) but you can over-think this. By all means encourage, support and mentor them but try not to project your ideal image of what they should be too soon.
All the little dude needs is your attention and time - things will work out great. Good luck!
It is my humble opinion that children should be slowly, slowly introduced to technology. The first example that comes to mind is my own introduction to a pocket calculator in the late 1980's. I was given one before I had been exposed to the intermediate concepts of mathematics and looking back it hurt much more than it helped as it immediately became a crutch. I became more interested in getting the problem done than learning from the experience.
A slow and methodical approach to learning is what works best for me, and may not be optimal for everyone. Laying the right foundation is pretty much the only way to excel, and given the perverse incentives that abound in (America's) public schools you need to pretty much accept that it's up to you to make this happen for your child. As someone who didn't have it I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a parent that is intensely interested in helping you build from simple concepts to the advanced, learn how to learn, and how to think critically about everything you encounter. Having someone there to help you cope with the anxiety of being a novice (at life and learning) is worth more than I can express. Making sure your child understands the core of a concept before he or she has access to tools that shortcut and accelerate its use is paramount.
Also, don't be disappointed if they want to write, sculpt, draw, or paint all day. We need artists too.
Good luck.
You can start even younger with HTML. HTML isn't programming, but it's relevant training for a developing brain. Balancing brackets, thinking logically, paying attention to detail, and the "write, run, debug" routine are all present when writing HTML.
My path to programming started when I discovered a copy of FrontPage Express (an old WYSIWYG HTML editor) installed on my computer. I quickly went from FrontPage, to HTML, to Flash/ActionScript, to Visual Basic, to C++. Obviously, that isn't the logical way for a teenager or an adult to learn programming, but for a child, it was incredibly natural.
But looking back, i believe languages don't mater that much, as long as the kid's having fun, you can have fun with C++ even, if it is introduced to you properly.
2. Play music - it probably does not matter what type.
3. Think very hard about schooling.
1. Get him started with Lisp and/or Scheme first, on Linux.
Here's a great story illustrating why (in addition to pg's must-read essays on his site), along with a reference to a great book, The Schemer's Guide (which is out of print, grab one while you can still find one in used stores):
http://www.trollope.org/scheme.html
2. Linux only (or BSD, or Minix, or similar FOSS OS). You learn far more about how computers and computing work using Linux than with Windows or Mac. After he's become proficient with recursive thinking and all the other goodness Lisp teaches, get him K&R, a laptop or PC with Linux on it, and kernel hack with him.
3. Throw out the TV. 100% trash. Even 'educational' stuff is not really educational in that it is passive learning, which does no one any favors. Learning is doing, analyzing, deconstructing, hacking, making, building, not passively watching.
4. Second the advice to read to him and with him as much as possible. For all the reasons mentioned above.
Louis CK would disagree with you there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdc28bZ90G4 :)
Of course he's still a bit young, but it helps to start as early as possible, especially with the string instruments.
Reading is critical, but I wouldn't push it till the child is ready. Once they're ready to read, it comes quickly when taught correctly. But both you and they need to be willing to put in 1/2 hour a day, every day, for a few months.
My kids love knowing how stuff works, and as a engineering type, I'm pretty well situated to give them some good answers and point them in the right direction. David Mcauly's books are good, esp. The way things work, and Castle.
Finally, throw away your tv. It makes them do other things that take brainpower, even if it is just playing with dump trucks in the sand box. Also, when there's no tv, the stories come from books (and from their heads), so there much more of a pull to go digging for hose stories in a way that will help them in the long run.
Also,YMMV. Kids are all different, and will respond differently to the same people and stimuli. So you have to change and adapt.
The bait is the chance to tweak and modify your games to make them more fun and personal for you. Could be a fun and pain-free segue into programming proper.
Many years later, for a group assignment on entrepreneurship, we submitted a custom map in Warcraft III that simulated competitive strategies among startups. We basically played Warcraft III in class while our lecturer was smiling approvingly. One of the most fun lessons in university..
Don't focus on the subject or topic as much as the problem solving process. Children learn through pattern recognition until they have mastered language which leads to thought.
Remember children have short attention spans so only have them work on a subject/topic for a brief period or the children will develop a negative connotation with the subject.
A few people have mentioned mobile applications they are awesome. I developed a few apps that have been strongly adopted by organizations that work with developmentally challenged children. The simplicity and interactivity really makes a difference.
1. Always give your son a new healthy challenge. Let him develop as fast as he can while he is in his prime. If school has a fixed tempo of learning, challenge him in other areas; sports, music, critical thinking, computers, social skills, moral values and ethics, practical skills, helping others, etc.
2. Read "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. He has a few points that made me realize just how much it means to come from a good background, with parents that realize how their kid should be raised to become a independent and successful person.
3. Realize that your son will never become exactly what you wanted him to be. You can introduce him to the world of IT, and you can show him how it is fun to produce your own programs or web pages, but he has to take the choice to pursue an IT career by himself.
When my daughter was in the early years of elementary school I was just getting started with web development. I was working at home and she showed an interest in what I was doing. I tried to teach the basics of html so she could create web pages. She definitely had the intelligence to succeed at it but it didn't appeal to her. I didn't push it. We found something else to share: reading books and visiting bookstores. She's developed a broad intelligence that is helping her have a fulfilling life without a line of code in sight.
Personally, my parents got me an Intellivision at the age of 6 and I played it every day. By around 4th grade, I wanted to start writing my own games so they got me a Commodore 64 and a couple of books with game listings in Basic and I started having more fun writing games than playing them.
Throw out the TV (He watches some DVD's on a laptop) Buy Lego/Duplo/Kapla/Puzzles Read to him every night / let him (learn to) read
On a side note: Anybody have thoughts on leveraging KhanAcademy.org ?
It's simple enough to understand the basics, yet powerful enough to be engaging enough to keep a child's interest, providing them a direct visual output to their 'code'.
I would stay away from the higher level stuff like Visual Basic; there is so much magic going on under the hood that it becomes difficult to really internalize the basic concepts of programming.
http://github.com/hacketyhack/hacketyhack/blob/master/sample...
We have several apps we use with our 9-month daughter. It's her favorite toy by far--the minute she sees it, she's off like a rocket tugging at the feet of whoever is using it. It has flashcard apps, a cartoon dinosaur that talks to her, books that read themselves to her while highlighting the words, cool fractal displays that respond to her touching the screen, etc. It's well-built and has withstood many baby-related mishaps.
If you can get him to love computers, everything else you're worried about should fall into place.
I was talking with a neighbor about how my son was growing.
I started to say, "Back when he was little..."
Only to be interrupted with, "He's only four weeks old."
In ten years, your son will still be a little kid, even though he leads the league in scoring, has a black belt, and can explain photosynthesis.
As he grows all he will really want is to spend time with you. Don't waste it. You're building a person not a programmer.
My parents watched a lot of PBS or National Geographic type documentaries with me as a child. It gave me a view of the world outside of mine.
Internships. I did mine in my late college years but if you can start kids in high school, again it gives them a view of the future (possibly THEIR future) and great insight on paths to take.
Best of luck to you!
We're also fiddling a bit with Google's App Inventor, which uses http://education.mit.edu/drupal/openblocks jut like Scratch.
I never really excelled academically yet I became quite succeessful through pure hard work. Unfortunately I got a lot of bad advice as a kid and it was drilled into me that I would never be as successful as 'smart' people. Had I known that I could counter-act my disadvantage with pure grunt work then I probably would have been more successful from a younger age.
I think it's more important though that there's someone who loves hacking in the child's life. Children pick up on genuine enthusiasm quickly, whether it's from you, your spouse, or someone who's a role model.
IT skills become more of a necessity once they hit school. I see Programming as a form of art, unless you are interested in it. It's not going to be of any interest to them, like it is to me.
- like saving up for a rainy day.
- saving a small amount like $1 a day = $365 saved a year.
- how compound interests work.
Having started young, they will be money wise when they grow up and not having to work for every pay check.
You're already 15 months too late. If you haven't started on Baby Einstein, do it right now.
In addition, instead of teaching ABCs, teach him to sing Q..W..E..R..T..Y.. . Trust me, it'll make his life a whole lot easier.
You can also buy DVDs where kids sing their multiplication tables. Unfortunately, the ones I have come across is in Mandarin. But why not have him learn a second language at the same time?
If he doesn't have a sister, buy him dolls so that he can pull them apart to see how things work.
You might think I'm jesting, but I'm aware of parents who are doing some of these things.
Don't you find lego is very kit-based (you buy a box and get to build a specific "thing" - wouldn't it be better to buy some building toy which allows one to build whatever they want).
How about meccano? (again not the kit based).
What other construction toys?
Konects are kinda cool, but the variety of what's straightforward to make is lower than Lego.
Plain old blocks are the other big construction thing around here, supplemented with some rough cut rounds from our forest. Overall though, I'd say that the legos are used at least as much as all the other construction stuff combined. Ymmv, I've got three boys, 6,3.5 and 1.
People always say this about Lego recently. They still have a ton of generic building block kits which are great.
My kids love doing both though. They love having the kits, building them, and keeping them 'for display'. But we have boxes and boxes of general lego bits, of which they're always using to build hogwarts castle, a school, or some contraption.
I think Meccano takes more patience. But good when they're older.
K'Nex is ok, but not as flexible in terms of what you can build with it than Lego IMHO.
My eldest is 8 years old. He knows the basics of computer programming already, but he taught it to himself. Where we are native English speakers, he reads and speaks German without an accent. He also understands some French and a smattering of other languages. He reads at a 10 year old reading level, and has mathematics skills at the same level. His writing level is a bit lower. He is also one of the most affable children in his class, known and loved by all, and is generally thought of as conducting himself well, better than many of his peers. He has a solid grasp of the solar system and the fundamentals of astronomy; last year he found the four Galilean moons of Jupiter himself. On his own, he built his own electronics switch when he was barely six and still plays with electronics. He also has recently finished reading about WW1 and WW2, touching upon the Russian Revolution and the Great Depression along the way. And these were not little kid readings. He read "Im Westen nichts neues" - the German original of "All Quiet on the Western Front" - as well as "The Diary of Anne Frank" and several other works from various angles. I am already getting books for him out of the local university library. I say all this to illustrate that he is pretty far ahead of the game in many ways, and he has enjoyed all of it.
Now this is the tack that we have taken. First, we are big fans of the Mozart Effect on children. So we played Mozart a LOT when he was in utero and when he was a baby. We tended to play one of the major composers (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach) more often than other types of music until he was seven. We took to heart Hitler's observation about the importance the influences up to seven play. Therefore, we specifically kept from him any music that came out prior to about 1965. After that point, the lyrics and music start to become more complicated as protests and the civil strife of the time enter the music and then become "free love" and all that. We will now let him hear some of that, but not until he had a foundation from which to understand it.
One of our major guiding principles is to avoid something that might be abusive. "Abusive" is here defined as allowing something to enter your child's world for which s/he has no or very little framework for understanding it. So we were at pains to give him a framework and help him understand things in life as he encountered them early on.
Finally, we try our best not to say "no" when he wants to explore something. Rather, we do our best to find a way that he can safely delve in. For example, he found out the sixth graders at school were studying WW2. He wanted to learn, too, but the school wouldn't let him because he was in third grade. He approached me, and I cobbled together a reading list and a list of films that he could use to work through WW2. As WW2 makes no sense without WW1, he started there. So the point here is to never, ever, EVER limit your child but to take their curiosity as an invitation to find a way to help them interact with the world in a safe way.
We started playing and speaking French with him when he was two. When he was three, he caught a whiff of German and decided that he would rather learn German than French, so we switched (I speak both). We used Early Advantage's Muzzy program and cannot recommend it enough. It is an award-winning program that was developed by the BBC for teaching foreign languages to children. Combined with doing it at home, we also sought out speakers of the target language to help him learn. Today, my son reads full length novels in German and is yet to watch Apollo 13 in English. When I ask him what they said on Apollo 13, his first reply is "Houston, wir haben ein Problem!"
Finally, we encourage his learning to fight and staying physically fit through judo. This has helped a lot, and my son has consequently taken to reading Sun Tzu and thinking about strategy.
So, to sum it up, don't worry about tech. If you take care of the building blocks of logic and language and foster your child's natural desire to explore, there is no end to what they will do and where they will go.
First of all today many people see programming as a career. I think by 2040, every kid will be a programmer at some level. I'm assuming by then, a youth then will need to know how to program to survive - it will be a basic elementary skill like we learn in school. So a school curriculum could be something like: draw a face using ascii characters on the screen using print statements in say grade 5. Use a for loop in grade 6. Function call in grade 7. Recursive functions in grade 8. Grade 9 - Advanced programming - introduction to the x86 CPU (optional - you can drop computers and take some other subject if you want). Grade 10 - put the CPU into 32 bit mode with 5 page tables. Do you think these things are very hard for these age level? I don't think so.
What if by then - kids played football/or hockey on some days of the week and got together with friends and built a website on another day and played with Lego on yet another? I think by the time you reached college then, and you had Physics as a subject, you would probably write a program to simulate 3 billiard balls on a table and someone strikes them with a 4th. Or implementing a problem solver applying Kirchoff's laws to circuits using Graphs traversal algorithms which she learned somewhere around high school. Today I think people see careers in the IT industry as an end, in 2040 I think Programming will be a means to an end - they will permeate every branch of study you are dealing with - be a Psychology, or Physics or Maths or anything else - creating a website will be normal.
A lot of people are saying IT skills may not be necessary because your child won't work in IT; I think basic IT and programming skills will help people in the next generation understand and integrate in the world around them - so for me programming could be right alongside Math that you learn in high school (how many people use factorization of polynomials in day to day life (which we learned in school)? )
So I think you are right about teaching your kids some basic programming.
I'm just wondering what is it that I had difficulties with/enjoyed: 1) Typing - throw out the QWERTY keyboard and start your child on a Dvorak keyboard from day one - and do typing lessons with her 2) I remember in basic you had screen 2 - 640x480 mode graphics. You could do some great drawing stuff with that - like a circle in a for loop whose radius and origin kept changing with each iteration. 3) Writing PC boot code as more advanced stuff (like when your child reaches high school and still wants to learn more other wise you can stop at recursion and let her take it forward from there)
How to learn.
How to keep his/her creative in a world that tries it's best to kill it.
