Ask HN: Are you teaching your kids to code? (and how)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39701593

by actfrench • 2 years ago

16 40 2 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Parents of Hacker News, I'm curious to know if parents in the tech community here are teaching their kids to code - and if so, what apps, online classes, or other resources you're using? What do you like? Thanks!

actfrench12• 2 years ago

As a follow-up, I'm also curious if you think coding is still useful for kids to learn, both in terms of innovative skills and preparation for jobs...or will AI largely obliterate the need to code...

ThrowAIAway• 2 years ago

I'm not sure why you are being downvoted. This is an excellent question in light of recent AI innovation.

actfrench12• 2 years ago

Thanks:) I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!

codingdave• 2 years ago

Learning to code is far less about training kids to be software professionals, and far more about basic technical literacy. It also has strong correlations to improved performance in school in general because it teaches problem solving, logic, and debugging. In the early years when it first entered schools, even the people teaching it were surprised at some of the positive results - kids approaching poor grades on tests as a debugging opportunity, not a failure, etc.

My favorite analogy is to compare coding to writing - do you go around asking "Why are we teaching kids to write if they aren't going to become a novelist?" No, writing is a valuable skill in the world even if it is not your job. Computational thought is likewise valuable, even if you never actually code.

AI may change some of its importance and impact, but it won't ever diminish the overall benefits. If anything, it is going to be even more important to have your own skills in structured thinking so that you don't just let AI handle everything for you.

roland352• 2 years ago

I am not really actively teaching them, but I am providing some resources like books. My older son (8) enjoys playing around with Scratch. I think it's great and at this age it's just good to experiment.

actfrench12• 2 years ago

Super. Would you be willing to share some of the books you're using?

roland352• 2 years ago

I like this book for scratch: https://usborne.com/us/quicklinks/quicklink/15338-coding-for...

And this one for Python: https://www.amazon.com/Python-Kids-Playful-Introduction-Prog...

useresd2• 2 years ago

Excellent. I am also encouraging 7 years old kid to play around with Scratch. He seems to enjoy the block coding. It actually started to make sense for him. He know knows when to use loops and why to use them.

The only problem is that he ran out of projects or ideas to implement in scratch. So, I bought him Minecraft Education Edition, which actually have support for Block Coding to more a robot around.

mattbrewsbytes2• 2 years ago

Maybe its my personality or upbringing but I saw many instances where parents forced their kids into something because it was what the parent liked or was interested in (not just sports but same concept) and I didn't want to do that at all. I saw kids have a love of something and that get completely ruined because the parent basically made it their kids' job.

With my kids there wasn't any natural interest in it from them. Their interest in anything related to computing is consumption based not creator based. I've let them know if that changes, I'm here and can help. I try to encourage them in the things that they are interested in.

actfrench12• 2 years ago

It seems like interest and passion are key when it comes to coding. It's good to expose kids, and if they like it, they'll keep learning and growing as programmers. If they don't resonate with that type of work, it probably won't get them that far.

useresd2• 2 years ago

I like your conception about supporting your kids to grow on what they like. I didn't want to be forced in the medical field by my parents. I liked computers and was dreaming about being a software developer since I was a kid.

But, on the other hand, I do encourage my kid, who is 7 years old, to get his hand dirty with programming. I let them solve problems using Scratch and Minecraft Education Edition.

I am not forcing him to be a software engineer at all. But I can see how software development has changed my approach to solving problems. It trains the mind to tackle problems and solve them.

decafninja2• 2 years ago

For a very long time my biggest regret was not following my parents’ desire for me to become a doctor.

I “followed my dreams”, being naive and young.

I think I ended up ok. But I would have saved myself a lot of stress and headache had I gone to med school. Granted - I’ll probably have experienced a lot of a different kind of stress.

galdosdi• 2 years ago

And yet, there is a big gap between encouraging a kid to grow up to work as a book author, and just teaching them to read. It is good for kids to learn the basics of many skills, even if they only end up using some of them

mattbrewsbytes2• 2 years ago

Totally. Help them learn and try many different things, it will be obvious what they like and don't. When your kid is upset and crying about going to Cub scouts, repeatedly (not just a bad day), scouting isn't for them.

They like playing minecraft and building others recipes/formulas (not sure what to call them) for farming things. Their motivator isn't the curiosity of "how does this work" or "what can I build" like an engineer's mind, their motivator is competitively acquiring more than each other and their friends.

decafninja2• 2 years ago

I’m conflicted with this. Though my opinion matters little since I don’t have kids and may very well never have any.

But if I have a hypothetical child, I wonder if I’d give a stab at helping them become a world class athlete, musician, etc.

Many of those people started extremely early in life, and supposedly only were able to achieve what they did by doing so.

One of my friends is an incredible pianist. As a non-musician, I feel he is easily as good as anyone that goes on world tours.

But he tells me he is at best mediocre as a professional pianist, and had no chance to become better because he started at age 6 instead of before age 5.

actfrench12• 2 years ago

While it's true that people start their careers early in life, this may also be an indication that they simply have a strong proclivity towards that field. There have been longitudinal studies, for example, that demonstrate that when kids do play-based learning in kindergarten vs hard core academics, they do as well, if not better at academics later on. There have even been studies that show it's better to delay kindergarten for some kids. https://pz.harvard.edu/projects/pedagogy-of-play

The other danger is that forcing a kid to learn a skill they're not interested in early can turn them off to it all together.

I haven't done a ton of research on this, but I do know that often when kids start early, they can also burn out (look at child actors as an example). The only area I've seen research on a real difference is children who learn languages before age 5 (and how they process the languages in their brain)

There are some amazing developers who learned to code as adults.

While it could be true, I'm pretty skeptical about age five versus age six being the difference your friend didn't become a world class pianist (sounds maybe like an excuse for not having the talent, discipline or simply the luck, which does play a huge factor). Starting early may help their technique and memorization to some extent, but afterwards judging a musician is highly subjective, and even someone who plays well at one moment in history, may not at another.

runjake• 2 years ago

No. They aren't really interested in learning (yet?), and I don't force it.

I do show them the type of force-multiplying work I can accomplish and they seem mystified. But then they use Scratch in school and can't do the same kinds of things and they aren't yet understanding there's stepping stones to programming.

austin-cheney• 2 years ago

Same. My kids were not interested.

When I grew up it was in the days of DOS. You had to configure things and tinker to get stuff to work. You had to dive in and really get to know the command line. It was thrilling to hack around in stuff you didn't write when the result actually works but does something far different than the original authors intended.

The coming generation has none of that. All they know is content on demand, which really means if somebody is not doing the work for them then it need not be done at all. They are blessed if they can actually use a keyboard to type characters as opposed to a touch screen.

actfrench12• 2 years ago

It's really a shame the way tools are introduced to students (like general appreciation) instead of learning the foundations and why behind doing things.

mikewarot• 2 years ago

I'm not forcing anything on them. They have done a small bit of scripting to get things to happen in Minecraft and elsewhere. As they move to adulthood, I'll offer programming and repair of electronics, etc.. (outside of the college system) as a possible career path to route around their disability. I've done quite a few things, and an apprenticeship/mentoring approach seems to be the best choice for transferring those skills to the next generation.

They do horribly in traditional education, but tend to test well in spite of it.

actfrench12• 2 years ago

It sounds like you're taking more of an unschooling approach. It doesn't surprise me that they're thriving and testing well, despite the huge shortcomings of our school system that's incapable of differentiating learning to any type of student.

parker_at_large• 2 years ago

I plan on introducing them to programatic thinking before introducing them to code. Letting them play around with Scratch, for example. The nice thing about Scratch is that they would probably perceive it as a game, whereas writing code they would probably see it as work.

evnix• 2 years ago

No. Don't want my kid to become a software coolie like us. With AI and scrum masters and micro managers, it is quickly becoming more of a replaceable blue collar job.

actfrench12• 2 years ago

Playing the devil's advocate here...won't we need coders to build the AI, or the AI builders to understand code even if they're not writing it?

muzani2• 2 years ago

IMO it was always just a "skilled labor" job, but somehow the demand put us in white collars. Heck, nobody brought up that software engineers aren't held to the same standards as any other engineer.

gardenhedge• 2 years ago

(Genuine question) What's a job that doesn't have things like scrum masters and micro managers and is still good?

dyingkneepad2• 2 years ago

I tried giving my oldest a Minecraft Redstone lesson. The youngest was also watching, but considering he's a little too young I was focusing on the oldest. The oldest listened and nodded to everything, but never ever built a redstone contraption since then, no interest at all (despite the fact that his world would dramatically improve with some of the stuff I taught him). On the other hand, the youngest now often gets to Creative mode and makes dozens and dozens of contraptions using observer clocks, pistons, trapdoors and dispensers.

You can show them that it's an option and give them an introduction, but you can't force them to be interested. They need to be ready and need to choose it.

actfrench12• 2 years ago

How interesting! I'm curious if your children have different personality types that would natural give one more proclivity towards coding than another? Also, kudos to you for the great child-led learning:)

dyingkneepad2• 2 years ago

They both have very different personalities, but I actually thought the oldest would be more inclined to do programming, the logic part of his brain works flawlessly, he is really really good with raw logic. He's the kind of kid that finds plot holes in TV shows.

gus_massa2• 2 years ago

With my older daughter I used Clasic Visual Basic 6. It's very easy to make small programs with a silly UI that does something. And also make some graphics. I liked Logo when I was a child. If your favorite program haas a turtle odule, I recomend to use it. (Later she switched to C, Python, a litle of R, C#.)

Probably Python is a good first language. I think it has a turtle module, but I'm not sure. https://docs.python.org/3/library/turtle.html looks good.

In may cases, I gave her a simple working program and made het tweak it, until she could write her ow programs.

(I also recomend to teach Excel. Used correctly, it's very powerful for simple math task.)

actfrench12• 2 years ago

Fantastic! I hadn't heard of Clasic Visual Basic 6. Really appreciate the tip. Also, excel is a wonderful tip. Thank you!

gus_massa2• 2 years ago

Clasic Visual Basic 6 is very old, like 30 years old!!! I still have the CD stored somewhere. It's geting harder and harder to install because it ask for Java 4 (exactly) and has a 16 bit installer. I don't recomend it for newcomers. (There is an "unoficial" installer that fix all the problems, but I never tried it.) Also, people make fun of you because it has "basic" in the name and they remember the old unestructured version of "basic". Anyway, for small apps that look nice enough and have two buttons and everyone can use, I still love VB6.

(Now I'm using mostly Racket, but the syntax is too strange if the parent doesn't use it. I recomend to start with Python and save a few parenthesis for later when the kid get enlighted.)

p1esk• 2 years ago

No, but if they express interest I will try to help them.

Quinzel• 2 years ago

My kids are teaching themselves to code and build computers and stuff like that without my encouragement or involvement, apart from some support from me to help pay for some pieces of computer, only if they do some chores or something else that is helpful or good. It’s their interests and I just like them to learn stuff they’re interested in without external pressure or influences.

sahinyanlik• 2 years ago

Well he seems like he doesn't like me even. He better learn by himself.

actfrench12• 2 years ago

I'm sorry. It happens. Hopefully you guys will grow together again when he gets older. Big hug.

muzani2• 2 years ago

The basics is just solving puzzles. It's games similar to The Incredible Machine.

1. Define the problem.

2. Build a part of the solution that gets them closer to the answer. They should be able to evaluate whether this is closer to or further from solving the problem.

3. Build more parts iteratively. Test and debug. These will break earlier solutions sometimes.

4. At higher levels, they define the problem to solve. Make a racing game or a platformer? Automate something. Minecraft is good for figuring this out.

Many other hobbies work here. Paul Graham was inspired by painting. TDD utilizes climbing analogies. Something like cooking may not work because you have a full design and it can't be figured out iteratively.

Spooky23• 2 years ago

I tried to introduce it and it wasn’t very interesting to my son.

Now between Fortnite and 3D printing he’s doing alot of adjacent things and getting interested in a variety of computer topics including some coding.

wojciii• 2 years ago

No. I'm teaching my kids basic math for now. They can learn how to program later if they have the interest for it. Generally I allow them to follow their interests instead of forcing them to learn mine.

Ask HN: Are you teaching your kids to code? (and how)

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