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Exposing Children to Technology?
LabelThis asks: "While I'm not a huge fan of immersing children in technology, there is a certain point at which you must expose them to the tools that will help them be successful in the world. Looking back, I distinctly remember my parents making every effort to provide a computer for me and my sibling, early on (they bought an Atari 400 for us when I was 5). Either by accident or on purpose, that single decision (and the continued follow up of purchasing newer computers as needed) shaped my future and the future of my siblings. I now have a daughter, and my wife and I have a number of years to before we worry about equipping her with technology (right now spending time with her and helping her be a happy well adjusted toddler are our primary concerns). In the spirit of my parents choice, what type of tools should parents be equipping their children with, today?"
with or without tech, that away they wont be screwed if they dont have their favorite tech, but make sure they are plenty exposed to tech so they arent screwed in the job market later in life...
in my opinion, definately not the internet. it's not long before they/their friends start getting into AIM and things like that. before you know it, when they're still really small, they'll probably end up loading the computer with spyware and they might even have a myspace or something...teach em how to use a computer, but don't give em the internet until they're older and seem somewhat more responsible.
My parents gave me plastic bags when I was very young. I expecially liked the full-body dry cleaning ones. For my 4th birthday they game me an old refrigerator with a locking door. I loved it.
Trolling is a art,
If you mean "computers" say so. "Technology" is not a synonym for "computers". Hint: cooking is technology.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
As the child gets older, and shows an aptitude for Technology, I would suggest some simple electronics project kits that are suitable for their age, and appeal to their interests.
There are a number of kit manufactures, such as Ramsey Electronics and Velleman which make kits of all types and skill levels. Some of my fondest memories are of having my Dad help me build something. As I got older, I spent my allowance on kits.
Today, I work in a radio station as a Broadcast Engineer. Computers and IT are important, naturally, but if a child shows interest in what's "under the hood", they will have an advantage over their peers who only see the computer as a "box" that runs programs.
Willie...
I first witnessed computer programming when I was 6 - A half brother coded a drawing program for me while I watched. 2 years later, I started taking my old 321 Contacts (GREAT magazine) and programming the Qbasic programs and games, and then modifying them.
It just went up from there. If you can find a good magazine or something for kids that introduces them to programming, DO IT!
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
what type of tools should parents be equipping their children with, today?
Pencils, pens, paper. Printed books--good, old, classic books. They'll learn computers and all that--you can hardly do anything these days without using one. What they need are the basic skills they won't get through computers, and that is accomplished through reading good ol' books and writing.
A PC, networked but no internet, virtual CD (no scratched disks around here), lots of world-building games (Age of Empires, Sims, etc). An LCD screen instead of CRT. Print-to-PDF instead of direct to printer, so we can cancel 99 full colour pages of Pikachu and just print one.
My kids spend time on their computers, but they spend a lot more time playing in the garden. They make their own dolls furniture (wood, nails, paint), miniature food (clay & paint), etc etc. The eldest taught herself to ride the unicycle. What I'm getting at is that they're not mindless blobs slaved to their PCs 24/7 - yes, they sometimes get heavily involved in a game and will play it in their spare time over 2 or 3 days, but then they'll avoid the computer for a week and do something else.
The youngest is now 8 years old and produces her own digital art and newsletters, the eldest (11 yo) types up stories and homework. Both use an mp3 player on their computers, and because the music available to them is all my own favourites (mostly 70's and 80's), it's very interesting to see their tastes via their playlists. They're not exposed to modern rubbish on the radio, so I'm probably warping their minds and putting them forever out of touch with their friends.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
Get the kid a real hardcore synth -- the kind that uses envelopes, oscillators, and filters etc with MIDI ports to boot. Got one in middle school and it taught me more about my major (EE) than you could possibly imagine...
Now then, Dmitri, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Bomb...
One good way to teach critical thinking is to practise it with your child. Ask them questions about how media, especially advertising, makes them feel. Point out to them the tactics that media purveyors use to produce emotional responce.
As your child matures, involve them in your political, economic, and spiritual life. Take them to a political protest and explain why. Engage them in charity and volunteering, perhaps at a local food bank. They will learn humility and also see what it is like to be less prosperous.
It is important for a child to know how to properly express themselves. One great way to teach is to practise it yourself. Take your time when choosing words and sentences, and always be honest.
Morals help us to act rightly, even when no one is watching. The internet provides a great deal of annonymity, and a strong moral sense serves as compass and shield.
...a few suggestions from someone who doesn't have it all right, but gets closer every day...
could it be?
As far as tech goes they'll be inundated from their earliest days although I'd work with them in bits :) and words to ensure they have a conceptual grasp of the how it is that computers work. Too often in education an assumption is made that everyone gets the basics then students are shunted up the ladder where often they can't grasp concepts because the basics learned by rote weren't fundamentaly understood.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
is you. Your time, your attention, and your approval. You appear to know all of that, but sometimes we get caught up in being good little consumers and buying "tools" when we should be focusing on the tool wielder.
With kids aged 18, 15, and 14 I have some experience in this. I can view with 20/20 hindsight the mistakes I made and the triumphs, such as they were. Without exception my failures have involved taking my eyes off of them for just a little while.
Play with them. Make them earn everything but love (and what you're required by law to give them). Don't be afraid to punish bad behavior. Don't reward tantrums, whining, or other manipulation, but do reward reasoned persistence.
Reward honesty, so much that if the has a "cherry tree" moment, give praise and forget the misdeed. Punish dishonesty in every form.
Punishment should fit the misdeed, and should be designed to benefit the family in the long run. Reserve corporal punishment for "you ain't the boss of me!". It will come. Whack 'em. They'll get over it.
If you give them a computer, make it known that you can lock them out of it at your slightest whim.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
I myslef am married with a 2.5 year old daughter. I must proudly say that she uses a laptop very well for her age. Just this past weekend my wife set up her laptop with the kid websites like Dora the explorer and a few others. My daughter navigated her fun and games sites like a champ. Yeppers, going to be another geek in the family. My wife is the one that keeps her grounded in everything else. Like social stuff and that sort of thing. I guess we teach our child what each knows best. I would have to answer your question with the obvious. When ever you think you want to buy/build your child's first computer. It's up to the parents and not anyone else.
Modular: This builds off the interest. The more modular a device is, the more ways it can be assembled and the more games the kid can make up as they go along. Later on, modular becomes good for developing experiments, trying to see what works, what doesn't, and what produces the Magic Blue Smoke.
Fun: Intellectual interest is great, but it'll need to hold a high level of emotional interest, too - kids aren't known for having vast reservoirs of intellectual interest. Too few adults do, either, but that's beside the point. Besides, they can always become Talk Radio hosts.
Some examples of what is good:
Some examples of what would work for SOME kids, especially if older:
Stuff that is useless:
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Disclaimer: I am not a parent. Hell, I'm still half a kid myself (23).
One of the most important things you can teach your kids is not to be just a consumer but a producer, too. Teach them that using a computer doesn't just mean to download software and watch flash animations, but that a computer - any computer - is a tool for self-expression.
A computer is one of the most important tools of today. While it is a tool for the advertising department of company XYZ, it is also a tool express your thoughts (and dare I say it) dreams.
The ultimative producer experience is, in my humble opinion, writing a good program. (Don Knuth is with me on that one.) Programming in the right language* is a delighful thing.
That is what you should teach your kids.
* LISP is a good candidate since it is extremely simple and powerful. These two things go hand in hand.
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
A computer is a tool, teach your kids that.
The internet... is a distraction that young children don't need.
Or if you do decide to stick them on the internet, be there while they use it. Make it an experience that involves you, the parent. Don't let the internet turn into the TV babysitter that some parents use.
And for God's sake, don't let them log on as Administrator.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Or, give them a pencil and paper and tell them to work it out by hand.
I recommend getting her an SGI Tezro workstation, while SGI's still around. She'll be awed by the stylish enclosure and rocksolid IRIX operating system running on an XFS foundation. As her pre-school colleagues grapple with color precision and flawed volumetrics, she will be smooth sailing by the smooth CFD visualizations on her scientific-grade machine. As SGI folds during her later years, she'll appreciate your foresight in giving her a piece of computing history. Don't be late; start her off on a real computer.
I think you'd be right to point out that things like computers should be granted as privileges for good behavior over a long period of time. I'd suggest balancing things slightly differently though. The occasional random "just because I love you" gift as well as the semi-regular "you'll do it because it needs doing." It's not a good idea to overindulge, but you don't want to ignore and boss around too much either.
Personally, I'm in favor of keeping things on pencil and paper more or less until teachers start asking to have papers typed. (Maybe late middle school?)
Some of my friends in college didn't see a computer until mid/late high school and they still have a hard time with the difference between a file and folder, or understanding that you should navigate by reading the menu if you aren't familiar with the interface. That's a big setback these days. Give them a chance to play and work with a computer before high school for sure.
If you really want to help them though, and avoid the nagging "buy me stuff" attitude, dump the TV, or anything else that has commercials (monitor Internet as that takes off). The complaints about violence on TV causing problems might well be unfounded, but you can find any number of advertising agents who explicitly say that their goal is to make your kid nag you to death, and they don't get paid the big bucks for nothing.
Now, stop and think about the logic of this. First, you're asking a bunch of geeks for parenting advice. Only a few of us have kids. Next, you're asking the kind of question which doesn't provoke the kind of thought that would lend a helpful answer; doubtless you'll toddle off and go do whatever you felt like doing anyway, as you should do anyway. Finally, you're asking what you can do for someone so that by 16+ years from now, they'll be prepared.
Now, if you were 18 today, what kind of insight would you have gained from your explorations of technology in 1990? Let's see, here: Cell phones would be lost on you. You'd probably have learned to type on an IBM Selectric. You'd have discovered Windows 3.0 running on a 386 PC or a Mac box. With the Windows box, you'd get as far as DOS and the QBasic language and hit the wall after that, and with the Mac you'd be drawing nifty black-and-white bitmaps and learning Hypercard. If you got to tour a workplace of the time on a school field trip, you'd get to learn about how computers are huge blue cabinets in special cold rooms with Halon dumps and running things like VMS. You'd get real handy at copying songs from the radio onto tape cassettes, or at least scoring on CDs if you were pink. Ipod's would never have entered your sphere...
You see where it's going, now? There's almost nothing you can show your kids today that won't be landfill fodder by the time they're getting a job. As a last ditch effort to say I recommended something, I'd say give them Linux to play with, so at least they'd get to see a system that's geared to enable learning from the guts outward. As opposed to proprietary systems which are designed to keep you in the dark and hence dependent on "The Man" like a junkie scoring their fix, endlessly chasing the delusion that you can pay somebody else to do your learning for you. But by now, I suppose you're just sneering in contempt at the audacity to suggest such a thing, even though my kids have had no problem doing everything they want to do on a Linux box, and I'm OK with that, and I'll be OK with your kids working for my kids, too!
At least some good has come of this exchange, this time. I've set the point in concrete once and for all so I can copy and save this reply in a file, the quicker to post the *NEXT* time we get this question.
While I'm not a huge fan of immersing children in technology...
I am. Dump 'em in a vat of PDAs and see what burbles up.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Wrong. Every generation has both types. Your rosy view of the past is only detrimental to this discussion.
It's because our parents didn't spend 98% of the salary on buying shit for us kids.
Yeah, your opinion is OBVIOUSLY 100% accurate and nobody did anything else. Oh wait. Take your crotchety bullshit elsewhere, thanks.
since he's 13, I'd think he'd be old enough for something more complex than logo for instance. so, since he likes games, a good language would be one he could write some in (i.e. no COBOL for him), but as a bonus might turn into a marketable/useful skill later on in the non-gaming world if he keeps an interest. There's a number of C++ for beginning games books out there, but I might actually lean more toward learning something with quicker results, say perl combined with SDL_perl (recently mentioned here on /.) or python + pygame.
I am a parent of two boys (8yr and 13yr respectively). My philosophy raising my kids has never been to hide things from them as a means to "protect them". I don't really buy into movie or video game ratings. Hiding things from your kids rather than teaching them to experiment, learn and think for themselves based on their personal experiences is doing them a disservice. It's the parenting equivalent of "security through obscurity" and in the long run is not security / parenting at all. Certainly, parents must not expose their kids to things they simply aren't ready to handle. I'm not handing the keys to my car to my 8yr old any time soon.
Parenting is about involvement; about giving your kids a safe space to learn, both from their successes as well as their mistakes. Hiding things from your kids is not involvement. Discussing topics with your kids is parenting. Allowing your kids the freedom to experience life and make their own choices and live with the consequences as a learning experience for future situations is what parenting is about. Simply safeguarding your kids from everything that might be potentially damaging is only setting the kids up for a future shock that will have far more dire outcomes than what they could have learned at home making small mistakes with the safety net of their parents.
My kids have been playing and using the computer since each were 5yrs old. My oldest learned his alphabet playing Quake because I refused to show him where the letters were on the keyboard nor would write down any of the commands but would simply spell them out and require him to figure it out. It was great motivation for him and a great learning experience. Yeah, the end result... shooting other people... wasn't exactly what I would have liked to see him doing with his time but I worked with him not against him.
Both of my sons have learned the value of being able to read and write while playing games such as DAoC, UO, WoW, Halo, Unreal despite not being that thrilled with such subjects in school. Both, I believe have learned the value and importance of communication. Spelling is not just that boring thing your teachers make you do at school. It's how you communicate with your fellow players online. Without the computer and the ability to play and interact online, I doubt either would have as much appreciation for reading and writing.
So, IMO, expose your kids to technology as soon as you can while your kids still listen to you and have the umbrella of the home to provide them a place to experiment with life. Stay involved with your kids, make them think on their own. I think the worst thing you could do is protect them by hiding things from them and pretend such things don't exist.
Runesabre
Enspira Online
Nowadays parents spend all weekend with their kids.
Part of me thinks this is a troll, but the fact that it has been modded up so high forces me to reply...
So the above quotation is seen as a bad thing by the poster who either a) has no kids, or b) has no kids. As a parent, you try to do what is best for you children. I'm not saying that parents don't make mistakes, and that the word "spoiled" is not in the dictionary, but given the society that we live in where oftentimes both parents work in order to try and give their children the best opportunities possible, the weekend comment is totally out of line, and so is the whole rant-of-a-post that, again, I can't believe has been modded up so high.
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
Cooking is a good introduction to experimentation and elementary chemistry etc. Lego for spatial & basic construction skills. Get a steam engine or a Stirling engine, some magnets,... Fix a bike, brew some ginger beer... Fly a kite, knit some socks... Just whatever you do, do something **real**, not virtual computer simulation crap.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
That reminds me of how at some point (7th grade or later?) the teachers started asking us to hand in such things typed because at the _next_ level of school they'd require it. And of course at the next level they didn't really require it for the most part, but reminded us that at the _next_ level they would. And the next thing I know I'm writing (and correcting) hand-written reports for graduate courses.
One thing I really can't see in mankind's future is the obsolescence of paper. Or pencils.
This signature is not in the public domain.
This is the silliest recurring post I see on slashdot and here's why: what's the demographic of the average slashdot reader? late-teens to late twenties, male, geeky (but perhaps not in keeping with the dorky sterotype of our predicessors)? So, as a parent, you're going to ask THIS group of guys when you should do something that has potentially long-lasting impact on your child... riiiight. Speaking as the father of three, I won't do it. My kids are too special and too important to risk horsing up on account of taking the advice of a bunch of guys who know as much about children as they do about grammar.
/. crew is the LAST group of people on earth I would turn to for advice on parenting.
No offense, but the
-C
"This above all, to thine own self be true"
We have two kids. When our oldest was 2-ish, we set up an old non-networked machine with a Sesame Street game. At first, she'd pull us over to the computer when she wanted to play. We'd put the CD in and start the game up for her.
Then we started to notice that she was playing the game, but neither of us had started it up. She'd figured out that she could click on the desktop icon and hit enter to start it up.
We got a couple more games. She learned how to swap CDs, and which CD went with which game.
When she was 3 and half, I gave her an old Logitech ClickSmart digital camera. It's great for kids. I configured the software to automatically download and delete the pictures from the camera, and showed her how to plug the cable in, and how to launch the photo album software. For two weeks, every time I turned around, it was "Surprise Daddy!" CLICK! FLASH! I had spots in my eyes constantly.
She's now 4 and a half. She's been upgraded to a 700 Mhz Athlon. She goes to the Noggin website to play games, and has half a dozen or so games she likes to play. There's a link to Noggin on her desktop, and she knows which CD goes with which games, and can start them herself.
The computer is just another toy to her. She still draws with her crayons and plays games and does all the usual kid stuff. But she will never be able to remember not knowing how to use a mouse. She's also getting good at framing stuff in the camera.
Her old machine was inherited by her 2 year old little sister. We found a game that lets kids just pound on the keys. She seems to like it.
That is such wrong advice that I don't even know where to start. Look, kids need solid parental role models in their lives. My ex lives almost 2,000 miles away, so she only sees the kids on long school breaks. Not that she was all that available as a mom before the divorce. Not really her fault, though. Her own childhood is the stuff that nightmares are made of. I just wish I'd known about her upbringing before I proposed. Maybe we wouldn't have gotten married, maybe we would. I do know that I would have preferred knowing what the core problems were before I spent 18 years trying to figure it all out. But I digress.
Before we were divorced, my kids had been struggling in school. My youngest was nearly two years behind in reading, and my son was struggling to keep up with his class. At least he passed everything. If my ex and I watched everything he did, that is. (sigh)
After the divorce I was very worried about my younger child's reading issues, and devoted almost all of my spare time to getting her up to snuff. I was successful to the point that she's now reading about 18 months ahead of her grade, but my son suffered. It got so bad that last year he failed 3 classes in 9th grade and I had to withdraw him from a 4th to prevent another F on his transcript. I know that a lot of that had to do with how I was coping with being a single parent while working full time.
The last quarter of his 9th grade year, I met and fell in love with a wonderful woman. We were married the following August. She has been nothing but a strong, postive stepmom for my kids. In many ways she is a far better mom than their birth mom has ever been. She has also helped make me a better dad as well. My son's GPA is nearly a full point higher than it was last year. He's passed every class so far, and is slowly learning how to stay on top of stuff (something that I could never seem to get through to him on my own).
My wife's kids were also struggling. Her ex is a nice guy, but seems to be completely incapable of maintaining any boundaries for his kids. It made it virtually impossible for her to teach her kidsself discipline. The good side is that he lives close by, and sees them every other weekend and every Wednesday. He is also more than willing to run his kids around.
Still, my wife tells me that having me around and silently backing her up when she needed to discipline them was a real eye opener for her children. We've had some rocky incidents, but clearly her kids are happier and feel safer now than they did in the past. Their grades are up as well (although they didn't have as far to go as mine did).
Moral of the story for me is: MAKE SURE that whoever you consider marrying is both willing and capable of doing their part to make your marriage and family life a success. That is the secret to any successful marriage, regardless of whether or not kids are involved, and regardless of whether it's your first, second, or twenty second marriage.
Now, back on topic:
My kids have had access to their own accounts on my Linux boxes since they were four or five. They started out with things like Tux Paint and have moved on to playing games, using OpenOffice, gaim for the teens, etc. My stepkids had Windows XP growing up. The teen still prefers that. The younger one is more willing to experiment with Linux to get stuff done. We have two Linux PCs and a WinXP box at the moment.
The grades of all 4 have shown improvement since we got married. I attribute it more to a much happier home life for all than any technology availability. But I don't think that you can say that they've been hurt by the easy availability of tech, either.
The truth is that our kids are growing up in a far different world than we did. The rate of change itself continues to accelerate. It really doesn't matter how you teach your kids. WHAT you teach them is far more important; impart a strong sense of values, teach them self discipline, and teach them the skills necessary to continually learn new subjects as they come up.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry