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How To Get a Game-Obsessed Teenager Into Coding?
looseBits writes "I have a friend whose 14-year-old son spends all his time gaming, like any normal teenager. However, my friend would like to find a more productive interest for him and asked me how to get him into coding. When I started coding, it was on the Apple II, and one could quickly write code that was almost as interesting as commercially available software. Now, times have changed and it would probably take years of study if starting from scratch to write something anyone would find mildly interesting. Does anyone have experience in getting their children into programming? How did you keep them interested if the only thing they can do after a week is make the computer count to 10 and dump it on the screen?"
"It took my parents years of coming around to this ..."
This.
Don't try to force your hand in the matter. If the kid doesn't want to do it, so be it. A forced hobby is just another chore without allowance to look forward to.
As far as how to encourage it, and there is nothing wrong about that--just know when to lay off, I would recommend playing a game (TOGETHER!!) that allows for HEAVY mod application/usage. Even something as simple as writing LUA mods for WoW might get him/her interested in more complex stuff like full Counterstrike rewrites. Many games come with Construction sets and are excellent tools for learning the mechanics of a game engine.
Last bit of advice. Unless you plan on doing this yourself as well, don't expect your kidlet to pick it up.