Advice for teaching my child how to be a hacker? | Hacker News Reader

Advice for teaching my child how to be a hacker?

6 pointsflarg12 comments

Long time obsessive lurker here - can't tell you how much I love this place and respect the people who post here.

I need your help. In most situations I normally know what to do - even if it's not the right thing - but I do it - but this - this is the biggest challenge of my life.

I'm having my first child end of Jan - my wife is a fully trained Montessori teacher/obsessive so the kid's regular ed is covered (she always tells me proudly that the "Google and Amazon boys were taught in Montessori" - so no worries on that score ;) - but what should I do? A lowly hacker working for a big-5? I want to get him into hacking and the sort of things discussed on this forum - at an early age - would appreciate your experiences in doing this and what I can do to help him learn and grow.

I don't want to screw this up - I'll do anything to help the little chap grow, be independent, questioning, not be a soft touch but not be too cynical (me), happy, find someone to share life with; in fact thinking about this I should just leave it to my wife who is 10x a better person than me.

All advice gratefully received!

Congratulations.

This free advice is worth what you paid for it.

1. You will screw up. Unless you screw up profoundly, everything will turn out better than you can imagine. Even if you screw up profoundly, everything will probably turn out all right.

2. It's great to have plans. They won't survive the opening phase of the battle. An infant quickly becomes a person. But it takes forever compared to your plans. Montessori is years away. No amount of "good parenting" can short circuit that. There's years of changing diapers and little sleep and having no clue before it comes. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy not having a clue. No parent does, some people just don't realize it.

3. Your child will be a child even when they're six one with a black belt. We're all children at heart. Take advantage of the excuse to act like one.

4. Your child is not you. Their grades are their grades not yours. Their team wins the soccer match. You don't. Your child isn't better when someone else does worse. Parent and pursue your own interests.

It's fun and wonderful and hard. You will need grow,too. You will.

Good luck.

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

  ― Albert Einstein

Let him grow and make his own choices, just be a good loving parent and have faith in him. Forcing knowledge and skills can backfire, make sure you mediate your passion for hacking to him ;)

I espouse a slightly different interpretation of that quote, namely that unsatisfactory answers should spur underlying curiosity. In other words: "Oh, you doubt unicorns exist? Go find out."

The poster didn't give their interpretation :).

However yours is an interesting one I hadn't considered.

I felt he was saying something simular to another of his quotes : 'Logic can get you from a to z, imagination can get you everywhere'

I. E I'd you want your kids to be intelligent don't teach them facts, heighten their imagination.

Well it was a literate response to a mother asking Einstein for tips. Surely it can be interpreted your way too. A strong imagination is linked with creativity anyways, which is good for 'hackers' to have. In my honest opinion imagination is useful for everyone.

Hacking people, particularly yourself, is just as fun as hacking software (please interpret this sentence in a positive/therapeutic way, e.g., mentoring and self actualization). Be aware that there is an unbelievable disconnect between how parents enforce their goals on their kids, and the cognitive development processes of the children. An example is Americans teaching kids to share (the children do not understand self, other, etiquette, and politeness until achieving a certain progression of cognitive development; but they absorb the domination/submission taking place in the encounter). You have one, slight chance, to orient a child to be a hacker. If you try to actively mold the child into a hacker, by exerting pressure to be something that the kid is naturally not, you will likely achieve the opposite, along with all sorts of low-grade psychological issues endemic to the American fabric. The one chance you have is role modeling (while avoiding reward and punishment, including saying "good job!", since these will interfere with role modeling). Role modeling is an extremely powerful force of influence that leads the child to internalize the observed behavior (as opposed to reward/punishment, which likely lead the child to internalize a counter reaction, even if suppressed to the view of the parent).

Play with stuff.

Pull things apart, put them together, wonder if they can be better, make things, experiment, mix stuff up.

Imagine!

It may be that your little one is not interested in computers, but playing, making, exploring, and experimenting will be of value no matter where their interests take them.

Thanks!

"I should just leave it to my wife who is 10x a better person than me."

The first thing to know in a family is to recognize & respect when someone is better than you. You already did that with your wife. I am sure, you will see that in your child - as an individual with his own merits. Children don't need to be taught to be a hacker; they need a companion to explore. See things from his perspective; learn along with him; you will have a wonderful time!

Thanks for that advice - I'm definitely an explorer and may that's what I'll try to pass on

Also op I went to montessori school for a while as a kid. I'm glad I didn't stay. We wernt taught how to be just... Kids. It was all really serious.

My daughter tried Montessori and asked to be pulled out within a day for the same reason. My favorite, though, was my friend trying to get his kindergarten kid into a well respected school for the elite, where they administer an IQ test as part of the entrance exam --- the kid got bored from the test, walked away from it, and said he didn't want to do it. The school said that they had no place for such a kid.

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