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Comment by blntechie | Hacker News Reader

Well, I don’t know. I don’t want to pass on my preferences and likings to my kids. I’d like them to figure out things from a clean slate without my opinionated views on top of it, good or bad.

On the other hand, children have to learn things from somewhere or someone. If not me, maybe someone else e.g. a teacher at school. They probably won’t learn things unless we expose several different things to them.

So it’s a conflict between the desire of having the kid learn things which I believe are good or give them the space and time to figure things out and arrive on a conclusion on their own. Maybe CLI, GUI with mouse or touch screens are all not the ideal interfaces at all, maybe the kid will imagine something else altogether, who knows. Why limit their perspective into a box?

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> Maybe CLI, GUI with mouse or touch screens are all not the ideal interfaces at all, maybe the kid will imagine something else altogether, who knows. Why limit their perspective into a box?

Being exposed to old/existing ideas doesn’t stop people from coming up with new or improved ideas - quite the contrary, it serves as a potential inspiration upon which one can create a better product. That’s not putting perspectives in a box, that’s just how innovation works - you build off of and improve other people’s work in an incremental fashion.

I think contrary to what some people think, limited tools spark creativity to extract the maximum out of them. I remember when I learned DOS in a computer class, I absolutely loved creating simple scripts to do some task. Then they introduced us to Windows and basically the entire class groaned and moaned - some people actually complained to the teacher that using the mouse was "cumbersome" :)

And on the other hand, limited tools spark the creativity to create something better. I've been learning kicad recently and it is damn hard to resist the urge to start a project to make a better tool..

"Well, I don’t know. I don’t want to pass on my preferences and likings to my kids. I’d like them to figure out things from a clean slate without my opinionated views on top of it, good or bad."

Actually I really would like my preferences to pass to my kids :) I have this view in my head of mountainbiking across the alps, as a family, cabin to cabin. Man that would make me happy.

Sure, if they don't like it, I'm the one out of luck. I already notice that my 9 y/o doesn't really like mtb-ing with me, he does with his mother. So somehow I may already be to pushy. It's confronting.

Also, I love computers (and almost every aspect about them), my wife thinks they take you out of the real life and envisions our kids as (sports) teachers or something in agriculture. Ah well, we'll see, let's give them lot's of love and some enthusiasm for certain subjects here an there and see what they choose...

> Maybe CLI, GUI with mouse or touch screens are all not the ideal interfaces at all, maybe the kid will imagine something else altogether, who knows. Why limit their perspective into a box?

Typical constructivist approach. As if a 2yo who can't speak, read or write will beat dozens of highly specialized researchers with access to funding on revolutionizing the field...

This is no more a preference than literacy. Kids need to know how to deal with computers and information, and your kids are lucky if you know how to code. Schools will take a bit longer before they figure out how this new literacy is almost as important as reading, writing, and math, but they get there soon.

There's not a single day that goes by without me thinking what could have happened if I learned more about computers from an earlier age. Please give your kids the opportunity that many (myself including) never had, otherwise they might end up growing up with quite a lot of regret.

If I got a computer and internet at younger age, I am not sure I would have finished school successfully.

Seems to me that the actual problem is internet, especially social networks, not just computer alone. Before internet, I could spend hours playing a computer game... but then the game was finished, and I turned off the computer and did something else.

Social networks and Youtube, they provide an endless stream of content; you are never finished with them. Even worse, social networks create the false sense of urgency... there is a huge difference between commenting on a new topic versus on a topic that is a few days old.

So my rules are roughly: computer - yes; youtube and social networks - no.

Agreed, there's a huge difference in learning computing as a consumer, or a producer. I think the best way is to teach kids to be a prosumer and learn producing software after consuming it.

A great example of this are games that are (relatively) easy to hack. Stuff like Minecraft or Roblox comes to mind.

Is it possible to play those games without ever having to make any of the levels or worlds? Yes, but the games heavily encourage you to actually make your own.

They might also grew up and regret spending so much time on computers

I believe it's not an either/or. Your opiniated views will percolate through everything you do and say, and your kids love and imitate you - at first. They will consume and absorb a good dose of your opinions and you can't avoid it. That's how I feel as a young parent.

What we can do is offer them a diversity of experiences and give them some space to choose their own path, but they need our opiniated views to make some of their own - eventually.

> Well, I don’t know. I don’t want to pass on my preferences and likings to my kids. I’d like them to figure out things from a clean slate without my opinionated views on top of it, good or bad.

I wouldn’t worry about that. Kids are wilfully independent individuals and while they will enjoy somethings simply because it is “mummy/daddy time” they will let you know when there is something they don’t like.

Here's an out of domain example that may help. I grew up with 60s music on the radio in my house because that's what my parents liked to listen to ("classic rock" according to the stations at the time). They never really forced me to listen with them, it was just playing in the house, and I enjoyed it. I started to find my own music tastes as I was exposed to more music and friends and eventually a car with a radio, and my tastes developed from there. But, at this very moment, I've got the SiriusXM 60s station on because it's a comforting way to start my day, and I'll eventually move it to the 90s, and then who knows as the day moves on. Maybe some Daft Punk when I really get coding.

Expose your kids to the things you like, but never limit them from exploring on their own. Yeah they'll take on your preferences for a bit because you like them, but as long as you're not limiting their choices, they'll find their own preferences.

> I’d like them to figure out things from a clean slate without my opinionated views on top of it

What clean slate? The alternative is their being influenced by other people's opinionated views.

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