[zeidrich]

I read to my daughter every night starting when she was about 10 months old. Now, I read little books to her all the time prior to that too, but we read novels. The first book was the Hobbit, and then we read all the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, then we read Swallows and Amazons, and then we read a number of Discworld novels.

A few pages a night, a chapter, whatever. She enjoyed it. Now she is 2 and she reads for fun. She doesn't "read" read, but she can recognize letters, and she knows what letter her name starts with, what letter her cousin's name starts with, and can figure out the first letter of a bunch of words.

But she reads for fun, she will pick up her books and pretend to read them. She grabbed one of our Christmas cards and read it aloud to us. Apparantly this Christmas card said "Merry Christmas to the Princess" but reading is still something that to her is a fun thing, not a chore, and she does get better, she does recognize letters, she does recognize words, and when she does, she gets excited and wants to read more.

I think this is the big thing. I think the thing that school does to learning is terrible by making it a mandatory chore that you are punished (even indirectly) for not succeeding at.

Learning the way that my daughter is means that reading is always fun. If you pick up something and play with it, and then realize you've learned something, it's always fun. You never hate reading because when you don't want to do it, you just don't. Pressuring your kid to do it when they don't want to will teach them to resent the activity itself.

But your son is a month old. You will learn a lot more about him as he gets older. Everyone around me is surrounded by babies right now, I guess that kind of happens when you have a baby, but what I've learned is that every kid is super different, and the parents don't get to choose it, they just get to deal with it. You can't force your kid to be what you want him to be.

What is important I think is that you remove certain barriers, and leave certain barriers in. Leave in all of the barriers that he can learn to climb over. Help remove the imaginary barriers about what he's allowed to do or what is appropriate.

For instance, you might think that certain math or engineering tasks are too much to handle for someone his age, so you keep them away from him. These are the barriers you should remove. Don't force him to do it necessarily, but if he wants to know or wants to do it, unless it's going to hurt him (a 3 year old with a soldering iron might be an iffy prospect), then make sure he knows he has the opportunity to try in a safe space, or at least give him a path to get there. On the other hand, don't do too much for him, don't remove all barriers, if he wants to work with expensive materials, give him a limited amount, or find a way for him to earn it, especially if you can actually get him to earn the money to buy it directly. This teaches him to overcome those barriers.

But he's one month old, you're on a high, you're thinking about everything. Things will get harder, that high will fade, and you'll start wanting to take back your life. Keep him in your mind then, think about what he's feeling, and what he likes, and how you can encourage him. He's a person, not a project or a trophy.