WingNews

ams6110|7 years ago

It's an immense amount of effort to do it consistently. And it gets harder with each kid, at least for me.

One of the things you figure out is that some kids aren't interested. And if your kid isn't interested in thinking about prime numbers, you're going to be hard pressed to change that. Conversely they will have interests that you don't share, and it's going to be harder for you to participate meaningfully in that beyond being generally supportive. They are individuals that way.

minor3rd|7 years ago

> One of the things you figure out is that some kids aren't interested. And if your kid isn't interested in thinking about prime numbers, you're going to be hard pressed to change that. Conversely they will have interests that you don't share, and it's going to be harder for you to participate meaningfully in that beyond being generally supportive. They are individuals that way.

I grew up in a family with 7 kids and my youngest sibling is just 12 years old. I remember when my younger set of siblings were born, I was thinking "I'm going to teach them EVERYTHING I've learned at a young age, and they will be way ahead of their peers." I failed to grasp just how much of their personality is ingrained in them from their DNA and that they might not have all the same interests as me. It was a great learning experience though -- when I do have kids, I'm not going to try and shove my interests down their throat. I'm going to pay attention to what they are drawn to and give them as many resources as I can so they can pursue that interest as much as they desire.

icc97|7 years ago

Yes, it's notable that Brent's son first was interested enough to ask him and then stayed interested as he explained.

You can't start telling your child about maths if they're busy doing something else. All you can do is wait for a moment when their curiosity spots something and try to feed that.

Even when you catch their interest it's easy to break it if you can't explain it, so los of kudos to Brent for navigating it perfectly.

jimbokun|7 years ago

My teenage son is a musician and is taking AP Music Theory right now.

I ask him to tell me about what he is learning, and he patiently tries to explain it to me, but I just nod along because I have no idea what he's talking about.

hycaria|7 years ago

>And it gets harder with each kid, at least for me.

That is the most depressing thing I've read in a good while.

jedberg|7 years ago

One thing that makes this easier is being rich. What I mean by that is for example, when my kid is asking me questions or wants to "do it myself!", the fact that I have a flexible schedule helps immensely, and that flexible schedule is possible because I can turn down work that doesn't give me that flexibility.

If I had a strict clock-in/clock-out job, and only had limited time to run errands, I'd have a lot less patience for waiting for my kid to do stuff or answering her questions.

I consider myself very lucky that I have that privilege and can pass that on to my kids.

imnotadoctor999|7 years ago

Maybe it helps being rich, but just as a counter example, my grandfather was never rich. He was a clock-in/clock-out guy and still managed to spend a lot of time with me while I was growing up. He had a lot more patience than most of the "white collar" adults in my life ever did, and taught me lots of useful skills like how to fix a lot of electrical or mechanical things.

pbhjpbhj|7 years ago

We actually made a decision to cut our income considerably in order to be as involved as we can in our kids upbringing - we're basically almost always able to go to school concerts, we always eat together, we practically never aren't with them at bedtime, etc..

It's great. But I think we missed the balance a little - there are so many life experiences that are out of reach that we parents experienced when we were kids. Yes being tight with our kids is awesome - but when they get old enough to spread their wings a little, and when they're inquisitive about new things, then supporting that is exceedingly difficult when you're of low means.

School skiing trip? Not a chance, way out of our price bracket. Holiday abroad? Same, the interest is there, they're keen to learn geography/languages/culture. Piano lessons? Same, we've got a keyboard, one child is really keen and show some ability but we don't have means to support him in that and let him find fulfilment through that creativity.

But I do get to talk Fibonacci series; build fires in the woods; teach them about how aliens with 0, 4, 16 fingers count; but buy an up to date globe, or take them for a train ride, or go on a boat, or have a pet, or visit a mountain, ...

My problem is not time so much, nor fostering inquisition, but resources to develop the questioning in to solid foundations. Our kids are not the free-spirits of knowledge-hunger we anticipated because we instead have to follow economics.

gowld|7 years ago

It's not "being rich" that helps, it's having a high hourly rate of pay relative to expenses. Many rich people work 60+ hr weeks with travel, and don't see their kids much. Many non-rich people are stay-at-home parents or extended family. Of course, they can hire nannies, governors, and tutors to fill in the gaps...

insensible|7 years ago

Dad of 8 here. It makes life so sweet when we acknowledge the child's capacities. Notice it didn't take that much patience...it's almost just a matter of creatively overcoming a language barrier.

curun1r|7 years ago

I'd think it would also be a great opportunity to have access to a young, malleable mind that's unencumbered by a significant body of past experience and preconceived notions. Every answer is like a pure function...it's derived from first principles rather than coming an existing corpus of 'state'. It seems like a tremendous opportunity to expand your own viewpoint with perspectives that you'd naturally ignore based on your own past experience.

A good friend of mine was the grandson of a couple that ran a school for gifted children. When they retired, there was a video produced about their careers and, at one point, they were both asked what they liked best about their jobs. His grandfather answered, "Getting to speak to the children every day." His grandmother answered, "Getting to listen to the children every day. I always liked her answer better than his.

jedberg|7 years ago

Out of curiosity, did you mean you have eight kids, or your kid is eight years old?

Because if it's the former, I'm impressed you have even one second to be on HN!

freedomben|7 years ago

If you do have 8 kids, that's amazing. I have 5 myself and most of the time I feel more like a zookeeper/riot policeman than a dad.

andrei_says_|7 years ago

And, kids are fascinating conversationalists

wikwocket|7 years ago

As a parent, I agree. One should not shy away from talking about "advanced" topics. Kids are naturally curious and bright and I think we should encourage their desire to learn and understand complex things.

I worry that if you try to dumb down things for kids, they might become interested in dumb things. :)

Also, as the OP mentions, it can be a fun "pedagogical challenge" to try to explain free theorems or turing completeness or MySQL sharding to a young child. And you may find a clever way to describe it, that they can easily understand, which is satisfying for both of you.

intrasight|7 years ago

When my daughter was 10 we were waiting in line to checkout at a Home Depot. She asked me what was algebra. I think she had heard the older kids mention it. I responded with a question. "A plus B = 10, and A minus B = 1. What are the values of A and B?" She puzzled it over while I check out. Then her face lit up like a whole realm of knowledge had just opened up to her, and she proudly told me the answer. It's a special moment that we will both always remember. She told me that as a camp counselor that she has challenged younger kids who seemed bored with the same problem.

Do challenge your kids intellectually beyond their years and you might be pleasantly surprised. My daughter heads to CERN in two weeks to study anti-matter, and I have no doubt that our brief intro to algebra at a Home Depot has a small role to play in that journey. Maybe Star Trek did too :)

AndrewKemendo|7 years ago

I have three very inquisitive kids and I love trying to explain complex topics, like reinforcement learning, to them in a way that they can understand. The best thing I get out of it is clarity for my own understanding, or gaps/lack of clarity, so it's a valuable exercise.

People don't give children enough credit for what they can really understand.

I remember distinctly teaching my oldest daughter how to do a basic cipher - like direct substitution and she got it immediately. I also taught my son how to do pin bumping and pin counting/picking on locks with my lockpick set. I even bought him a transparent set of master locks to practice on and he would sit for an hour at the age of 4 picking those locks. The obvious downside now is that he knows how to get into everything!

Very cool to watch what are basic principals being applied at the very basic level.

cerberusss|7 years ago

Exactly. My 4 year old sometimes surprises me like that. Last week she asked me how you can talk into a mobile phone. So I said, there's a tiny transmitter in there, and it sends the voice over waves in the air. So she's like, "OK" and I thought it went over her head.

Then yesterday she asked: "Why couldn't you call gramps when we were on the plane?" I told her that the mobile phone wasn't close enough to the receivers on the ground.

It amazed me that obviously some facts had been stewing for a week in that tiny head. And out comes another question.

freeopinion|7 years ago

When my mother died, I was asked to think of one word to describe her. The best word that I could come up with was "teacher." One quick example: when my own child was 2 or 3, we spent some time with Grandma at Yellowstone National Park. Grandma walked with her grandchild through the park and explained geisers, plate techtonics, and many other topics of geology. I rolled my eyes and thought, "Really? He can barely speak and you are delivering a college lecture?" But then I remembered all the college lectures of my own youth. It's amazing how much even the youngest minds can absorb.

One of my biggest failings as a parent has been to assume that my children will learn things somehow without me teaching it to them. If anybody learned 1/3 of what my mother taught them in detail, they learned a lot.

thenobsta|7 years ago

Related, "Math from Three to Seven" by Alexander Zvonkin[1] is an excellent book on discussing math with young kids.

[1] https://bookstore.ams.org/mcl-5/

nickpeterson|7 years ago

https://www.amazon.com/My-Little-Big-Math-Book/dp/9198282603

I have not read this, but it's from the same person who helped create "anchor modeling" and I find that quite interesting.

avip|7 years ago

Note kid asked "dad what are you doing", not "what is functional programming". That's a simple call for attention, and it was equally suitable to close the book and play frisbee with him.

ascorbic|7 years ago

No. Children like to copy their parents, and want to learn about what they do. If a six year old wanted to play frisbee, he probably would have asked to play frisbee. At the very least he would've made his boredom clear pretty quickly. Yes, he wanted attention from his dad, but best of all was being able to learn about dad's grown up stuff by doing something they both enjoyed.

ookdatnog|7 years ago

No, he asked "What are you reading?" and followed up with the question “What are free theorems?”

freedomben|7 years ago

The kid was crying out for a math education!

On a serious note, you may be right in that it's a simple call for attention, but at least with my kids those are the opportunities for the best instruction, because the kid is usually bored, curious, and wants attention. If you give said attention, and answer questions in a way that they can think through and reason about, they will grok stuff you never expected.

dsnuh|7 years ago

Yes, those are equally suitable choices as you say. Why are you implying that stopping to play frisbee would have been the more "equally suitable" choice in this situation?

bonesss|7 years ago

Who's to say you can't talk about functional programming while playing frisbee? Who's to say that 9/10 times the kid gets some rough housing when he asks?

And much more likely: who's to say that the overstimulated little monster that asked 15 questions in 5 minutes doesn't need a little dose of adult life to encourage some self-play?

rimliu|7 years ago

The kid got the attention and some more. How would frisbee be any better?

theoh|7 years ago

Boo!

LyndsySimon|7 years ago

I'm a father of two girls, ages four and nine.

Explaining things to them and seeing the dawn of understanding in their eyes in easily my greatest joy in life. As a parent, I basically get to relive this xkcd[0], over and over, every day.

We take it to an extreme - we unschool[1]. We do our best to treat our daughters as any other member of the family, expecting to act as adults to the extent that they're able to do so. My nine-year-old spends much of her days right now playing Roblox and Star Stable, but even that is punctuated by her coming to us with random questions about things she's interested in. If I'm not head-down on a project I take the time to explain as best I can. If I'm otherwise occupied I always at least take the time to say "Go search for <insert keywords>" and follow up with once I'm free.

The results have, so far, been incredible. Our oldest was a late reader by the standards of the testing done in government schools, but once she ran into something she wanted to do that could only be accomplished by reading, she achieved fluency more quickly than I would have ever expected. For what it's worth, that "something" was an online RPG where she had to do quests to progress. In order to do that, she had to be able to read the quest text.

These days she's engrossed in the "Pegasus" series by Kate O'Hearn, and devouring them at a rate of ~1k pages per week. She'll have finished the series by the end of this week and I'm hoping she'll pick up Asimov's "Norby" series next. If not, she'll find something else that interests her and continue reading well into the wee hours of the morning I'm sure.

0: https://www.xkcd.com/1053/ 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling

azinman2|7 years ago

My problem is unschooling is that just because you’re not interested in something (as a kid) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn it.

It’d be nice if traditional school had a better balance where personal interests could be explored in a structured and formally accepted way.

owenversteeg|7 years ago

Huh, that's the first time I've heard of unschooling, it seems like a really cool concept. If you don't mind me asking, where do you live and what are the laws like around unschooling there? How are people's reactions?

avip|7 years ago

I often tell my kids "I'll explain that when you're 16", or "you're too young for that, go out and play". This has proven to be very effective in motivating them to think for themselves, or ask someone more collaborative (s.a mom)

agumonkey|7 years ago

the more you try the less they want

shawn|7 years ago

It's fun to talk to kids! Many of them are way more curious than most people are.

sizzzzlerz|7 years ago

And it is endlessly entertaining to see just how quickly their minds can wrap around a subject you would think is too advanced for them. Its a matter of establishing a common language. Seeing that light go on in their eyes is unbelievably satisfying.