[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling ...
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Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity
It's the start of the holidays. My daughter is 11 y/o and I'm
currently unemployed. I would like to do some projects with her
that may interest her/us while enjoying the time together. Any
suggestions/ ideas would be great!
Author : mquarks
Score : 307 points
Date : 2022-07-03 06:38 UTC (1 days ago)
| Barrera wrote:
| You didn't mention anything she's interested in currently.
|
| Whatever it is follow it, no matter how frivolous or irrelevant
| to future success these may seem. Participate. Really jump into
| it in an unreasonable way.
|
| Things your children get really interested in have a way of
| becoming interesting to an open-minded parent. Note that these
| interest can come and go at the drop of a hat. That's part of the
| fun!
| memcg wrote:
| I was unemployed for 10 months in 1998, so my kids were both
| under 10. My now nearly 30 year old asked me yesterday to go to
| the zoo like we did back then. Washington DC area had (has?) lots
| of free things to do. They both remember fishing, hiking, biking,
| exploring public transportation and just spending time together.
| sq1020 wrote:
| That's amazing! I have two under the age of five and I hope
| they will still want to hang out with me when they're adults.
| Sounds like you're a great parent .
| guidoiaquinti wrote:
| I've just found this
| https://twitter.com/TansuYegen/status/1543534003520770052 in my
| Twitter feed. I hope it can be useful.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| If she's into science and physics, I think that's a great age to
| get her interested in radio.
|
| I recommend starting with an RTLSDR ($30 on Amazon) and a
| homemade dipole. You can use an open source program called GQRX
| to listen to it. This will be fun to just listen to local FM
| radio, air traffic controllers, EMS/Police in your area if it's
| not encrypted.
|
| If she seems interested and you want to go a bit further, buy a
| block frequency upconverter (there's one on Amazon called "ham it
| up" for ~$30) and make a large antenna for the 20M ham band.
| You'll be able to pick up people from all over the country, and
| if you do a good job on the antenna, all over the world.
|
| Most importantly, it's fun and you get to work with your hands.
| You get to have fun trying to get ropes over trees in your yard
| to hang the antenna high enough. You get to deal with the problem
| of measuring out 60 feet of wire and cutting it. You have to
| figure out what trees to hang the antenna on so that it's
| pointing where you want to listen (not directly East, but
| northeast due to the curvature of the earth, Google maps "measure
| distance" can help give a vector). This is all done with a cheap
| run of coax and speaker wire, no more than $40 in materials.
|
| If she's into it, you can get your ham radio technician license
| for a $15 fee, and you can get two way radios on Amazon for the
| VHF/UHF bands for $20 (baofeng UV5R). Fun to study for.
| informisfun wrote:
| When my daughter was a little younger than yours we took turns
| writing and playing interactive fiction adventures. My first
| story began with a neighborhood walk. You find what appears to be
| a lost dog. You want to return it to its owner. Something is
| written on its collar but it's frightened of you and retreats
| when you try to get close to read it. How will you earn its
| trust?
|
| http://inform7.com
| walrus01 wrote:
| a video game like Cities Skylines might not be the worst idea
| ever. I remember being a 10/11 year old and playing the original
| Simcity for PC...
| Pakdef wrote:
| bobobob420 wrote:
| Fiction books
| wryip wrote:
| I started building one of these small wooden boats with my son
| (9) in our garden: https://duckworks.com/mouse-plans/. He's very
| engaged in the project, and receives lots of cheers from friends
| and family. The book "Ultra simple boat building" explains all
| the steps in detail.
| otikik wrote:
| Start making a list of things. It doesn't have to be definitive,
| just a way to start the conversation.
|
| Once you have a long enough list, pull up a calendar and pick
| dates for doing these things. Keep options open (e.g. don't buy
| tickets to that concert too early) because you will have to
| adjust the plan.
|
| Then hang the list and the calendar and review/revisit maybe once
| per week. Add/remove activities from the list, plan them on the
| calendar. Encourage her to decorate or personalise the plan.
|
| This serves multiple purposes. It involves her in the decision
| making. Teaches how to organise time and how to plan.
| Anticipation should build up naturally. She will like a plan that
| she has done personally (IKEA effect)
|
| Have fun together! This opportunity to spend time with her will
| be increasingly rare, treasure it
| jeroenvlek wrote:
| You are unemployed, so I cannot judge your financial means, but I
| keep seeing this pop up in my feeds and it might be cool for you
| and your daughter to build together: https://www.kiwico.com/
| tyrrvk wrote:
| If you are in the US - public libraries are a wonderful resource
| for kids to visit.
| known wrote:
| Guide her to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HowStuffWorks
| Metacelsus wrote:
| Kerbal Space Program!
|
| https://xkcd.com/1356/
| bjornlouser wrote:
| If she has any interest in music then show her MuseScore
| FerretFred wrote:
| Maybe look at building up manual skills if possible. When my
| daughter was 11 y/o I as doing a lot of DIY plumbing in the house
| and I taught her to cut and bend (copper) pipes, and solder pipe
| joints. We used a gas torch, much to the horror of my S.O, but it
| was a useful skill learned and she got really good at it.
| analog31 wrote:
| I think learning to "think with your hands" is not a recognized
| academic skill, but yet there's something real about it.
|
| If at all possible, teach her to ride a bike and to actually be
| able to get around on one if your locale is suitable for it.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| My kids (11, 8, 5) all ride bikes, and are competent enough
| to ride on the road on quieter streets. I've found it to be a
| wonderful bonding experience, and also a growth opportunity
| since they're learning to get around, read signs, navigate,
| plus it's laying the groundwork for later independence.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| One of my professors (a Distinguished University Professor
| and fellow of the American Physical Society) selects for
| "ability to think with your hands". Successful
| experimentalists know that building things that work is
| _hard_ , and having experience with plumbing, soldering, etc.
| really helps.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Go fishing. There's something about hanging out by the water and
| having a good time that is just special. Catching fish doesn't
| really matter.
|
| Also, play cards. My kid and cousins are running a rummy
| "tournament" as I type.
| Gatsky wrote:
| I've heard this from a couple of people - get her to dictate a
| story to you while you type it up (assuming you can type faster
| than she can). If it is long enough then you can send it off to a
| book printing service and get 5 copies or something. It costs a
| bit but the kids really get a kick out of it. You can design the
| cover art with her as well if she is into that.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| If you have any pets, make them the main characters in the
| story. Anthropomorphize then.
| rickspencer3 wrote:
| I had great luck with Sparkfun Inventor's Kit. It came with an
| Arduino, a bunch of sensors and effectors and a manual of
| projects today went step by step to learn electronics and the
| Arduino system.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Swift Playgrounds
| throwawayffffas wrote:
| Make a board game or pen and paper RPG. There's lot of stuff to
| do, art, rules, making up lore.
| rawbot wrote:
| Maybe the rest of HN has a similar, better option, but I could
| recommend LEGO Mindstorms. Eleven would be a good age to start
| getting curious about robots and automation. You should of
| course, help her with it, as it may be too complex for her to
| handle alone at the start.
|
| It is pricey new, but you could get an older version used for
| cheaper.
|
| There's also Nintendo Labo, for a similar, less expensive
| version.
| ArnoVW wrote:
| LEGO Mindstorms is great, but it's amazingly expensive.
|
| They recently released LEGO Boost, which has some limitations
| wrt Mindstorms, but you won't notice it unless you're doing
| advanced stuff. Moreover, it has a great app. And it's one
| third of the price of Mindstorms.
| n4bz0r wrote:
| Not quite the same thing, but, speaking of expensive parts.
| This post seems like the place to share the findings.
|
| As a kid, I would absolutely love to have some of the
| Lego(-compatible) motors [0] that are now available on the
| Chinese market for a few bucks a piece.
|
| Some of the 'regular' sets [1] look quite tempting, too. In the
| bang for the buck department, at least.
|
| [0] https://aliexpress.com/item/1005004221490793.html
|
| [1] https://aliexpress.com/item/1005003548518388.html
| paulcole wrote:
| Give her a can of beans!
| InfiniteRand wrote:
| 11 years is a good age for projects, like building a toy city
| from cardboard boxes, writing a long story, building a puppet
| theatre etc. When I was 11, I half-started a lot of projects like
| that, but usually lost attention pretty quick. I think things
| would be different if my dad was working on it with me.
|
| Or to take something I did actually do with my father and
| enjoyed, going for long walks together.
| ericol wrote:
| I don't think what to do is as important as to how to do it. As
| you are unemployed, you probably have a lot of free time, while
| at the same time having to do house chores.
|
| What I would do, is establish a more or less organized schedule,
| but letting her know that you will set apart a certain amount of
| time daily to play with her. What to do with then, is up to her.
|
| Also, try to get her involved with the house chores. As long as
| it doesn't feel like work - obviously don't make her work -
| she'll also enjoy those tasks, while at the same time learning,
| getting used to it, and enjoying her time with you.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I don't know if you're looking for something less technology
| focused, but--have you ever seen Scratch? I teach classes in
| Scratch to kids professionally, and I happen to think it's a
| really excellent tool. Kids enjoy it a lot, and it teaches a mode
| of thinking that I consider essential for the modern world.
|
| https://scratch.mit.edu/
|
| My company's curriculum is all public. I frankly don't love all
| of the projects, but some are pretty darn good. A few of my
| favorites:
|
| Ghostbusters (Level 1):
| https://coding.space/launchpad/GqrsER3FnGgSZwyTYgkkDdyyty92-...
|
| Apple Catcher (Level 2):
| https://coding.space/launchpad/703c1a8d-0c55-4bcb-b3ef-832ee...
|
| Flappy Bird (Level 3):
| https://coding.space/launchpad/703c1a8d-0c55-4bcb-b3ef-832ee...
|
| This isn't necessarily the be-all end-all way to teach Scratch
| (there are also official tutorials you can check out), but
| especially if you as the parent have some coding knowledge, they
| might be a fun way to learn together. Our philosophy is to
| provide a goal and some direction (for students who need it)
| without ever saying exactly what to do. This forces students to
| learn how to figure things out on their own.
|
| Tiny note, notwithstanding my earlier praise of Scratch, it has
| one very frustrating design quirk that you might want to be aware
| of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31932147
| vivegi wrote:
| Play.
|
| I remember playing with my father who passed away a few years ago
| simple word games. We called that Word-building, a game where one
| player says a word and the next one has to say to word starting
| with the last letter of the previous word eg: Apple, Egg, Goose,
| Elephant and so on. Occasionally my father would say an uncommon
| word and when I asked him what it was, he casually pointed me to
| the dictionary, asked me to bring it and taught me how to use it.
|
| Another game we played then is what we called Name-Place-Animal-
| Thing where we pick a letter and then have to say a proper name,
| a place name, an animal and a thing that starts with that letter.
| For eg: V -> Victor, Virginia, Viper and Vase.
|
| Kids that age love to learn new words and concepts.
|
| Paper-folding and origami are also great to spend time together.
| faster wrote:
| My daughter was a little younger than that when we bought a pile
| of dead DVD drives and disassembled them. Then we build a little
| driver circuit and hooked a laser diode to it. She was so excited
| to come home and take those drives apart after school. She
| learned about how things come apart, the importance of eye
| protection, how to use basic hand tools, and a little bit about
| electronics (I am self-taught and my knowledge is super uneven so
| I'm not the best teacher for that).
| nrjames wrote:
| I did the Mark Rober Creative Engineering class with my daughters
| and we all had a blast. We made a apple slicing guillotine, a
| s'more assembly machine, and a robotic arduino-controlled bird.
| We finished the class 18 months ago and they still talk about it.
| They were 7 and 9 yrs old at the time. The key is to not do it
| all at once but to pace out the videos and exercises and truly do
| when he teaches, from brainstorming, to prototyping, etc.
|
| https://studio.com/mark-rober-engineering
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Just that day I was showing Arduino to my daughter - I know
| very little about hardware so we would be both learning if we
| went with the starter kit (that fact made her happy). Thanks
| for sharing this.
| nrjames wrote:
| Sure! I ended up getting the official arduino starter kit and
| the Elagoo (?) kit Rober mentions in the class list. The
| Elagoo one is more versatile, but they complemented each
| other. A lot of learning, for us, came from finding the
| Elagoo and official projects and tutorials and completing
| them. There are many good guides and examples, but you may
| have to dig a bit on the Elagoo and official sites to find
| them. We had a lot of fun! It's similar to legos, in a sense,
| with a little more thinking required and some cool
| interactive results.
| mhb wrote:
| Use sticks to make fire, then other Primitive Technology
| activities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9n9rqb-lvY
|
| Carve a spoon: https://www.leevalley.com/en-
| us/shop/tools/sets/111261-spoon...
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Let her guide you? I somehow managed to raise three daughters to
| adulthood with their curiosity and love of learning intact, there
| is a luck component of course.
|
| An easy, not much equipment needed, activity is drawing. What I
| like about it is that it incentivizes visualizing things (not
| everyone can, and that is okay, drawing what you are looking at
| can be fun too!) and since I generally was not great at drawing
| nobody felt they were too "bad" at it to participate.
|
| A program the girls took advantage of was Reikes Nature studies.
| One of the things they do is catalog as many things they can see
| at a nearby wooded park. When I read Feynman's discussion of how
| the ants became a source of fascination for him I realized that
| there are zillions of questions right in front in our eyes if we
| think about it. Or perhaps more accurately wonder why things are
| the way they are.
|
| David Macaulay has a great book called "The Way Things Work."
| (and it has funny illustrations of mammoths figuring things out)
| Reading it together and talking about how things work led to
| interesting questions which led to interesting projects to see if
| we could answer those questions.
|
| And generally "active reading" where you read together and talk
| about the characters in the story, what they might be feeling,
| why they might be acting the way they are, and how things might
| be different if something happened in a different way than it
| does in the book.
|
| Perhaps the best idea to be genuinely interested in what they are
| interested in, rather than trying to get them interested in
| something you are interested in. That may seem obvious but it
| wasn't to me at first.
|
| My eldest and I started doing piano lessons at that age, in part
| because the music was interesting and in part because I always
| wanted something "safe" we could talk about (and music was always
| a good topic of conversation).
| [deleted]
| matthew16550 wrote:
| You both might enjoy an Australian TV series called "Curiosity
| Show".
|
| It is science / technology focused and aimed at kids around your
| daughters age.
|
| They explain a lot of fun sciencey things, puzzles and magic
| tricks that can be made at home from very easy to find parts.
|
| The YT channel has over 1000 short videos :
| https://youtube.com/c/CuriosityShow
|
| It was made in the 70s and 80s yet much is still totally relevant
| today. Even the occasional thing that is out of date might be a
| fun history discussion.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Just watched two of them, very cool. I had no idea that animas
| and birds that eat fish whole always always always eat the fish
| head-first.
| alfor wrote:
| Mine just installed planet zoo (20$ on steam) and she is having a
| blast.
|
| I am not for video games in general, but I am surprise at the
| amount of planning, learning involved in this.
|
| We also bought a used cricut and she made some cute stuff with
| it, but there is a computer drawing side to those projects.
|
| You can build stuff together, learn to draw, etc.
| stevekemp wrote:
| Being unemployed probably means you don't have a huge budget, but
| some for our child I've tried to do a little bit of "everything"
| to see what he enjoys.
|
| When I ask him what he wants to do he says "I don't know", so I
| say "We're going swimming in the sea", "Lets plant some seeds",
| "Today we're cooking / sewing", "Lets pick a spot on the map and
| go visit it by bus/tram", or "Lets draw pokemon evolving".
|
| (maps are kinda fascinating to him. I often ask him what he
| thinks he can see if he were stood on top of a particular local
| landmark - he has a good sense of direction, but no idea of
| scale/distance.)
|
| Over time I've learned a bit about what he likes, but he's young
| and fickle enough that some ideas are good one day and terrible
| the next. (For example he loves swimming and playing football,
| but when I put him in age-appropriate classes he refused to take
| part - "I don't like doing what the teacher says, why can't I
| just have fun and play about?")
|
| Electronics is interesting to him, as is listening to "Daddy
| music". (Goth/Rock/Metal.) "Mommy music" doesn't appeal as much
| which I find a little fascinating. Does he genuinely prefer my
| music, or is it something about me? I know that he behaves and
| plays differently depending on who he's spending time with ..
| mlyle wrote:
| > Electronics is interesting to him, as is listening to "Daddy
| music". (Goth/Rock/Metal.) "Mommy music" doesn't appeal as much
| which I find a little fascinating. Does he genuinely prefer my
| music, or is it something about me? I know that he behaves and
| plays differently depending on who he's spending time with ..
|
| There's not an A or B answer to this kind of question. Parents
| are influential, and the response to parents' recommendations
| and preferences are inseparable from the actual relationship.
|
| My oldest son is now 13. Most of what I played for him isn't so
| interesting anymore. But we spent a couple years earlier in his
| life where we went to my workshop and I'd play Kraftwerk and
| he'd get one on one time and we'd do "serious" things.
| Kraftwerk is still treasured to him, and I doubt that it's
| because Kraftwerk was more intrinsically appealing to him than
| those other things...
|
| Or, conversely, my dad always listened to music from rat pack
| performers. It was a subject of curiosity when i was 6-11...
| awful when I was 12-17 and had a terrible relationship with my
| dad, and now it's evolved to a mild appreciation tinged with
| nostalgia. If I was still mad at my dad I think it would be
| hard to like it.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| > When I ask him what he wants to do he says "I don't know"
|
| I had to reach the age of 22 and get the chance to use
| computers for the first time in my life to figure that out ...
| he will be ok :)
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > Does he genuinely prefer my music, or is it something about
| me?
|
| This is a very insightful question. Although I can't answer for
| your child, I know mine takes an interest in almost anything
| that i show love or curiosity for. If I express love for a song
| (not with words but by singing it, dancing to it, etc), he will
| ask to hear it again and again.
|
| Does his mother show a love for music and specific songs?
| stevekemp wrote:
| I see the same thing in other areas, definitely.
|
| He got his first watch, way before he could tell the time,
| because he was so interested in my watch collection and kept
| pleading to wear one "just like daddy does".
|
| But yes I think we both enjoy music, and I think we both sing
| (badly) to our favourite tracks now and again - usually he
| tells us to stop!
| unixhero wrote:
| Hey I will use these tactics in my wife, thanks :)
| mabbo wrote:
| > When I ask him what he wants to do he says "I don't know"
|
| A blogger I read a while ago (I completely forget who) wrote
| something about this that stuck with me: if you ask a kid if
| they want pancakes or cereal for breakfast, they'll pick one
| and be delighted. If you ask them what they'd like to have
| without presenting options, this can lead to a complete
| meltdown. Picking from infinite options, forcing them to think
| all of them up and then turn down n-1 of them... It can be too
| much for a kid.
|
| Give kids a small number of diverse options where you also
| approve of all of them. Everyone is pretty happy with the
| decision. (This system maybe also works really well with
| adults.)
| circlefavshape wrote:
| Sounds plausible, but IME doesn't actually work with real
| kids
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Works well with mine. He's got 3 choices most mornings.
| mcv wrote:
| It doesn't with mine, I'm afraid. I frequently give them
| 1-3 options and they shoot them all down (even
| pancakes?!). Eventually I give up and ask them what they
| want, and they still don't know, or just want to eat
| nothing.
| splintercell wrote:
| > Eventually I give up and ask them what they want, and
| they still don't know, or just want to eat nothing.
|
| I force a choice on mine, and she immediately 'strongly'
| choose the other one, which I reject, which makes her
| want it even more.
| svnt wrote:
| It's because they've learned that they can say no and
| you'll keep coming up with more options. They've exited
| the game because you created the exit by failing to
| enforce the boundary.
| sfrigon wrote:
| Yeah I've experienced this when I was young. My mom was
| running a daycare at home, and I would sometimes try to
| help at lunchtime.
|
| Me: <Kid's name>, do you want apple juice? No. Do you
| want orange juice? No. Do you want grape juice? No. Well
| that's all we've got, which one do you prefer? None, I
| want something else. ... and obviously whatever we had
| would not do. My mom who saw I was not efficient enough:
| Okay <kid's name> do you want apple or orange juice?
| Orange.
|
| My first reaction was "but I already suggested it", but I
| got better after a while.
| mlyle wrote:
| OK, sure, offering a choice of what to eat when they're
| not excited about the idea of eating isn't going to
| generate a response. I almost never ate breakfast as a
| kid... unless there was leftover cake or something I
| could sneak...
| mlyle wrote:
| Eh. I'm a teacher these days, and it works with real kids.
| With my _own_ kids, who know the range of possibility and
| aren 't quite so believing in my authority as that of a
| real teacher, it's still effective but less so.
|
| [It works to get class buy-in, even if you are offering meh
| choice A and awful choice B. A class that has chosen "A"
| will be more engaged doing it than if you just told them to
| do A...
|
| but you'd better be ready to do 'B' if the class decides to
| be contrarian. Once, they really wanted to do the quiz to
| show that they really -do- know what we've been doing, and
| if I hadn't had the quiz prepped and ready I'd have been in
| trouble...]
| anonu wrote:
| "being unemployed" could also be a euphemism for "i sold my
| startup for $100s of millions"
| bluescrn wrote:
| Then the answer is easy. Go to the nearest Lego store and buy
| everything!
| sidpatil wrote:
| > "Mommy music" doesn't appeal as much which I find a little
| fascinating.
|
| What genres does "Mommy music" consist of?
| noobermin wrote:
| dad was a metalhead and mom was a punk
| stevekemp wrote:
| I'd choose goth/rock/techno/industrial-metal and stuff from
| the 80s. She'd choose goth/rock/techno/90s music.
|
| So a reasonably high amount of overlap, which is why it's a
| bit fascinating.
|
| (I guess I learned early on that he liked loud drums, loud
| rhythms, and repetition. Things like Rammstein - Fier Fier,
| Prodigy - Firestarter, so I tend to bias myself in that
| direction if he's nearby or listening with me. Maybe that's
| all it is, but it's fun to observe.)
| prionassembly wrote:
| Baby had a starting preference for things we put with
| headphones over the mom's belly. This might sound insane, but I
| was in the OR for the C-section and once the baby was put on
| the mother's arm I started to play one of these music tracks
| and the baby stopped crying, appearing to recognize stuff from
| the older situation.
|
| That said, the pregnancy music selection was mostly daddy's
| music because daddy has a music education, mommy's pretty much
| deaf to intervals between notes and stuck on music from her
| youth. But the things that were there, baby still loves.
|
| Since then I've made an effort to expand on his repertory from
| daddy's music. Mom's attempts to do so are met with less
| enthusiasm.
|
| ----
|
| Thaaat said: parenting so far has confirmed the story about the
| Oedipus complex. In plain words, it's like this: mom can't give
| him her full attention; the world and society and large steal
| her from him. Luckily, the baby learns to personify all this
| stuff into dad -- it's dad who steals mommy. This is lucky
| because he can _aspire to be me_ , while "society at large" is
| enough to drive anyone insane. This is very very clear in this
| family: kid wants to be _with_ his mom, often _alone_ with her;
| but also: kid wants to be _like_ me. He attentively watches me
| as I dress, and enjoys enormously the homologies (hey, let 's
| all put on socks!). Even when it comes to daddy's "no" -- this
| is understandable, the overarching ways of the world are not.
| (Jacques Lacan has this pun where "le _non_ du pere " becomes
| "le _nom_ du pere " -- baby will have _my name_ , this is the
| heart of fathering.)
| stevekemp wrote:
| I think our child seems to like us both "equally" these days,
| though it is clear some days that nothing Daddy does is
| correct, and mommy would do it better/properly.
|
| I can also see that when she works overnight he tries to
| outright punish her, by ignoring her, when she returns.
|
| But those kinda things aside I don't see anything like your
| story there. I guess it goes to show that kids, and
| personalities, are so varied.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I have had much fun with my daughters at that age (and younger,
| and older) with Arduino kits from Ali Express. Just a few
| dollars' worth of parts were some of the best spent money I've
| ever spent.
|
| I would do the programming, and the girls would help assemble the
| parts. But they would be with me and see the programming process.
| Soldering lead free is difficult, in the end some things I
| soldered myself with lead. And one of the girls is interested in
| the programming in the end.
| prionassembly wrote:
| What was the child like when younger? I have no idea what his
| interests are.
|
| I have a one-and-a-halfer and I keep him busy when I want to kick
| back at the end of the day by putting some really challenging
| music on the TV (initially jazz and prog rock, but by now we're
| watching flamenco and _some_ lieder by Webern and Schoenberg).
| Kid is really into music; Camel 's "Rhayader/Rhayader goes into
| town" (rock music but instrumental and an almost-suite kind of
| structure) is his _jam_ , no Backyardigans or Peppa Pig in this
| home.
|
| He's also very curious about books, physically. I can't tell if
| he's going to be a reader (of course he likes baby books with the
| tactile colorful elements) but he likes to touch them on the
| shelves and had to be taught not to remove them. He might just
| like rectangular (parallelepipedal?) things.
|
| Anyway, when I imagine keeping my son busy at age _3_ I imagine
| sending him to piano lessons, going to concerts, maybe trying to
| do two-part harmonies. Also maybe reading him books or just
| making piles of rectangular bricks -- give him initial ideas and
| leaving him to it. What will he be like at age 11, I don 't know.
| But I will by then.
| patchorang wrote:
| Make a stop motion video - there are cheap/free apps that make it
| really easy to do
|
| Not sure if you have any instruments around the house, but make a
| song with her
|
| Like another poster said, make magazine. They have tooons of good
| projects.
| _Microft wrote:
| Stop Motion Studio by Cateater is a good app iirc. It's
| available for at least iOs, Android and Windows.
| contingencies wrote:
| Walks in nature + iNaturalist. Gardening. Pottery. Vermiculture.
| Microscopy. Creative writing. Watercolour. Robotics.
| actfrench wrote:
| If it's helpful, we built a site during the pandemic where we
| sourced ideas from parents on how to keep kids engaged while
| working from home. It was #2 on Product Hunt.
|
| Enrichmentactivities.org
|
| My favorite activity is quality time outdoors . If there is any
| hike you could do, a beach or a park, that's always a winner.
| Spending time in nature being physically active is a great way to
| keep both of you engaged and spending time together. You could
| also plan a picnic and make recipes together.
|
| Is there something she'd like to make ? Go on YouTube and figure
| out how to make a boomerang, tie dye shirts, learn to knit, do
| origami or sew.
|
| Maybe your daughter could even help you with your job search.
| Kids, especially 11 year olds are whip smart and love to engage
| in grownup stuff
| user_7832 wrote:
| Lots of good suggestions in this thread here, I'd just like to
| add - see what _she 's interested in_, from a topic point of
| view. A lot of the suggested things here are science based. Is
| that what she likes? Maybe history? Museums and exhibits may be
| much more appreciated and exiting than science kits. Or perhaps
| biology? Bug collecting? A basic microscope kit might be better.
|
| It need not be educational in the traditional sense at all
| either. You could go on hikes, teach about camping/wilderness
| survival, knot tying/scouts activity stuff. It could even be
| handyman things if those are of interest to her (I know they
| would have been of interest to 11yo me) - basics of tools and
| tool safety (assuming you know it yourself, or perhaps a local
| course for kids if available). There are more
| "practical"/lifesaving options too like knowing how to change a
| tire, or how do perform CPR/Heimlich maneuver.
|
| Additional on a tangential note there are lots of excellent
| books, but in particular I highly recommend the x Book series by
| DK (not just for kids but also for adults)
| (https://www.dk.com/ca/promotion/big-ideas-series/).
| Encyclopedias are also great, the more pictures the funner they
| are for some.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Modern USB microscopes are extremely good. Not in the sense
| that the quality is somehow superb but in the sense that they
| can be had reasonably cheaply and give you a sufficiently
| magnified view to see lots of details that would not be visible
| to the naked eye. Importantly, they don't require lots of the
| faff that a 'proper' microscope does, e.g. no messing around
| with dirty objectives or eyepieces or light sources or slides
| or covering slips or stains or preparing samples or two
| different focusing wheels or oils or whatever. And it can be a
| further pain if you want to get an image onto a computer
| whereas with a USB scope it's already there. The point is that
| the lower barrier of entry can build interest and the low cost
| means you don't feel so bad if you only use it once or twice.
| zoomablemind wrote:
| > ...My daughter is 11
|
| At this age, I rather try to get in tune with the initiative that
| comes from the kid. She may already have some projects that may
| benefit from your [measured] participation.
|
| Alternatively, I'd try to find something fun for myself, and then
| would try to see if there's a room in it for the kid's effort.
|
| All in all, the pre-teen/teens want to know that their choices
| are respected (no matter how self-contradicting these may be).
| sandreas wrote:
| Build a phoniebox with her (see
| https://pilabor.com/projects/labelmaker/)
|
| - Some crafting
|
| - Some electronics
|
| - If you wish some programming
|
| - A lot of fun afterwards...
| leetrout wrote:
| Saving the next person some immediate confusion an extra cliks
| :) :)
|
| http://phoniebox.de/index-en.html
|
| https://github.com/MiczFlor/RPi-Jukebox-RFID
| sandreas wrote:
| Thanks... I did not think about the confusion, but you are
| right. My article contains the hint, that I build an RFID
| based music box for / with my daughter... and of course my
| programming effort to print labels for the RFID stickers ;)
|
| She is SO happy with this thing, it is a pleasure to look at
| her still using her wooden RFID tags to play "The Bare
| Necessities" from The Jungle Book and dancing in her room
| nearly every day - she is 3 now.
| leetrout wrote:
| Very cool idea, indeed!
| patrickdavey wrote:
| Oh that looks amazing! I just ordered a yoto [1] but that looks
| a lot more fun!
|
| [1] https://us.yotoplay.com/
| bartvk wrote:
| Recently, me and my daughter got some scrap wood from a shop that
| specializes in laser cutting. We used paper and wood glue to make
| beds for her dolls. She really liked it. It requires creativity
| because the scrap wood has all sorts of weird shapes. And
| patience, because the glue requires drying.
| tokamak-teapot wrote:
| Try lots of things and see what she gets into. Do some gardening.
| Make stuff with your hands. Cook. Play lots of different musical
| instruments. If you don't have any, play rhythms with your hands.
| Listen to some music. Ask her what she likes or doesn't like
| about it. Sing along to it. Read lots of books to her. Take her
| to visit woods, hills (with good views), rock formations,
| streams, lakes, old buildings open the public. Go to museums.
| Borrow a dog. Bring a friend and their parent along so she can
| play with the other child while you chat to the parent about
| grown up stuff, but you can still get involved in what the kids
| are doing.
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| My youngest and I love gardening together. She's got so much
| gusto! Sunflowers grow really fast. Get loads of random seeds
| and a plastic tray to grow the seedlings in. Then once they've
| sprouted you can plant them in the beds or in bigger pots of
| you don't have a garden. More steps more fun
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Do outdoorsy stuff. Hiking is costs just food and water and it
| doesn't need to be extreme to be fun. There's a whole interesting
| world of stuff just outside that's free.
| bradhe wrote:
| Why are you asking Hacker News about this and not your daughter?
| Hacker News doesn't know your daughter.
| onelovetwo wrote:
| Thats how you grow a kid whos addicted to netflix and frozen
| chicken nuggets.
| brainzap wrote:
| ask her
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Some things I enjoyed as a girl:
|
| Target practice, berry picking, helping my father do woodworking
| projects, learning to shoot a bow, playing assistant in the
| kitchen to my sister's baking, collecting vegetables from the
| garden for dinner, trips to the library with my mother and sister
| where I would lay on the floor and read Dr. Seuss while my sister
| worked on stuff for her high school newspaper, putting together
| imaginary travel wardrobes for my dolls, trying every 'girly'
| craft I was aware of -- sewing, crochet, etc -- though none of
| that ever resulted in a finished project otlr really stuck.
|
| As an adult, my sons have helped widen my horizons by telling me
| stuff like "This 4x game (Master of Magic) is just like your
| favorite, SimCity" and walking me through how to play it
| primarily as a city/civilization building game.
|
| If you can find some sweet spot of that sort, I think it would be
| wonderful. I have read that one of the strongest predictors of
| career success in women is a good relationship to her father.
|
| Enjoy.
| mxuribe wrote:
| Wow, that sounds like quite the variety of fun when you were
| younger; kudos! My dad was very much into sports, so my
| siblings and i - as you can imagine - played lots of sports in
| our youth; somewhat on teams but more so just with each other.
| And honestly, as fun as team sports were, i enjoyed my time
| tons more with just our little family unit when i was a kid.
| Kudos again to you for your fun youth! :-)
| a-saleh wrote:
| I would probably get them into cooking and helping me cook.
| brudgers wrote:
| Ask her what she wants to do.
| [deleted]
| rr808 wrote:
| If its like my daughter its watch tiktok 16 hours a day.
| brudgers wrote:
| So install TikTok and sit together on your phones doom
| scrolling and see what happens.
|
| Good faith means living with answers you don't want to hear.
|
| I mean if you ask and then say "I don't want to do that" to
| her answer, what do you expect when you ask how about a hike
| instead?
|
| You can choose which routes are available for a child to
| express their personhood, but you can't prevent its
| expression.
|
| Holding their expression of autonomy in contempt has
| consequences that you probably don't want.
|
| Learning from your child, on the other hand, will probably
| pay off for the rest of your lives.
|
| TikTok is more interesting than most people.
| broeng wrote:
| "I don't know"
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| Honestly, that is understandable. Part of being 11 is getting
| to do more and more things that you just couldn't do before.
| But part of being 11 is having an insulated view of the world
| and the things available in it. Not knowing is perfectly
| natural.
|
| But still ask because she might know have an idea. Still ask,
| and encourage her to speak up and that you'll give it a try
| if it is affordable (or whatever qualifiers you have). Still
| ask, and provide some varied suggestions or categories of
| things to do. Still ask and try to get preferences of what
| the kid is currently interested in. At minimum, you can
| probably be left with some dislikes and a few things that
| _might_ be interesting.
| _benj wrote:
| This, but I think it could be more nuanced. Notice her interest
| and explore further what she wants to do.
|
| All she might want to do is watch some cartoons, notice the
| content and after some time propose to record your own little
| video with a similar content, or to model and 3D print one of
| the characters, or to use scratch to program one of the
| characters to do something.
|
| Alternatively, give her options, not only verbal but take her
| places (the mall, local market, county fair) and observe what
| calls her attention and dig deeper into that!
|
| Browsing books at a local library about whatever topic she
| might like could also be interesting!
|
| Good luck and hope you have tons of fun!
| brudgers wrote:
| _take her places_
|
| Road trips were great bonding experiences for me as a parent.
|
| Sure their headphones were on a lot when they weren't
| sleeping.
|
| But it was all happening someplace they hadn't been.
|
| And they saw me out of my comfort zone dealing with the
| unknown laughing at fart jokes on the XM comedy station.
| oblib wrote:
| I became a single parent when my daughter turned 1 year old. When
| she got old enough we'd go fishing, bicycling, swimming, and
| hiking a lot. We'd also go to a used book store twice a month (on
| pay day) so she could pick out a few books to read. She loved
| doing that.
|
| She had no interest at all in learning how to code or gaming but
| she loved helping in the garden and in the kitchen prepping and
| cooking meals.
|
| When she got to Jr. High she wanted to join the "Cheerleader"
| squad so there were a lot early morning rides to school I had to
| make, and lot's of Basketball games I attended until she
| graduated, but I had a lot fun cheering along with them.
|
| During those years I setup a campsite on our property so her and
| her friends could go hang out there. I'm sure they had more fun
| than most parents would approve of but they never got into any
| real trouble, the police were never called, and no one got hurt
| bad enough for the parents to call me. For the most part all
| those parents knew exactly where their kids were and what they
| were doing. And that I was close enough to deal with anything
| that came up. But there were never any serious issues.
|
| She's 37 years old now, still loves to hike, backpack, swim,
| fish, garden, and cook, and most important, she still likes to
| hang out with me!
| marconey wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, hoping I can follow suit and raise an
| independent free-range daughter who likes me!
| andruby wrote:
| Thank you for posting this.
| hpcjoe wrote:
| This should go on twitter as "Dudes posting their massive W's"
| :D
|
| Mine is 22, about to start grad school for a Ph.D. in applied
| math (I'm Ph.D. in theoretical physics, but am a secret math
| nerd ... wife is also a math nerd and an M.S. Physics).
|
| Early on we discovered how much she loved reading. So, we read
| to her, every night. For a while, I could quote whole sections
| of "The Sleep Book" (Dr. Seuss) from memory. As she grew older,
| she read. Voraciously. Throughout high school, she insisted she
| wanted to be an artist, which we completely supported. Said she
| hated math.
|
| She liked some physical activity, though I could never convince
| her to work out with me or my wife at the gym.
|
| Went through an IB program in high school. Told us at the end,
| after getting into a competitive art school, that she was happy
| she never had to take math, ever again. Fast forward a year,
| and she was aching to change majors.
|
| She graduated with a double major (one being math), and a
| minor. Got into a bunch of grad schools for Ph.D.
|
| Now, the girl who hated math at the end of high school, is
| about to move on to be a woman in a math Ph.D. program.
|
| There's a point to this.
|
| Your kid will find some things interesting, and others less so.
| Don't worry about that, and enjoy discovering what she likes
| with her. If you do the dad thing right, you will wind up with
| a kid who can adapt to new situations, and find joy in what
| they do.
|
| My daughter still does (absolutely amazing) art on her own. Not
| just a dad saying this, she really is tremendously talented.
| And we encourage her to continue to pursue what she
| likes/loves.
| uranium wrote:
| "I'm Ph.D. in theoretical physics, but am a secret math nerd"
|
| Uh...you know that secret got out some time before your
| doctorate, right? =^>.
| brnt wrote:
| Physics grad here. We used to say theoretical physicists
| were people just not good enough for actual math. "Regular"
| phycisists like myself simply admitted they are too lazy.
| strobe999 wrote:
| as a young father. your piece elegantly summarizes what im
| hoping to be to my child. i wish you two many years of
| curiosity!
| andrepd wrote:
| As a 27 year old physics grad turned maths PhD with a physics
| MSc wife... I'm taking notes :)
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Good for you, and good for her. What you guys have done is
| the most inspiring thing I've read today!
| nickysielicki wrote:
| We have such a weird culture around how we treat teenagers in
| this country. We all remember drinking and smoking as teens,
| but parents tends to rule with an iron fist and convince
| themselves that they have more control than their parents did,
| which means we force healthy normal curious kids to go out to a
| secluded area (probably by car) to get high or drunk or explore
| in other ways, away from an adult that could help if something
| goes wrong, and at a much greater chance of involving the
| police and putting their future in jeopardy. I respect you for
| giving your daughter and her friends a safe place to just be
| normal teenagers. I'm not saying parents should buy their teens
| a bottle of vodka but everyone should start from a place of
| being realistic and reducing harm.
| svnt wrote:
| Like you imply I think being punitive may be viewed as
| healthy because the opposite stance (of encouraging or
| enabling, or even participating) is boundary-blurring. In
| this case the temporally removed hypocrisy is better than
| joining in, which is the other extreme.
|
| Culturally we don't have a lot of nuance in America yet.
| OJFord wrote:
| I wonder how teenage alcohol abuse compares across countries,
| France in particular comes to mind since it's common to
| introduce wine relatively early (in moderation, and perhaps
| diluted, of course). I thought there was quite a young
| supervised with-meal drinking age too, but having searched
| for it perhaps that's changed (or I was wrong). If it's not
| some forbidden fruit maybe the run off with a bottle of vodka
| thing doesn't happen so much.
| linschn wrote:
| In France, diluting your wine will get you the guillotine
| ;-)
|
| The legal drinking age is 16 for low alcohol content
| beverages (wine, beer, etc) ; 18 for all alcohols and
| tobacco.
|
| At a family gathering or on a special occasion you may get
| a glass of wine starting around 14 or later I'd say, for
| most middle class families.
|
| Binge drinking is not as much of a problem as in more
| northern countries, but binge alcohol consumption is a
| problem that is being felt at the University level.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Speak to your kids like adults, explaining why some choices
| lead to worse outcomes, and they will make choices like
| adults. Speak to kids like they're slaves, and they will make
| rebellious choices like slaves. Don't speak to your kids at
| all about decisions, and they will make poor decisions and
| wonder why their lives are so difficult.
| dgb23 wrote:
| One thing I'm very grateful for is that I never had to worry
| about going home as a kid. Never. Later I realized how much
| of a privilege that was.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| >We all remember drinking and smoking as teens
|
| Speak for yourself, worst thing I did in high school was play
| too many video games.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Hell yeah. My parents would have been very stern with me if
| they knew just how many hours I spent gaming.
|
| I also taught myself programming into the wee hours of the
| night.
|
| It was a wild time alright
| nickysielicki wrote:
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle
| /...
| Buge wrote:
| >By late adolescence, 78.2% of US adolescents had
| consumed alcohol
|
| I guess I fall into that group, since I had a few sips,
| given to my by my parents.
|
| > 47.1% had reached regular drinking levels defined by at
| least 12 drinks within a given year
|
| So less than half.
|
| > drug use by 42.5%
|
| Also less than half. I wonder how many tried it just
| once.
|
| > drug abuse by 16.4%
| kwatsonafter wrote:
| memcg wrote:
| Nice. The library, used book stores and Blockbuster video were
| some of our favorites, especially when the weather was bad.
| tmaly wrote:
| I can think of three great options for age 11.
|
| First option get a makeymakey and work through the free project
| videos on their site.
|
| Second option get a microbit and work through the free tutorials
| on makecode. If you have two microbits, they can talk via onboard
| radio. They also have Bluetooth so you can connect to a phone.
|
| Third get a copy of the Getting Started in Electronics RadioShak
| book and build some of the science and circuit projects.
| carimura wrote:
| Since some people are talking about games, I thought I'd share my
| short list. My kids are a bit younger, and it's important to me
| that we don't introduce fast-moving games. We don't have a TV for
| this reason, stuff is just too intense now. I'm trying to
| recreate the modern experience that I went through, learning the
| joy of adventure from games like Sierra Online's series (Police
| Quest, Kings Quest, etc.)
|
| All I've found so far are Lumino City, Old Man's Journey, and
| Machinarium. So far all 3 have been huge hits and exactly the
| pace I've been going for. We've played each one probably 10
| times.
| chimen wrote:
| having a blast doing carting with mine, 11 as well
| chongli wrote:
| Try taking her to a local library and asking the librarian in the
| children's section. Libraries often have fun and educational
| activities for children and families to enjoy. If they don't, at
| the very least the librarian should be able to help you find
| books of projects for kids to do.
| ankaAr wrote:
| I don't know where you lives, but do hicking with her if you have
| time.
|
| Try to do some theater of mind games (d&d or whatever she or both
| likes). Maybe you can't afford going somewhere but nothings tie
| you there.
|
| Talking about that if you lives in a city big enough, there must
| to be hidden places with a story to tell, grab a map a visit that
| with her. Think about a story you can tell with that. I learnt
| more about buenos aires (the city where I live) and Chicago (the
| city where I'm moving soon) because Dresden Files books and
| roleplaying, than from school. And I learned how to love every
| city secret because of that.
|
| Why I'm talking about roleplaying and walking time together?
| Because both will be spending time together and will be knowing
| (a looot) each other, and over that, you will be feeding her
| imagination and curiosity.
|
| And it is free.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Great suggestions and you inspired me. What is Dresden Files?
| ankaAr wrote:
| A book series about a wizard/private investigator working in
| Chicago. It is funny, short (each book, they are like 20..)
| and they feed on arthurian lore plus urban legends (that is
| pushed even more by the roleplay books).
|
| Jim Butcher is the author and the audiobooks are narrated by
| James Masters (spike in buffy tv show)
| teddyh wrote:
| Books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dresden_Files
| krisoft wrote:
| > What is Dresden Files?
|
| It is a fantasy/mystery novel series written by Jim Butcher.
|
| The sorries follow the titular Harry Dresden, who is a
| wizard-for-hire investigating supernatural disturbances in
| modern day Chicago. It can be described as a hard-boiled
| detective novel with fantasy elements.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Go Kayaking with her. A camera and lenses and you could do
| wildlife or macro photography or fishing on your trips. Great
| Exercise and connection with nature. If you get something like a
| DJI Mini drone you can capture something people rarely see. Maybe
| you could even start a youtube channel with all the unique
| footage. Which would require video editing and photoshop skills.
| Not even that expensive:
|
| Mirrorless camera $500
|
| Drone $400
|
| Two kayaks ~$1000
| stefanos82 wrote:
| Ask her what she finds interesting and based on her answer(s),
| find the most appealing to you and start designing a logic based
| on it, a prototype if you will.
|
| Tell her that for this project she will be your project manager
| that would lead to the fruition of the end product; that would be
| enough to keep her engaged with the whole process.
|
| Good luck!
| jraph wrote:
| > Tell her that for this project she will be your project
| manager
|
| > end product
|
| That does not sound fun. I don't think I was envisioning things
| as management and products when I was a child.
|
| The first line of your comment does sound fun, however.
| arethuza wrote:
| Our son was very fond of acting as a "project manager" when
| he was young - like 3 or 4 years old.
|
| His idea of playing with a (age appropriate) train set was to
| get his mother to set everything up under his direction,
| similarly going to the beach he'd direct me to build a dam...
| (which I was happy to do).
| jraph wrote:
| Good to know. I'll remember this as a tool for potential
| future use then.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Oh, do not keep her busy. Let her wallow in the discomfort of
| having nothing to do, but do not give her the modern things which
| are an easy escape from that discomfort (TV, Computers, etc). You
| will see her natural interests reveal themselves and when they
| do, give them all the interest like they weer your own as well.
|
| Do your own thing and she will see how it looks to be engaged in
| something you like.
|
| All the other props and gimmicks will only implant your interests
| on her, which might be the the same and that is ok, but most
| likely they will not be.
|
| However, she should be with friends around her age as well.
| Parents are important, but negotiating friendships is invaluable.
| cesaref wrote:
| It sounds like an amazing opportunity that you should grab. You
| both have the freedom to do something that normally would be
| closed to you due to constraints on both of your time (school and
| work).
|
| Assuming you can afford it, how about hiring a camper van and
| taking off for a month, and see where you end up? There's bound
| to be places you both would love to see which otherwise would be
| difficult, and by being away from the trappings of home and email
| etc, you'll get some amazing quality time together which may not
| happen again.
|
| 11 is a great age, but you are at the start of some difficult
| years where there's lots of pressure on kids, both from society
| and from family (go well at school, know what you want to do etc
| etc). So take advantage of some care free time together!
| RyanOD wrote:
| Here are a few ideas...
|
| - Build a free little library
|
| - Learn to skateboard
|
| - Collaborate on a short-story
|
| - Build a treehouse
|
| - Learn to bake bread
|
| - Plant a garden
|
| - Go on hikes together
|
| - Learn to safely fire a .22 or BB gun
|
| (Edited for layout)
| DIARRHEA_xd wrote:
| TikTok and Netflix are great places to start.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Spider eggs, spider eggs,
|
| Can do all that an egg can.
|
| Does nothing?, what surpraise!
|
| Here comes the mayonaise...
|
| https://aleteia.org/blogs/simchafisher/whats-for-supper-vol-...
| AutomatedChaos wrote:
| https://makezine.com/ https://www.adafruit.com If looking for
| mini tech projects :)
| abirch wrote:
| Check out Roblox.com/create
| Siecje wrote:
| Make a pinhole camera, or a small functioning water lock system
| for boats.
| kwatsonafter wrote:
| In training academic Pedagogist here: It may be worthwhile to
| take a two or day three reading of Rousseau's classic, "Emile; or
| On Education." It gives tremendous insight into how it is that
| adults can have positive relationships with the children that
| they might be governing.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile%2C_or_On_Education
|
| Rousseau recommends: Night games, obstacle courses, Natural
| Method (Parkour), but in short the idea is to let the child be
| self-directing in their activities. In Rousseau's words, "to gain
| time by losing it." ie. don't try to direct their activities. Do
| what is necessary and dutiful in your own regard and teach
| through example and necessity; never through imposition unless
| absolutely necessary.
| svnt wrote:
| If you're going this route there is a whole field of early
| childhood development; don't read one archaic text and declare
| "this is the way" or you risk coming off like the new grad
| student in Good Will Hunting. [0]
|
| Montessori (the person) and Steiner are other interesting
| originating sources in Western culture but reading about how
| the e.g. Aka parent might be a shorter path. [1]
|
| [ 0
| https://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/specialengage...
| ]
|
| [ 1 Review Barry and Bonnie Hewlett's research particularly]
| kwatsonafter wrote:
| Fuck off dude. I'll come off however I like.
| shaprack wrote:
| You can spend time with her and help her discover her interests
| by asking her what she enjoys doing. Additionally, you can engage
| in outdoor activities with her, and most significantly, you can
| accompany her to museums, parks, or zoos. If she enjoys playing
| games or watching cartoons, she can play educational interactive
| games where she will learn also.
|
| https://gadgetlite.in/2022/01/math-playground-games/
| Jistern wrote:
| bradhe wrote:
| Wow, this is easily t he creepiest comment in HN history.
| zwilliamson wrote:
| Include some of her friends when possible. Make up for lost
| social time over the past couple years.
| [deleted]
| squiggy22 wrote:
| Write / draw a book, show her how to sell it on Etsy / Gumroad.
| deberon wrote:
| Lots of good suggestions in here. In the end, none of us know
| your daughter. If you are out of ideas on things to do with her,
| take her with you to something you enjoy doing. If you're
| enthusiastic about it, she might be too. Also, there's nothing
| wrong with uneducational fun either. Watch a movie or find shapes
| in the clouds. Be silly and teach her how to laugh on a budget.
| social_quotient wrote:
| Might be off topic but a nugget from having two girls (5 and 11).
| Kids don't care about budget or how much things cost. We have
| toys we've spent hundreds of dollars on only to have the near
| free to free one be a hit. I say this to make sure you know your
| employment status likely only effects your kids if it effects
| you. Or said differently, to the extent it effects you it will
| effect them.
|
| Kids will generally have fun with anything you show a degree of
| interest in. The copper pipe plumbing example in this thread is a
| perfect example. A simple Task became a life long activity for
| the kid. They will remember it forever and tell someone in the
| future "this time I welded with my dad"... they won't remember
| that time my dad didn't hire a plumber.
|
| Things off the top of my head that have been a hit - Planting
| plants Fashion design Basic coding activities or contests
| Shooting Anything that requires safety procedures Lawn work (but
| make it fun or set a timer) Writing a story where they write some
| of it, you add in silly bits, they write more , repeat till
| laughing out loud. Both my girls super in to etiquette
|
| Best of luck buddy and squeeze these years for as much as you
| can.
| sircastor wrote:
| My wife frequently says to me "this is why I don't buy my kid
| toys" as we watch our Son playing with some random bucket or
| cardboard box around the house.
| aldebran wrote:
| I laugh my ass off so many times I see this. The toy is on
| the side and the box that the toy came in is apparently more
| fun. That or Costco boxes. They're sturdy and can fit kids
| inside them. Lol
| andrepd wrote:
| > I say this to make sure you know your employment status
| likely only effects your kids if it effects you
|
| That's partially true but there are also things for some
| hobbies/activities which are really expensive. I'm thinking
| musical instruments (+lessons), or robotics (okay, those were
| very expensive when I was a kid but maybe they're cheaper now
| :p).
| dan-robertson wrote:
| When I was a kid I tried to do some robotics thing with my
| dad which was not terribly expensive (it failed due to the
| servos not being sufficiently powerful despite matching the
| spec from the book). But probably had the advantage that he
| knew about electronics a bit and could deal with the
| chemicals for etching a circuit board (and could borrow a uv
| lamp thing or oscilloscope or eprom writer from his
| employer). But these days you can have circuit boards printed
| for cheap and often there are 'maker spaces' which may have
| better equipment available (or just skip the PIC and use a
| raspberry pi).
|
| For an expensive hobby I'd guess anything equestrian rather
| than music lessons though I don't really know.
|
| Also the OP doesn't say they're actively looking for work so
| they may be using 'unemployed' in the tongue-in-cheek sense
| of 'I don't have a job but I have enough money to live
| without one for a while and want to spend time with my kid'
| rather than one of the more technical senses of 'not employed
| and currently actively seeking/wanting/open to employment',
| which even still may or may not imply tight financial
| constraints.
| aldebran wrote:
| 100%
|
| My kids (boys) have probably a couple thousand dollars worth of
| toys in the house. You know what they enjoy playing with?
| "Toys" that we've made together. Planes, boats etc. the one
| exception probably is Legos. Legos are cool!
|
| Get legos from garage sales or something and open the doors to
| endless fun!
| landemva wrote:
| Yes, time with dad. Get outside and walk or hike. Play in dirt.
| Explore plants and flowers. Splash in a creek. My daughter
| really enjoyed the affordable bow&arrow with foam target.
| protonbob wrote:
| All this is making me want to have kids sooner.
| Bayko wrote:
| You need to get off of Hackernews first sir
| dymk wrote:
| Says you. Enough karma and I'll unlock the HN Dating
| page.
| sunshinerag wrote:
| Whaaat ... there is an HN dating page :)
| Flankk wrote:
| Yes but the market is kind of poor right now. You'll need
| to have good numbers to attract any kind of attention.
| protonbob wrote:
| I'm already married so no worries.
| sharkweek wrote:
| There is nothing my oldest (4.5 years old) enjoys more than
| going down to the creek by our house and exploring.
|
| We've learned pretty quick with both kids that spending a lot
| of money on toys etc resulted in a lot of one-and-done play
| sessions before they'd quickly lose interest.
|
| As with all things and especially kids... YMMV!
| hpcjoe wrote:
| > Best of luck buddy and squeeze these years for as much as you
| can.
|
| This ... so much ... Just be there. Discover together.
| xattt wrote:
| My spouse and I know this with our 5- and 1-year-old.
|
| We have a song that we play to remind ourselves of this:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w8_HsMQ_AQw
| leobg wrote:
| Very true. And very counter-intuitive. A cardboard box I turned
| into a playhouse in like three minutes is still one of my
| daughter's favorite play things. The LEGO I bought her, on the
| other hand, is pretty much collecting dust.
| eloeffler wrote:
| Haven't tried this with kids yet, but "coloring computers" might
| be a cool thing.
|
| You can find it here: Coloring computers: non-electronic
| computers that work when you color them
| https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmYz7DPRWypGQcbAHr7Mi8EKB6ntSPsEnUsCXbA...
|
| And the recent HN discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31393501
| credit_guy wrote:
| My son is 12 y/o, and he's into Minecraft.
|
| Yesterday he discovered the server mc.openredstone.org. He spent
| all day yesterday and about one hour today, and he ended up
| building a 4-bit adder.
|
| On this server players learn how to build logic gates, and mix
| them so they eventually build CPUs. It's fully gamified, so
| beginners are called "students" and more advanced players are
| called "builders". To become a "builder" you need to pass some
| trials. The "builders" probably have their own challenges (not
| sure, my son is still a student), in any case, they behave like
| teachers. So a student will find a builder who will give them
| instructions, and guide them through more and more complex
| designs.
|
| So, yesterday my son had no idea what XOR or NAND is, and today
| he already built a 4-bit adder, and has dreams of building an
| ALU.
|
| I'm quite excited to be honest. By the way, I'm not in any way
| connected with whomever put together this Minecraft server. I
| don't even think it's a for-profit thing, as far as I can tell,
| it's fully non-profit.
| brailsafe wrote:
| I've been programming for 15 years and had to google what NAND
| was. Had a sense of XOR
| bergenty wrote:
| All the Ns are just the opposites.
| groffee wrote:
| That's not something you should be so quick to tell people.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Heh, roasted. I know you're being a bit facetious, but it's
| not like I haven't used them, but in terms of the acronyms
| and maybe actually using them as bitwise operations, it's
| something I've rarely needed in JS programming. If you
| aren't being facetious, then you might need to work on
| humility
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Oh come on! There are a lot of types of programming and
| most of them exist pretty far from logic gates. The
| previous poster probably understands the concepts from
| their work but doesn't relate them to logic gates.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Ya that's basically what I meant. The concepts are
| arguably unavoidable if you've done enough.
| thendrill wrote:
| You would be surprised how much more relevant info
| programmers miss...
|
| Example, most programmers I know have no idea when a variable
| gets allocated on the stack and when it's on the heap.
|
| Let's not talk about how many dont even know what a (stack ov
| erflow)[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_buffer_overflow
| ] is...
| dhosek wrote:
| I remember being shocked to discover that a recent CS grad
| could not implement a factorial function using recursion. I
| can understand why you wouldn't want to do that, but to not
| be able to do it?
| lumost wrote:
| _a lot_ of CS undergrads compress out recursion
| knowledge. They learn that most recursion is best skipped
| in favor of iteration /dp, and they learn that they
| should implement things efficiently.
|
| It's possible the undergrad assumed you were referring to
| an efficient recursive algorithm or simply forgot most
| recursion.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Heh, I just did the DS+A section of a Faang interview,
| and got the time and space complexity of an optimal
| solution more or less correct, as well as most of a
| recursive binary search implementation, but not quite
| there. I stumble with recursion because syntactically
| it's something you either have to use a lot or
| deliberately practice to have a keen sense of return
| values imo.
|
| Probably won't get an offer because of that. Do I feel
| like as a frontend engineer I really need that knowledge?
| Not really. I could work it out for work purposes if I
| needed to tho. I'd be practicing it just to pass
| interviews.
| [deleted]
| wongarsu wrote:
| To be fair, AND, OR and NOT are enough to compute any
| function, and you can make all the other operators out of a
| combination of those three. For example A XOR B is just (A OR
| B) AND (NOT (A AND B)). Knowing things beyond AND, OR or NOT
| is useful, but not strictly necessary. XOR has useful
| properties though: with random inputs you get TRUE 50% of the
| time, allowing you to chain it without trending to 0 or 1;
| also it's the opposite of bitwise equality.
|
| The others aren't that interesting if you aren't dealing with
| hardware, and their function is obvious if you know the
| naming convention.
| OJFord wrote:
| You only need one of {AND, OR} too.
|
| ((a or b) is (not ((not a) and (not b))), and vice versa.)
| dhosek wrote:
| Nah, all you need are nand gates. Everything else can be
| implemented from those.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Yeah, similarly in mathematics they often like to build
| everything up from 'implies' where the rule is
| implies(a,b) = or(not(a), b) = nand(a,nand(b, b)).
| [deleted]
| dpz wrote:
| anon84873628 wrote:
| The truth is that you can be a successful computer software
| developer and not need to know much at all about how
| computers work. Or even how things like compilers work.
|
| Some of us never even studied in a CS program - gasp!
| SmellTheGlove wrote:
| It's all layers of abstraction, right? While it's good to
| have a basic understanding of how the whole stack works,
| it's also a feature and a goal of those building the
| lower levels to enable others to operate at higher levels
| independent of that knowledge.
|
| Taking this away from software for a second, I know a
| hell of a lot of people skilled in their professions that
| have no idea exactly how their cars work but they drive
| them just fine.
| abrax3141 wrote:
| Redstone is fun, and some people do amazing builds with it, but
| it gets tedious fast; like building your own computer from
| transistors - fun ... once! :-) But Minecraft has an incredible
| amount of richness once you get into modding and command blocks
| (although it's a shame that they don't have a proper lua built
| in.) Speaking of which, there's powder toy, which DOES have
| built in Lua.
| None4U wrote:
| AeroNotix wrote:
| Immediately jumping to this kind of thinking completely ruins
| the will for people to get involved with these kinds of
| initiatives.
|
| OP didn't even hint that they thought this could be an issue
| but you did and now any discussion of people involved is
| tainted under the potential that they may be a pedophile.
| credit_guy wrote:
| A little bit. I keep an eye on what he's doing there, which
| is quite easy, as he just won't stop talking about it. It's
| also an opportunity for me to teach him, but in a way that he
| finds exciting. If one day I had decided to teach him XOR or
| NAND, he would've found it very boring. This way, he comes to
| me with questions, and I can pick up a piece of paper and
| show him what a truth table is, and he soaks it up. He feels
| like he's cheating a bit at the game, because he has a Dad
| who helps him on the side, but no one knows, so he progresses
| very quickly and everyone thinks he's very smart.
| mlyle wrote:
| IMO, much better to progressively teach your kids about
| safety (online and off) and to do your best to monitor/keep
| track of what's going on, and ensure you have good lines of
| communication open with your kids and have them know that
| they can come to you without reprisal...
|
| than to try and keep them in a bubble and eliminate all
| possibility they could meet someone predatory.
| dopamean wrote:
| What?
| 0xedd wrote:
| earlyriser wrote:
| My kid has been into Minecraft for years, even before he had
| permission to play videogames. This year (he's 9) he started
| making 3d models and textures with Blockbench, and added them
| into his MCreator mod. It's a great gateway to learn stuff.
| beckman466 wrote:
| i wish DIY.org (specifically Zack Klein -and team's earlier
| versions) was available as free/open source software libraries
| (and not just available for kids). a decommoditized, advertising-
| free and networked maker space everywhere
| cnees wrote:
| 11 is around the age I got into coding petpages on Neopets. They
| don't support JavaScriptor CSS3, and certain classes have to be
| inclined, but the contraints are what make it fun.
| solardev wrote:
| If she likes electronics at all, I thought these were super
| cool... wish they made those when I was a kid!
|
| Snap-in educational and fully functional circuits:
| https://www.elenco.com/snap-circuits-2/
|
| Science & crafts toys:
| https://www.johncoproductions.com/collections/4m
|
| Green & renewable energy toys:
| https://www.johncoproductions.com/collections/green-science
|
| (Edit: For the second two links, apparently that is a non-US
| vendor. Sorry about that. But those toys are also commonly
| available in the US, at toy stores and often, museum gift stores)
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