28
You should also consider that 2-year-olds often don't react as expected when quizzed. My son (almost 3) is pretty intelligent for his age, but if I ask him what he did today, no matter what we did, he "played cars and trains". If I ask him what he had for lunch, it was "macaroni and cheese". He seems to find an answer that is a valid answer sometimes, and ...
28
The key to getting a reluctant practiser to practise anything (a musical instrument, reading, physical exercise, whatever) is to change from:
Time for you to go practise X!
to
OK, time for us to do your X!
I don't mean stand over him with a timer and glare to ensure he doesn't stop at 9 minutes 30 seconds. I mean you show your enthusiasm for the ...
27
If she's asking you which bits need work and why, that's a sign she's open to criticism, and that she trusts you to provide it.
The thing about criticizing creative work is you want to be as specific as possible. "This part needs rewriting" is a completely useless criticism. If she knew how to rewrite it better, chances are she would have already done it. ...
25
First off, in terms of helping the child learn:
Many/most schools have computer clubs. Encourage the child to inquire from other students, or ask the school professionals yourself. This will place the child with his peers developmentally, which is the biggest encouragement you can give.
Talk to a computer teacher in the school if one exists. They may agree ...
21
I meet people at local meetups. Where I live there are about three Python meetups a month. My experiences have been great: excellent programmers who just like to talk shop. While you will likely meet others at your skill level, you won't meet people at your age level. It will mostly be older people (e.g. college age or higher), but if the goal is to talk ...
19
I think perhaps you should re-assess what your expectations should be for an 8 year old both in writing quality and in capacity for taking criticism. I know few, if any 8 year olds who can take criticism in the way some adults can, and fewer still who have any self-criticism at all.
There can be a significant difference in quality between what kids produce ...
15
It's normal, and you're expecting too much. Colors are hard, for a variety of reasons explained in this article:
Colors are not a thing like a "ball" or a "dog", but a property of a thing
Colors are societal construct interpreted differently in different languages, with lots of gray areas even within a language (is that particular shade red or orange?)
...
15
I'm 15, and I had this same problem about a year ago.
There's an awesome community called HS Hackers on Facebook. To call it lifechanging would be a gross understatement.
Hackathons are the best way to meet other talented (and often young) programmers. Hackathons are basically coding marathons. The best event to go to would be a CodeDay. It's a 24 hour ...
14
Color is a difficult thing to teach . . . they don't know that you're talking about a quality rather than an object.
Kid: "Hey, just a moment ago, they told me that was an elephant, and
now it's a grey. I'm so confused."
My daughter got it all at once when we were driving at night. The traffic lights had no visible structure beyond a circle of light. When ...
14
Insisting, forcing him to do something will most likely not work in the long term. Yes, he may improve, but it'd be much much better if he wanted to improve.
You should talk to your son, ask him whether he wants to learn to play well or not. If he doesn't - I think you shouldn't force him. I admit that he will eventually learn, but it'll cost him much and ...
13
A few years ago, a study was done on students that observed student response to how they were praised about their school work. The study found that students who were praised with phrases like, "You're so smart!" or "Look how clever you are!" were more likely to give up when confronted with a problem that they found difficult. Students who were praised ...
13
There is no reason not to speak to the neighbors, find out about their routine & figure something out that is reasonable & respects everyone involved. I have a neighbor whose teen is in a band & they like to do band practice in the garage that is set apart from their house, but very near to my home. I take no issue with them holding practice. ...
13
Welcome to having a toddler. Every toddler I've ever known has done this to some degree. For some it was vehicles, others was baby dolls, etc. And after a while, they all move to something else. They still enjoy other things in the interim, but they all had their "obsession".
For example, my nephew was into "trash trucks" for quite a while. He loved ...
13
Khan Academy is a great resource for letting children learn math and science/technology at any age. It allows children to progress through different subjects, includes videos to teach them each subject and then offers practice questions to help them master subjects.
I in particular use the "MAP Recommended Practice" feature with my son, who is a fairly ...
12
A couple of things to add to user3143's excellent answer:
Tools. Tools are not a substitute for experience or knowledge, but every craftsman/woman appreciates good tools, and they are something that you as a non-programming parent can help with. Some of the best are free, but if the kid wants an IDE, library, program, etc that costs any reasonable amount of ...
12
say "let's find out together". Then collect some different magnets, some magnetic and non magnetic items, something the magnetism can be transferred to (screw driver or pin). Some type of compass building items would be nice too. Metal shaving would be nice for showing the magnetic field.
Then do experiments, when possible have your child guess the outcome ...
12
I would grasp the opportunity to teach them about things that they don't learn in school, or to teach them in a different way from the way they are taught in school.
Perhaps look at family photos and family trees and talk about how your grandparents lived; visit the neighbourhood and study the changes. Go into the garden and find insects. Study your energy ...
11
Giving up is not necessarily a bad thing, providing you are giving up on a certain approach to a problem, and not the problem altogether. Knowing when to give up, and figuring out what to try next instead are important problem solving skills. In other words, if you've been sitting there staring at a math problem for 10 minutes without success, chances are ...
11
Without exception, every adult I know who took piano as a kid but no longer plays, including some who were quite talented, had it turned into a chore by their parents. It is absolutely essential to find a way to keep it fun.
So I would make your busiest days fun days, where you still expect him to play, but let him play whatever he wants. It might ...
10
I would get him to play more on days when he is does not have sport or late finishes, and get him just to do a couple of scales or something on days when he has more on. As he starts playing for longer he'll also start enjoying it more as he'll start becoming more creative.
10
https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/traits/intelligence
I think a loving, healthy home is an excellent foundation. As a special needs teacher, I can tell you that parents might not control how intelligent their child might be, but that a bad influence can and does matter. You can help them achieve their best self. (I am not talking about parents who smoke or do ...
9
I do not want to say that you are out-of-luck, but you are pretty much out-of-luck. The issue is that most people around your age do not know those languages. In fact, most people around your age likely do not even know what most of them are. If you asked most 14-year olds what Vim or LaTeX is, many of them would have no clue at all. Some might know what ...
9
I’m going to address something that I think is perhaps in the background of your concerns.
Between the ages of 2 and 5ish, my son would get fantastically obsessed with different things and it would last forever. There was the period of fans, The Statue Of Liberty, The Titanic, Robert Wadlow (really - he was the tallest man ever), etc.
My wife and I ...
8
It's only me in the house. I have to teach him 2 languages.
Actually, you don't "have to".
In India, people in northern states speak Hindi at home. Not all Indians are fluent in English yet their toddlers know the meanings of English words like cat/watch etc.
The reason is the "playschool". Here the people usually send their children to formal schools at ...
8
I have had some success (in an unpaid, friend of the family or parent of the child's friend kind of way) with the following approach:
Stop referring to them, even inside your own head as lazy-to-think. While that is one possible explanation for them not answering, or blurting out any old number without working it out first, there are plenty of others: they ...
8
I actually assissted in a math classroom for one of my internships to become a teacher. My lead teacher pretty much handed over the control of her "resource class" (those are generally the kids that have the hardest time with math, hate it, and think they don't need it) What I did with them that worked really well, was to present them with a project that ...
8
I've decided to share a few things we do right now which seem to be interesting and fun and (I think) help her develop (or at least don't slow her development:). Just an explaination: I write her all the time because I have a daughter. At this age it doesn't change much for boys I guess.
Indoors
Activities with children's books
There are many books for ...
8
Go to a hackerspace. They are everywhere in the world, and they are places where 'hackers' meet, in the sense of good-willing computer experts. It's mostly adults, but if you are lucky there are also some teens.
There are plenty of projects to work on, such as programming software, 3D printers, soldering, etc. And other people can participate in your ...
8
Many.
But which exactly greatly depends on your child and his experiences so far.
Some suggestions:
Death is final
Really. If you are four you haven't necessarily made that experience yet. Families are smaller and live apart, neighbourhoods less connected than a few generations ago. First-hand experience with death is rare even for adults.
Death is ...
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