How did you learn?

[bouchtaoui-dev]

I have a 10 years old son who is strong in math and likes physic. If I want to explain him how computer works, he starts to get sleepy. If I want to teach him how to program, he quickly gets bored. So my question is, how did you get motivated to learn the computer basics when you were young? Is your father an engineer, do you have friends who like to program or something?

My son is capable to learn computer science, but something is missing that stimulates him to get hungry for knowledge.
I found out he likes to build something that works. Maybe I'll have to build an electronic kit with him and than explain how it works. Or build a computer from pieces of RAM, MOB, HDD and so on, assemble them and make it work.

Sorry it's not an issue, well, it's in issue to me :P

[caseros]

+1

[metacollin]

First off, it sounds like your son gets sleepy hearing a computer described or bored programming because he isn't interested in those things. Here is an idea: how about you ask your son what he is interested in, what he wants to do, and do your best to expose him to as many different experiences or hobbies as is reasonable. Give him the freedom to figure out what his passion is.

You're asking how you can make your son become interested in the things you want him to be interested in, and I hate to tell you this, but you can't. There is nothing you can do that will spontaneously make him suddenly get excited about what you hoped he would be excited about. Weren't you a kid at some point in your life? Or even right now. Has anyone ever successfully made you become extremely interested and passionate about something that you found boring and had no interest in? As a child, or an adult?

It doesn't matter if your son is capable of learning computer science or not. What matters is if he wants to or not. It sounds like he probably doesn't. It sounds like his interest lies much more in the theoretical, and being strong in math is the best possible talent one could be given if their interest is in physics.

He probably is, or could be hungry for knowledge, but it probably won't be the knowledge you wanted him to be hungry for.

He likes to build things that work? What things? Does he want to build an electronics kit? Does he want to build a computer? What does HE want to build?

The blunt truth here is that you aren't interested in nurturing your son's own interests and letting him grow into whoever he will be, you're only interested making your son have the interests you want him to have, you want him to learn the things you want him to learn, and be an imaginary person you imagine your son being.

Nothing could be more selfish. He's his own person. There is nothing wrong with exposing him to stuff you hope he'll like, but it sounds like you have, and unfortunately it just didn't do it for him.

I grew up with my father more or less deciding for me what I would want to do and be interested in. He sort of forced it, like you seem to want to do with your own son. And let me tell you, growing up seeing one's own interests or even skills more or less ignored or made secondary to some other thing you don't really enjoy but are able to do as well is a great way to crush any desire to learn out of your son. Basically, he will be getting the message that learning is painful, that what he wants to learn or is interested in doesn't really matter (which can kill any motivation even in spite of would-be passion about something). And worse, he'll never be happy because he is doing the wrong thing with his life, and will never match someone who is actually passionate in that field, someone who devours knowledge because its fun, its what they want, what they need. He will perpetually feel inadequate, or even like he's failed, because deep down inside, he consciously or unconsciously knows he has failed. He failed to be the person you demanded, and instead, is simply the person he is.

Please don't put your son through that. Help him become who he is, and suppress whatever disappointment you feel when he isn't interested in the things you hoped, and encourage him to pursue what he is really interested in, even if it isn't what you wanted. Have some faith that your son will one day make you prouder pursuing his passion than he ever could with something that isn't.

As for how I learned, I eventually just accepted that my father was a selfish old man, ignored his wishes, and simply couldn't help but inhale the knowledge of the things I actually was interested in. Which in my case was electrical engineering (electronic design engineering, specifically). And I learned because there was no other thing I wanted to do more. To this day, that fire of curiosity consumes me. When I get tired at the end of the day, it is the worst feeling ever. Because I have to stop. I don't want to stop. Ever. I don't want to sleep, I want to keep learning. The tyranny of those 6-7 hours of lost consciousness is a terrible one. This is because it is just who I am, it is just the thing that 'does it' for me. For others, its dancing. Or accounting (seriously, you'd be surprised to find that most accountants very much enjoy doing it), or engineering or computer science or real science in all those fields. But for me, it's electronics. And also computer science, information theory, the list goes on. But no one caused it, and no one can change it, it is simply who I am.

If your son is strong in math and interested in physics, he could end up being an actual scientist. There are lots of very exciting experiments that do involve hardware and computers (but only as secondary tools to be wielded) in fields like astrophysics, plasma physics...uh, really all of the physics. And personally, computer science/software engineering/electrical engineering, that's just the blunt, not-really-understanding bumping around in a dark room of what science has wrought. Engineers build stuff that we already know how to build. Scientists push the human race forward.

I mean maybe he could grow into that. With encouragement.

[bouchtaoui-dev]

Agree with you, I thought I might trigger some interest in programming by showing him some examples and so on. Like face recognition in JavaScript. He liked it, but wasn't really interested to pick it up. Since than I didn't bother him and let him to find out his own things. If he needs help, I'm always willing to help him 😊

At the time of writing, he's 14 years old and healthy and that's an important fundamental part of life. Thank you.

[ghost]

I think programming contests and challenges like advent of code help a lot when I am feeling bored.