Two of the focuses of my blog are General Education and Technology. The current younger generations and those that will follow them will all come of age in a digital world. With all of the distractions available online, it will also be important encourage their constructive use of the computers around them. The following contributed post is thus entitled, How to Encourage Your Kid’s Computer Interest.
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Sure, most teenagers wouldn’t need much encouragement when it comes to sitting around in front of the computer all day. Yet, browsing for cat memes and watching funny videos on YouTube isn’t quite what you have in mind for your kids’ career in terms of computer science – and there is a lot more to computers than just popular culture, after all.
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If you’d like to help your teenager out with understanding complex computer issues and building up under their interest, you have definitely come to the right place.
Here is a handful of ways to encourage your teenager’s or child’s computer interest and make sure that they stay up to date on everything that is going on in the world of computer science.
First: Make it a social activity
A lot of children who grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s didn’t have many people who help them out with understanding computers. Perhaps you had it the same way – and building your own computer or learning to code was something you had to do on your own.
This doesn’t mean that your kid has to have it the same way, though, and just because you had to learn it this way doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily the best way to learn a new skill. When learning how to code is a social activity rather than something they have to do alone in their room, it’s suddenly a lot more fun – and definitely a lot easier to learn.
These days, there are a ton of people who know a lot about the subject and you can easily find someone to help your kid out in case you’re not a computer nerd yourself. Find a mentor, for example, who can guide your kid – or see if there are any courses around in case one of their friends would like to join them.
It’s going to be a lot easier for them to stick to it when they’re learning together with a friend, after all, and they will learn it a lot faster as well.
Next: Tap into you kid’s passion
Coding is, as we know, applied to a lot of different things and you should try to help and guide your kid in the right direction if they don’t know what their passion is quite yet.
Your kid might enjoy game design more than building and operating a small robot, for example, or perhaps it’s the other way around. They might enjoy building a website instead – or just read up on everything around cyber security.
No matter what they prefer, there are vast resources that you can use to help them explore their way to their talents. Here are some excellent hacker movies you can watch together, by the way, so that you get to be involved in their interest even if you’re not that into computer science yourself.
Another excellent way to encourage your child’s interests can be through introducing educational resources and working on personal development with the help of Principal David Krakoff. Looking into new concepts and content can be just what is needed to spark your child’s passion!
Being young is all about finding your path in life and becoming better at what you enjoy. Help your kid out with finding his or her way and you’ll have built a great foundation for them and their future careers.
