

We consistently underestimate kids. - nemesisj
http://peebs.org/we-underestimate-kids

======
noonespecial
I'm having a similar experience with my 8yo and his arduino. The coolest thing
is to watch him google and struggle (and persevere) despite not being able to
read all that well.

Its also bizarre to be with someone who can read and understand the word
"instantiate" but is mystified by "pizza".

~~~
komiga
Rightfully so; Italian is cryptic!

~~~
sliverstorm
Yeah, I suppose at a certain point the words that don't follow the rules are
the most confusing. "Instantiate" follows the basic rules, "pizza" does not.

------
dandrews
26 years ago I wrote a BAT file ("kristen") for the household MS-DOS computer,
which would play Christmas carols whenever my two-year-old daughter typed her
name on the keyboard and pressed the return key. She learned quickly to switch
the system on, wait for the boot sequence to complete, and play music All By
Herself.

It was a revelation: kids as young as that don't have eye-hand coordination
enough to scribble recognizable letters, so grownups tend to underestimate
their cognitive abilities. But give 'em an opportunity to type, and their
world expands explosively.

Kristen's own son just turned three last month, and you can't tear him away
from his iPad.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Thank you - I am going to buy a cheap laptop (maybe two to stop fighting) for
each child.

Question: What should go on there? Or should I go for the iPad and push the
"educational" games

~~~
Peroni
Kids tend to take to tablets brilliantly in my experience. My son turned two a
couple of months ago and he can unlock my iPad, swipe across to the next page,
select his folder containing his apps (mostly educational, one or two fun
apps) choose an app, play with it for a bit, close the app and open a new one.
He recently learned how to work the camera which is pretty awesome.

Interesting side effect: He now thinks all smooth surfaces are interactive. We
were on the train recently and he was swiping the window in order to close the
train doors. Blew my mind at the time.

~~~
csense
I remember playing video games with a younger family member before he could
read. (I want to say the system in question was a Sega Saturn, but I'm not one
hundred percent sure about this.) He didn't know what the menus said, but he
knew exactly which options he wanted and how to move through several menu
screens.

I was impressed.

Moral of the story: A halfway decent interactive interface can work wonders
for a kid's ability to unleash his mind.

------
sray
I was the youngest in a tiny family, and never had much exposure to children
younger than myself. As such, I grew up not liking kids very much - I thought
they were obnoxious, loud, selfish little creatures.

Then, about 10 years ago, I met my now-wife and got pulled into her gigantic
family, complete with dozens of nieces and nephews. Not really knowing how to
interact with young children, I just talked to them like adults - not dumbing
down what I said, making jokes and references that there was no possibility
they would understand - I found it kind of amusing to talk to a child like
that.

But, the funny thing is, they really responded to being treated that way. And,
it was fascinating to see how they reacted to my comments and questions. A lot
of times I would say something I thought was totally over their heads, yet
they would inevitably furrow their brows, and come up with _some_ kind of
response - often showing an amazing level of comprehension. It was really
interesting to see how a child's thought process works, and how it changes as
they grow.

As a perverse revenge against someone who didn't like kids, they all grew fond
of me. I guess they liked being treated as people instead of dumb little kids.

Epilogue: I actually grew to like children... or the mostly-well-behaved ones,
anyway.

------
squonk
I've become interested in evolutionary psychology. Not at all expert, but when
one considers the survivability of children in ancient (pre-historic)
environments, seems logical that children increased the likelihood of survival
by mimicking the adults they see; figuring out how to do the basics like
feeding themselves, finding a safe place to sleep, taking cover during
inclement weather, and generally assimilating adult behavior. The sooner they
learned these skills, the better their chance of survival if they became
separated from adults. Evolution selected for such behaviors. That conclusion
is a thought experiment, and I haven't dug up scientific evidence, so an
anecdote: I once came home from work to find my 6 year old daughter in my
closet. She had put on one of my shirts, a tie and my shoes. She was holding
an old briefcase. When she saw me, she said, "daddy, let's go do some
business!". I believe that kids have a genetically driven need to emulate
their parents and that need is rooted in evolution and is much more profound
than we realize. Regrettably, the modern parenting and schooling systems
squelch that need. Here's another anecdote:
[http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/07/02/12070...](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/07/02/120702crbo_books_kolbert)

~~~
yesbabyyes
_When she saw me, she said, "daddy, let's go do some business!"_

Did you?

~~~
squonk
I told her not to move and dashed for the camera. Then we talked about what
she wanted to sell (ice cream) and who she wanted to sell it to (people from
Germany [I was traveling there frequently at the time]).

I work from home when not traveling and we still talk about customers,
partners and even some of the challenges that come up and what we're doing
about them. Not sure exactly how it will manifest when she is an adult, but I
am certain some good will come of the exposure.

You are absolutely right, don't discard those moments.

~~~
yesbabyyes
Thanks for the reply! I read an interesting story here on HN about a father
who helped his daughter set up her own business with a gumball machine. Here
it is, DanielBMarkham: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3168077>

The parent story is also interesting. It seems like a good way to teach your
children about a part of the world. I would prefer something other than soda
or gumballs, though. ;)

------
firefoxman1
In 3rd grade I built a transistor radio for the science fair. I remember being
so proud that I built it, but my mom seemed to be way more proud of that
meaningless blue ribbon.

That's the problem, I think. It seems too many parents encourage artificial
achievement that can be quantified, like grades or ribbons, which keeps kids
from truly exploring what they are capable of doing.

~~~
csense
This type of encouragement results in bright kids becoming good at doing
things because they please parents / teachers / professors / bosses.

Whereas our best and brightest should be encouraged to work out things for
themselves, push boundaries, and in general, innovate.

Kudos for finding someone that could understand and appreciate what you were
capable of, though. Not all kids have that; as a kid it can be very
discouraging when you don't have anyone who understands your work to talk to.

------
repoman
To be honest, I've seen kids doing better hack than that kid in the video
using scratch... I don't think we are underestimating kids. If kids have
natural talents to programming, then they will enjoy it. Don't push kids to do
things just because it's cool to make it on their early resume.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
When I was a bit older I made a primitive calculator in Delphi... you had to
enter things in postfix notation, I think, because I couldn't figure out how
to do the normal kind.

------
balinvadasz
Parent of a 4 and 1 year old here. Kids can be surprisingly smart and "dumb"
at the same time. Their rote intelligence can shine if problems are presented
in ways they can easily comprehend them but even simple emotional intelligence
tasks ("if I kick my sister it hurts her the same amount as it hurts me when I
get kicked") stump them. This confuses adults (myself included) and sometimes
makes us expect more from them than would be realistic.

~~~
UnFleshedOne
I don't think kids don't realize that other people hurt too. Kicking their
sisters would be quite pointless otherwise.

~~~
JacksonGariety
He's talking about the principles of psychology and escalation of anger.
Studies show that when you actually hurt someone, your brain devalues that
punch and makes you think you didn't hit very hard, but when you get punched
your brain blows it out of proportion.

Defensive techniques I suppose.

------
firefoxman1
In 3rd grade I built a transistor radio for the science fair. I remember being
so proud that I built it (and received 2 stations!), but my mom seemed to be
way more proud of that meaningless blue ribbon.

That's the problem, I think. It seems too many parents encourage artificial
achievement that can be quantified, like grades or ribbons, which keeps kids
from truly exploring what they are capable of doing.

~~~
firefoxman1
Wow, I'm really sorry about these multiple posts. Blame my HP Touchpad's
browser...

Anyone have the power to delete these?

~~~
makomk
Looks like the duplicates have been autokilled, so only you and people with
showdead enabled can see them anyway. Don't worry about it.

------
colomon
While I fully agree that we underestimate kids, I've got to say that my three-
year-old spent a gleeful half hour riding up and down escalators back in
March, and was sad when we said he had to stop. Little kids can be
surprisingly smart and still be amused by simple, repetitive things that would
bore adults out of their skulls.

~~~
bluedanieru
Pretty much all I've ever wanted to do is walk down an up escalator (and vice
versa) at just the right pace that I don't move. Then run a bit faster, slow
down a bit, etc. All my earthly ambitions boil down to this.

~~~
ddfisher
Do it! What's stopping you?

~~~
bluedanieru
Security. And, shame.

------
ChuckMcM
Something I did with my kids early on was miss the fact that even though they
can't talk they can understand just fine. My kids developed a much larger
listening vocabulary faster than I ever expected.

------
jakeonthemove
I remember how adults used to dumb things down for me or simply ignore me on
matters they thought "a kid wouldn't understand", that's why I have a simple
policy when talking with children/teenagers: treat them as if they're at the
same level as me intelligence-wise.

Sadly, so far in my experience, most children are pretty dumb, for lack of a
better word :-). That's why people underestimate them by default, never giving
a chance to those who are indeed just as smart as many adults...

------
lusr
_Some_ children are quite smart - possibly smarter than some adults will ever
be. Most are not as smart as the average adult, however, and some will never
be. None of this is really surprising?

Whether one is dealing with an adult or child, there's no need to make
assumptions about intelligence. I mean, _some_ kids can spell and proof read
better than adults, or at least type out the word "airport" correctly :)

~~~
tomjen3
I think you underestimate the number of kids who are _smart_, because we put
them through the same curriculum and then disregard what they say and desire
when they are teenagers. It makes it very difficult to see the huge variation.

------
gallamine
I take inspiration from Admiral David Farragut, who was captain of his own
naval vessel by the age of 12 during the (US) War of 1812.

"Farragut was 12 years old when, during the War of 1812, he was given the
assignment to bring a ship captured by the USS Essex, safely to port.[5] He
was wounded and captured while serving on the Essex during the engagement at
Valparaiso Bay, Chile against the British on March 28, 1814."
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Farragut>

