
Advice for teaching my child how to be a hacker? - flarg
Long time obsessive lurker here - can&#x27;t tell you how much I love this place and respect the people who post here.<p>I need your help.  In most situations I normally know what to do - even if it&#x27;s not the right thing - but I do it - but this - this is the biggest challenge of my life.<p>I&#x27;m having my first child end of Jan - my wife is a fully trained Montessori teacher&#x2F;obsessive so the kid&#x27;s regular ed is covered (she always tells me proudly that the &quot;Google and Amazon boys were taught in Montessori&quot; - so no worries on that score ;) - but what should <i>I</i> do? A lowly hacker working for a big-5?  I want to get him into hacking and the sort of things discussed on this forum - at an early age - would appreciate your experiences in doing this and what I can do to help him learn and grow.<p>I don&#x27;t want to screw this up - I&#x27;ll do anything to help the little chap grow, be independent, questioning, not be a soft touch but not be too cynical (me), happy, find someone to share life with;  in fact thinking about this I should just leave it to my wife who is 10x a better person than me.<p>All advice gratefully received!
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brudgers
Congratulations.

This free advice is worth what you paid for it.

1\. You will screw up. Unless you screw up profoundly, everything will turn
out better than you can imagine. Even if you screw up profoundly, everything
will probably turn out all right.

2\. It's great to have plans. They won't survive the opening phase of the
battle. An infant quickly becomes a person. But it takes forever compared to
your plans. Montessori is years away. No amount of "good parenting" can short
circuit that. There's years of changing diapers and little sleep and having no
clue before it comes. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy not having a clue. No parent
does, some people just don't realize it.

3\. Your child will be a child even when they're six one with a black belt.
We're all children at heart. Take advantage of the excuse to act like one.

4\. Your child is not you. Their grades are their grades not yours. Their team
wins the soccer match. You don't. Your child isn't better when someone else
does worse. Parent and pursue your own interests.

It's fun and wonderful and hard. You will need grow,too. You will.

Good luck.

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kenOfYugen
“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you
want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

    
    
      ― Albert Einstein
    

Let him grow and make his own choices, just be a good loving parent and have
faith in him. Forcing knowledge and skills can backfire, make sure you mediate
your passion for hacking to him ;)

~~~
omginternets
I espouse a slightly different interpretation of that quote, namely that
unsatisfactory answers should spur underlying curiosity. In other words: "Oh,
you doubt unicorns exist? Go find out."

~~~
LifeQuestioner
The poster didn't give their interpretation :).

However yours is an interesting one I hadn't considered.

I felt he was saying something simular to another of his quotes : 'Logic can
get you from a to z, imagination can get you everywhere'

I. E I'd you want your kids to be intelligent don't teach them facts, heighten
their imagination.

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762236
Hacking people, particularly yourself, is just as fun as hacking software
(please interpret this sentence in a positive/therapeutic way, e.g., mentoring
and self actualization). Be aware that there is an unbelievable disconnect
between how parents enforce their goals on their kids, and the cognitive
development processes of the children. An example is Americans teaching kids
to share (the children do not understand self, other, etiquette, and
politeness until achieving a certain progression of cognitive development; but
they absorb the domination/submission taking place in the encounter). You have
one, slight chance, to orient a child to be a hacker. If you try to actively
mold the child into a hacker, by exerting pressure to be something that the
kid is naturally not, you will likely achieve the opposite, along with all
sorts of low-grade psychological issues endemic to the American fabric. The
one chance you have is role modeling (while avoiding reward and punishment,
including saying "good job!", since these will interfere with role modeling).
Role modeling is an extremely powerful force of influence that leads the child
to internalize the observed behavior (as opposed to reward/punishment, which
likely lead the child to internalize a counter reaction, even if suppressed to
the view of the parent).

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ColinWright
Play with stuff.

Pull things apart, put them together, wonder if they can be better, make
things, experiment, mix stuff up.

Imagine!

It may be that your little one is not interested in computers, but playing,
making, exploring, and experimenting will be of value no matter where their
interests take them.

~~~
flarg
Thanks!

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manidoraisamy
"I should just leave it to my wife who is 10x a better person than me."

The first thing to know in a family is to recognize & respect when someone is
better than you. You already did that with your wife. I am sure, you will see
that in your child - as an individual with his own merits. Children don't need
to be taught to be a hacker; they need a companion to explore. See things from
his perspective; learn along with him; you will have a wonderful time!

~~~
flarg
Thanks for that advice - I'm definitely an explorer and may that's what I'll
try to pass on

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LifeQuestioner
Also op I went to montessori school for a while as a kid. I'm glad I didn't
stay. We wernt taught how to be just... Kids. It was all really serious.

~~~
762236
My daughter tried Montessori and asked to be pulled out within a day for the
same reason. My favorite, though, was my friend trying to get his kindergarten
kid into a well respected school for the elite, where they administer an IQ
test as part of the entrance exam --- the kid got bored from the test, walked
away from it, and said he didn't want to do it. The school said that they had
no place for such a kid.

