
A lesson on the importance of encouraging your children with their projects - TamDenholm
http://gamesbyemail.com/WoodTape/Default.htm
======
edw519
Typical enterprise developer:

    
    
      1. User knows exactly what he wants.
      2. User can only express that in his own language.
      3. Data flow diagrams, best practices, structured design, etc.
      4. Dev still doesn't know what user wants but builds anyway.
      5. 2 years later, project scrapped.
    

Scott Nesin:

    
    
      1. User knows exactly what he wants.
      2. User can only express that in his own language.
      3. Developer patiently encourages user to express himself.
      4. Eureka!
      5. Much learned; happy ending.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
It is a rare developer who can handle the Nesin step 3. It requires an empathy
that doesn't come naturally to many engineers. However, when cultivated, that
empathy makes for phenomenal developers. When I manage development teams, that
is the number one trait I manage for. With empathy, all other problems can be
solved.

~~~
pkghost
_[empathy] is the number one trait I manage for. With empathy, all other
problems can be solved_

You win. I've stumbled across a handy mental model (in which empathy plays a
pivotal role) through research on mindfulness, emotion, and neuroscience, as
well as in an emotional intelligence course taught at Google by Chade-Meng
Tan. In short:

Bodily awareness -> emotional self-awareness -> emotional other-awareness
(empathy) -> effective communication -> healthy relationships -> happiness.

It turns out that your brain uses the same machinery to model your own
emotional state as that which it uses to model the emotional states of others,
so the better you are at identifying your own emotional states, the better you
will be at identifying them in others, which will allow you to communicate
more effectively and so forth.

Also relevant: Asana's Jack Stahl touches on the importance of empathy in a
post post about peer feedback at work: <http://asana.com/2011/06/peer-
feedback-at-asana/>

------
ThomPete
I have a son who is turning two.

Our local supermarket is a great primarily organic shop. They have carts made
for the little ones and we normally use that to do all our shopping.

I usually let him pick things down from the shelves or give him things from
them to put into his cart. Sometimes his picks are random but mostly he
fetches three things that I normally get.

1\. Milk 2\. Pasta 3\. Swarts Broot

After that we go to the counter and he fetches the things for me to put up on
the desk. He now even packs it.

I have found that involving him like this makes it much easier to set
boundaries because he can relate to them.

It's quite different to be told to put only some of the things back rather
than everything.

It's quite amazing to experience the emergence of consciousness.

~~~
MaxGabriel
What is Swarts Broot? I googled it and it led me back to this post only

~~~
phoboslab
Schwarzbrot, literally "black bread".

------
Shenglong
This story has a great moral, and from a younger-person's standpoint, I think
it's something every parent should consider: enable, and don't obligate.

Encouragement itself is a dangerous path, since it can lead to an unhealthy
zeal and interest. Unless you're parenting in an unique way, parents usually
are seen as an authority figure by the kids. Because of this, over-
encouragement could be seen as forcefulness, and act to discourage the child
by creating a sense of obligation. This is exactly what happened to me on
multiple occasions. I swam breast stroke competitively when I was younger, and
stopped training completely when my coach and my parents decided I should
train for higher level competition. I also played badminton on a provincial
level, and basically the same thing happened. This isn't me being lazy. I
trained 9 hours a day last summer at the Shaolin temple on my own will.

On the other end, everything I've built (or done, other sports included), I've
done so on my own accord, either with no support from my parents, or just a
slight tinge of interest. I guess every child is different - just make sure
not to make them feel obligated.

~~~
afterburner
I also see this as an aversion to being manipulated. People (kids, adults)
definitely react in different ways to this, it's why you have to be careful
about generalized advice. Some kids would flourish being "pushed" into
something, others experience an almost allergic reaction to seemingly blunt
manipulation and obligation. The exact way parents and coaches reward and
encourage the kid also matters, and matters differently to every kid. You just
have to figure out what each kid is like.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
_it's why you have to be careful about generalized advice_

This is so true. There is no generalized advice that will work for all
parent/children combinations. Every child is different and will require
different inputs to affect optimal outputs.

Having said that, I will give one piece of generalized advice: know your kids.
Notice my advice is on how a parent should behave, not the child. :) Really
spend time with your kid(s) and learn how they tick. Only by doing that can
you hope to understand how to help them achieve their potential.

------
Joakal
Reminds me about this dedicated builder: <http://jamius.com/>

He builds pretty amazing stuff like indoor trampoline [0] and a robotic spider
[1]. Due to his increasing popularity and requests to learn from him, he
created the adventure builders club: <http://jamius.com/abc/abc.html>

Some more about him in this thread that propelled him to fame on Reddit:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/e5qgr/so_this_guy_li...](http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/e5qgr/so_this_guy_lives_in_the_woods_and_is_video/)

[0]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6c2K_ZVj3I&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6c2K_ZVj3I&feature=related)

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86Krv3gE-c4&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86Krv3gE-c4&feature=player_embedded)

~~~
noonespecial
I'm pretty sure this guy will be able to single handedly rebuild human
civilization after the apocalypse _(1)_.

I love his current quest for a 3d printer that's open source and can run on
his solar panels.

 _(1)With his kid strapped to him, wisecracking the whole time._

~~~
Joakal
If you're interested in open source 3D printers, then you'll like these:

<http://www.reddit.com/r/reprap>

<http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page>

<http://openfarmtech.org/wiki/Main_Page> (Not quite 3D printer, but on the
'rebuild human cilization' level)

------
zwieback
Great story. Two comments:

\- I think the people at our Home Depot would not have been as irritated and
would have led the way to the paint department, maybe it's regionally
different

\- My girls go for spray paint 10 out of 10 times

My daughter had a 4th grade "invention convention" project and she chose to
build a anti-kick board for her desk so the boy sitting opposite couldn't kick
her. It also had comfy footrests. The boy's side had an Italian and her side
had a German flag (the respective nationalities) spray-painted. It ended up
looking really nice and the teacher let her keep it on her desk for a few
days. That project encouraged her to build some tables for her room.

------
pbhjpbhj
This sort of story makes me sad. We don't have a tree house, we don't even
have a tree. We don't have money to spend at the DIY store to keep the house
in shape never mind making checkers boards for fun. I thought I was getting
pretty good at quenching the covetousness that society seemed to have imbued
me with but when one realises that stuff is needed for many uplifting
experiences.

Realising the great joy certain things brought me as a kid and realising that
those things are beyond the reach of my kids ... Gah.

A happy story made me sad; I'm too easily depressed.

Aside: email games seems really retro.

~~~
nollidge
There's got to be a surplus/junk store like <http://sciplus.com> in your area
(that one's got locations in Chicago and Milwaukee). Boatloads of cheap arts
and crafts materials: cotton balls, tissue paper, glue sticks, chalk, markers,
etc. I spent $30 there and got about four shoeboxes full of random crap for my
nieces to craft with.

Dollar stores are great for this stuff. And office supply stores can be
especially nice during back-to-school sales. And wander down every aisle in
the drugstore - wooden spoons! Cupcake liners! Ping-pong balls!

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I've never seen a place like SciPlus in your link.

However, can I drag you back to my initial bleatings - the point being that it
is a rich persons gift to their child to allow them free rein in such a
hardware project.

Yes we have lots of craft materials that we've acquired over the years, no we
don't have $30 to spend on "random crap". But this precious little to do with
where we started ...

------
JonathanFields
Awesome story. Been taking the same approach with my daughter. She's now 10
and is pretty fearless about wielding any tool or material needed to design
whatever she's working on.

Reminds me of a story I once saw about Tinkering School for kids, where they
let the kids conceive and builds project together.
<http://www.tinkeringschool.com/>

------
cpenner461
My son (5) has his own workbench next to mine, and regularly likes to go
"build stuff" with me. He's built several "houses" (random blocks of wood
glued/screwed/nailed together) on his own, and loves helping cut/drill/nail
whatever project we happen to be working on. If I'm working on electronics
stuff he likes to take the voltmeter and check the resistance of various
objects to see if it beeps.

I realized all the hands-on/building/tools/etc was really paying off when he
changed the batteries in a baby bouncer completely by himself. (For those
unfamiliar with anything baby related, this means he had to work a screwdriver
and remove several screws to take the cover off just to get to the batteries -
I know adults who can't really work a screwdriver.) He even had the
appropriate remark of frustration when at the end of it all he realized he'd
put the cover back in the wrong way and had to take the whole thing off and
re-do it...

~~~
mkopinsky
"Appropriate remark of frustration" - I can't think of any (contextually)
appropriate remarks that are appropriate for a five year old.

~~~
BrandonM
"Shit" seems fine to me

------
cesarsalazar12
Really inspiring.

I don't have kids yet but when I think about parenting, this is what I always
dream of. However, when I tell my "non-hacker" friends, they don't seem to get
excited about it. I don't know why. For me, parenting is all about playing a
supporting role in the kids journey to understand the world and learn to hack
it for the better.

------
wyclif
If only I had more upvotes to give. This is the kind of story I come to HN
for.

------
michaelschade
Awesome story, and a great lesson to all out there (current parents or
otherwise)–kids know a lot more than many initially think.

Like this guy letting his kid run the show in the store, my parents gave me
freedom with computers (old Macs that some schools were throwing out) when I
was growing up, knowing that they could fix whatever it is I might happen to
break, and that's given me the confidence throughout my childhood and up to
the present day to always experiment and try new project ideas, knowing that
mistakes can be fixed.

Given his parent's awesomeness, I'm sure Guy has seen similar benefits with
having had the freedom to make project choices typically restricted to adults.

------
chadp
This is the best story on HN I have ever read.

~~~
tb
I love the small print at the bottom:

    
    
      Text copyright (c) 2004 Scott Nesin.
      Drawings copyright (c) 2004 Guy Nesin, used with permission.
    

You just know he did actually ask his 4-year-old son for permission to use his
drawings on the web.

~~~
dasil003
What's this kid building @ 11? That's what I wanna know.

~~~
Eliezer
He just got his Hogwarts letter.

~~~
wlievens
That comment has an extra layer coming from _you_.

~~~
Vivtek
Speaking of which, Eliezer should stop reading HN and get back to writing,
don't you think?

~~~
whatusername
Yes.

------
hoffer
Slightly off-topic but most Home Depot's on the first saturday of each month
hold a free kids workshop. They provide everything necessary to build
something (spice rack, shelves etc). My son and I have attended many and their
great.

------
blots
That's a very inspiring story.

My experience with my parents was quite the opposite. Whenever I would ask for
help they'd present me with a heap of arguments why I shouldn't "waste my time
on this stuff" and even try to stop me. I finally came to the conclusion that
it's best not to ask them at all but try to do it secretly myself and only
show them the end result.

The only other possible outcome was them doing it all themselves. Usually
saying that they will do it faster and better and won't break or make anything
dirty in process. Perfect example of how not to raise children.

~~~
fastfinner
Are you middle eastern by any chance? :D

------
rglover
This really brightened up my morning. A great story and surprisingly, a good
twist. Much like his Dad, I had no idea what Guy was up to until the end. It
really shows you how tuned in kids are. For any parent, this is a great
lesson: let your kids lead the way. They may seems a bit crazy, but this is
evidence that usually, they're not. Hands down, though, my favorite part of
this whole story was imagining Guy running up to Home Depot employees by
himself to ask for help. Adorable.

------
toyg
As the proud parent of a very chatty daughter of two, I wonder: what would be
an equivalent sort of project for girls? At the moment she likes Duplo/Lego
because it's one of the few areas where we connect over the gender divide, but
her other roleplay and games are all about caring and she's very empathic with
other children (worrying when they cry etc). I do wonder whether pointing her
towards hackerdom would really be the right thing to do.

~~~
ordinary
Guy's checkers table was no more a "project for boys" than a project for your
daughter (or, better yet, _by_ your daughter) would be a "project for girls".
The thing I took away from the OP was to support your children in whatever
they do, regardless of whether they want to have tea parties with their
friends or climb trees or hack the NSA.

Well, OK, maybe not that last one.

~~~
Vivtek
My son keeps asking me about how to "hack computers" and I'm pretty sure
that's what he's on about. I keep telling him about how to program. Eventually
I hope it will click.

~~~
thomaslangston
Even before programming, general IT knowledge seems to be very useful for
hacking. Operating systems, hardware, and networking are great topics (and
they are more concrete than most programming).

Great book he might want to read: [http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Exposed-
Network-Security-Solut...](http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Exposed-Network-
Security-Solutions/dp/0071613749)

~~~
Vivtek
Oh, man, that is just the best recommendation ever. I've ordered it. Thanks!

------
knieveltech
I learned last week my wife is pregnant. I was excited already, but after
reading this post I'm impatient to be a father. Thanks for sharing.

------
pknerd
What a wonderful lesson given by Scott and Guy. Mapping Scott and his young
kid as Team leader and a developer respectively,we could figure out how a Team
lead/Someone from Management, could encourage his developers to try out new
things anda set their minds free by giving them freedom to do something which
they love. It's kind of Google's 20% time rule.

Every Org which trust his non-managerial staff and allow them to try out
things often progress and prosper much faster than companies where politics
and bureaucracy often create obstacles.

------
blots
My university blocks your site:

    
    
      Based on your corporate access policies, this web site ( http://gamesbyemail.com/WoodTape/Default.htm ) has been blocked because it has been determined by Web Reputation Filters to be a security threat to your computer or the corporate network. This web site has been associated with malware/spyware.
    
      Threat Type: Othermalware
      Threat Reason: IP address is either verified as a bot or has misconfigured DNS.

~~~
wlievens
Odds are it's because of the word 'game' in the domain.

~~~
blots
It already happened that Cisco IronPort has blocked legitimate sites, like
www.rp-photonics.com, and from the service desk reply I got it appeared that
this was not the only case. Of course one gets used to go around the blocks
with proxies, but I don't see the point in blocking stuff in the first place.

------
phil_parsons
I look forward to moments like this with my two sons, great story and really
well told... thanks!

------
trustfundbaby
That writer's insistence on hanging back and not getting a little bit more
involved in the project or at least helping out really annoyed me for some
reason ... I had to skip to the end to find out what happened.

------
pja
I love a story with a happy ending!

------
dplakon
great story!

------
maeon3
Parents who give their kids a regular diet of "High Praise", "Agreeableness",
"Supportiveness" and "Positive Interaction", but don't send them to college
create children who have higher socioeconomic statuses than children of
disconnected parents who send theirs to college. Multiple studies done confirm
this.

[http://books.google.com/books?id=XDq9Xf_NbrMC&lpg=PT28&#...</a><p>Adam Savage
from Mythbusters claimed his love of building came from his parents
encouraging him to make all sorts of crazy inventions. Moral of the story,
encourage the children to build stuff, keep them on track but don't do it for
them.

~~~
nl
I'm not trying to be pedantic, but that is a book, not a study. I've seen
multiple studies that show parents who withhold praise raise higher achievers
(personally, I don't like that, but none the less - the studies do exist)

~~~
maratd
> I've seen multiple studies that show parents who withhold praise raise
> higher achievers

Ok. I don't like that either.

I'd rather raise a healthy, curious, creative, passionate, and happy child.

I couldn't care less about what he achieves.

If he achieves nothing, so be it. In fact, on average, he won't achieve much
... but when he does achieve something, it'll blow your mind.

And that little drone you raised, who is desperately trying to catch your
attention? He'll focus on titles and milestones. He can verbalize that. He can
quantify it. He can get others (and you) to easily recognize his "achievement"
... more to the point, he will always be trying to put you in a position where
you MUST give him praise, because you constantly hold it back.

You want to know what that looks like? BA, BS, MS, Phd, JD, 100K salary, BMW,
etc. etc. ... easily quantifiable status symbols that can be placed in a study
and can be easily used to force the parent to render praise. Is that really
achievement?

I'd rather my kid start the next Apple.

~~~
rgraham
I think 'start the next Apple' is just as constrained as what you're dogging.

What about just getting married and raising a great family? Or starting a
mechanic shop that lets him fish every afternoon? Living a happy life that
they choose and having a positive impact on the people around them. The
occupation, money, etc. don't matter so much.

~~~
maratd
> What about just getting married and raising a great family?

That's a lot harder than starting the next Apple. Seriously.

Telling your kid "I just want you to be happy" is nice, but it conveys
nothing. As a parent, it's your job to teach him how to get there.

I should know what his passion is. I'm his dad. I don't care if it's
computers, cars, or fish. Whatever it is, I'll do it with him and I'll push
him to be the best in that field.

I don't care what "achievements" he acquires. That trophy means squat. So does
that degree. So does that salary.

I want to see the child challenged, I want to see him fail, and I want to see
him get up, learn from his mistakes, and try again. I want to see that
attitude in every aspect of his life. That, alone, is the biggest achievement
he can make.

Maybe if the kid tries to become the next Steve Jobs, he'll fall on his ass
often enough, to the point that the pain will beat into him what's really
important in life ... and maybe, just maybe, after all that, he'll learn how
to live a happy life.

------
masto
This guy thinks his kid is cute, because it's his kid, but I don't like the
part where he deliberately irritates everyone in the hardware store. I don't
think your kid is cute, so please keep it out of my way.

~~~
shou4577
Speaking from personal experience, I think the positives of this outweigh the
negatives. I've had many customer-interactive part-time jobs in my life, and I
think that it can be great fun when adults have their children do the
interacting. So long as the store is not too busy, and the parents provide
intervention when it is necessary (as in this particular story), I think that
most people will not be inconvenienced significantly.

More importantly, I think that forcing your kids to do these types of
interactions from a young age is very instrumental in their growth and
development. While I am not well-versed in childhood development, I think that
I rarely (if ever) was encouraged to do these sorts of things on my own when I
was young, and that (possibly due in part to this) I had to break an
irrational phobia of these types of social interactions at around the age of
18.

I was literally afraid to ask for help in a store, or to call a business for
almost any reason. Mentally preparing for phone calls with strangers, even
something as innocuous as finding out store hours, could leave me shaking.

Fortunately, I've managed to overcome this anxiety. I can't know for certain
whether more of these types of interaction at a young age would have prevented
this problem, but I think that it is reasonable to believe that it could have.
The slight inconvenience is a small price to pay for this sort of
developmental skill-building.

That's not to say that some people don't need to reign in their kids now and
then, just that an appropriate amount of interaction is healthy and really not
very annoying at all to others.

~~~
masto
Well, you've all downvoted the crap out of me because it's not socially
acceptable to publicly admit that you find any aspect of children annoying.
Step away from the knee-jerk reaction, and read the author's own words:

'The fellow is already engaged with another customer, talking on a phone and
looking at various plumbing boxes on the top shelf. [...] He is rather busy,
and is starting to look around frantically for a parent to clear the matter
up. "Tough luck, buddy," I think as I'm stepping forward.'

The part I object to is not teaching a child how to socialize. It's the
deliberate abuse of a "busy", "engaged with another customer", and "frantic"
employee under the banner of "tough luck, buddy" -- i.e. "it's a kid, so I can
do whatever obnoxious thing I want and you have to put up with it". Also,
"tough luck, other customer". Maybe this kid also needs to learn how to wait
his turn, so he doesn't wind up a self-entitled asshole like his daddy.

~~~
shou4577
Immediately afterward, though, the parent _does_ step in and help out - a
small amount. It sounds to me like the parent here is trying to subtly remind
the employee that this is a learning experience for Guy. The entire exchange
seems, in my mind, to take no more than 30 seconds away from the busy customer
service representative, which is about 20 more seconds than it would have
taken for the parent to ask in the first place.

There are, of course, some things wrong here. The child should not interrupt
another customer to get help - that is rude. But part of learning is making
mistakes, and I think it totally agrees with the spirit of the rest of the
story to let the child make the mistake, and point out afterwards what
improvements could be made (to be clear, the story does not say that this
happens, I am only suggesting the hypothetical that it _could_ happen, and I
claim that it would justify the inconvenience). Again, this is slightly
inconvenient for the people involved, but a great life lesson for the kid. By
making these social mistakes, he gains experience with the types of subtle
cues people let on when you are performing a social faux pas. A short
explanation after the fact from the father can help the child not to make the
same mistakes again.

Of course, this particular father may have done none of those things. He may
be a sadistic bastard who pointed out the most busy, overly worked employee in
the store simply because he likes bothering people, then congratulated his kid
on making a spectacle. But the spirit of the story is lighthearted, so I
interpret his actions as well-meaning (and probably slightly exaggerated, for
effect).

I don't think that people should have to put up with any obnoxious thing a kid
does. In fact, I think it would have been a great thing for the other people
in the story to treat him like an adult, just like the dad wanted them to. If
the clerk had said "hang on, I'll be able to help you in one minute", that
wouldn't have been a problem. Or if the other customer had said, "pardon me,
but I am in the middle of a question here - can you wait?", then the
obnoxiousness of the situation could have been avoided entirely _and_ the kid
would have gotten a great lesson out of it.

People just need to relax. I know kids can be obnoxious. It bothers me to hell
when I see children running around, bumping into people and sword-fighting in
the aisles of the supermarket while the parent seems totally oblivious. But
these sort of minor inconveniences need to be viewed as they are - minor.
Total time wasted of other people in the store on this day - maybe about 45
seconds. Hardly a big enough deal for you to label the daddy a "self-entitled
asshole".

By the way, I didn't down-vote you. I don't agree with you, but I think that
you made a perfectly valid point - children are annoying. In fact, I up-voted
you for it.

