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Ask HN: Appropriate toy for a 1-year old girl that may lead to programming
17 points by swombat on Jan 30, 2014 | hide | past | favorite | 67 comments
I'm going to the 1st birthday party of the daughter of one of my friends. We're not required to bring presents, but in view of all the talk about how turning girls (and later women) away from computers and startups is something that happens when they're still children, I wonder - is there a toy that I could buy her at this very early age that would have the slightest influence on that?

If she was 8, or even 6, perhaps 5, some sort of computing device (perhaps a Raspberry Pi) would be suitable... at one, though?

Any ideas?

PS: I think it should be something that is fun and useable immediately, not "buy her this so she'll be able to use it in 3 years"...



She's 1 year old. Way to early to push her into a career. She's got more important things to worry about, like learning to walk, speak, and use the toilet.


My similar recommendation: Buy any toy which will develop her vision, fingers/tactile sense, ears. They all lead to programming eventually. Note that I excluded taste/smell, because they are only required indirectly.


Exactly. Sometimes HN'ers scare me...


"Push her into a career"?? Who said anything about that?

I'm just trying to counter the natural tendency the world will have to push her away from that career through millions of little cues like toy selection, teacher and peer attitudes, etc.


You insinuated that by wanting to buy her a toy "that may lead to programming". Just buy her toys that make her think and encourage her to do what she is good at.


I promise you, there's nothing you can purchase a child at that age to help counter that problem. Not even fractionally.


normloman: Spot on ~!

I was extra-careful and zoomed the page to make sure I was clicking the upvote arrow on your comment.


This a nice, but misguided thought, IMHO. The closest you can get to "programming" at that age is general problem solving. 1-year olds are already constantly learning and problem-solving as it is. Basic problems of hand-eye coordination, identifying things and people. Any generic toy you give them is a problem waiting to be solved. Shapes, colours, moving parts can add to the learning experience.

This is just IMHO, because the above being said, you see 2-year olds with their own personal iPads these days, so perhaps I'm just old-fashioned.


I bought some of these books for my daughter who is 8 months. Obviously she's not going to crank out the next big startup by the time she's 3 with these, but I hoped that they would expose her to what her father does for a living and to not be intimidated later in life by math and programming.

Web Design For Babies 2.0: http://amzn.com/0988472600 A Is For Array: http://amzn.com/1489522212 Introductory Calculus For Infants: http://amzn.com/0987823914

This is more general learning, but we got one of these, and my daughter loves it. She's still learning the different things it has to play with. http://www.target.com/p/b-zany-zoo-wooden-activity-cube/-/A-...


Wow, those are super cool books. I may just buy them to read them, LOL.


Something like a simple wooden train set (http://www.amazon.com/Melissa-Doug-Wooden-Farm-Train/dp/B004...) or a balls-and-chutes toy (http://www.fatbraintoys.com/toy_companies/edushape/rollipop_...). All you'd be looking for at that age is things that help develop their spatial reasoning.

Alternatively, find out what the kid's currently into and just get her that. 1 is a great age for being happy.


For me I think it was trains->legos (the small kind)->lots of books (not actually programming related)->brief personal instruction->intro programing books

I'm not sure if I started with trains quite at 1, but at least before 2. The thing about trains or blocks is that it is really expensive to get a useful set and really frustrating to have a less than useful set. For trains, the set being able to go around you allows much more immersion in imagination than just a few pieces. With legos, it isn't much fun if you can't build a few buildings and vehicles. Neither are likely to be an issue right at 1, but are likely to be before 2. I'd suggest carefully considering you connection with the kid and what the parent's are likely to do, but while trains and building blocks can be great gifts, they are not good casual gifts IMO. Wooden blocks might be better, and can go with the trains or legos later, but might still be expensive.

If she doesn't have sidewalk chalk, that would be a good easy gift.


I am a software engineer and I have a 16 month old daughter. For now she plays a lot with MegaBlocks (and off-brand Duplo that's safe for <1 year) and colorful building blocks.

Her favorite toy is a cardboard box my wife brought home from her store. No joke, she loves that thing.

For the future I nabbed her a copy of Robot Turtles. (My wife and I play a lot of board games - my wife owns a brick and mortar hobby store.) I have a few of the neat things off of Kickstarter, like 3D printers and some other oddball contraptions, but I think my childhood collection of Legos will go a long way towards helping her build skills necessary to be creative and imaginative.

Stay away from electronic toys - overloading, no creativity - and screen devices - degrades eye contact, hurts imagination. This is just my observation based on seeing my friends perform how _not_ to raise a child, and its an American pastime to critique others on how they raise their children so take my advice with a grain of salt.


I didn't start programming until after college, where I got a non-CS degree. I've created multi-decade career in programming, having moved to the Bay Area during the dot-com bubble. In fact, I didn't even like computers except to play games, until I forced myself to learn how to program to get a job during the early-90's recession.

There is no need to worry about exposing children to programming concepts at age 1. They have enough trouble just learning how to be a proper human. Let her be a kid. If you want, buy her 1 share in a stock like Facebook or Twitter.


Here's a reply that won't help you. 1 year old is quite early to really push her in any direction, but when she's around 2, you could introduce building blocks (building and rebuilding as a metaphor for creation) and jigsaw puzzles (pattern recognition).

I'm conflicted about this. I don't feel happy about nudging a girl or a boy to learn a skill that's professional in its nature.

I still believe it's delusional to see programming as just an interest and something people need even if they're not programmers. We'll do to programming the same we did to math: people spend years being taught math but come out unable to do basic algebra, and forever scared of it.

Children turn into rebellious teenagers. I wasn't a very rebellious teenager, but I remember not doing things that would actually be good for me in the long term just out of spite for some authority figures. A heavy handed approach and your attempt to nudge her into programming could well lead her away from programming.

Give her a great education, be supportive of her interests and show her many different possibilities for personal growth. Do not try to build a better version of you.


The baby-safe variety of Legos? It's hard to imagine a (healthy) case for a device with a screen at that age. But at the very least she can start building motor skills and think about building things.


When I was a kid I had lots of Legos (actually, I still have them). I liked the fact that if there was some toy I wanted but didn't have, I could usually make it myself out of Legos, the only limitations being the number and kinds of pieces I had. When people ask how I got into programming, I relate that anecdote and then follow it by describing programming as having an unlimited number of pieces to work with.

At one year old, it's not like most children are going to be doing anything more advanced than sticking a few blocks together in the easiest possible way, but you have to start somewhere. I have a son about that age and there are really only a couple of pieces in his Duplo set that are questionable, choking-wise. You could go with Mega Bloks instead, which are definitely too large to choke on.


Does Lego have any sets for children under 18-24 months? Once she gets a bit older, I agree that Lego Duplo would be a great choice, especially the gender-neutral sets. I can attest that playing with Lego as a kid was a huge part of what eventually made me interested in programming.


I think Duplo should be safe for all kids, just not very interesting when they are too young. They used to have an actual Lego-made product Quatro for a short period, but no longer. Megabloks are the next best thing, they are bigger and have much less clutch power than Duplo.


I bought these for my niece for her first birthday with hopes of her becoming more math/physics/engineering minded. I know that playing with Legos when I was younger was one of the influencing factors of going down an engineering path.


Duplo


Looking at e.g. http://shop.lego.com/en-GB/LEGO-DUPLO-All-in-One-Gift-Set-10... I'm wondering if the flower in the middle isn't exactly the sort of thing babies swallow and choke on?


I have that set and an 18 month old. That flower is pretty big, you're good. The real problem is that young they can't pull the duplos apart. Try these: http://www.yoyo.com/p/mega-bloks-first-builders-classic-non-...


Not necessarily. My son has had a set of duplos since his first birthday. He has an easier time taking them apart than putting them together; putting them together requires more dexterity.


A book. Preferably one that her parents will enjoy reading over and over again. I like "Anno's magic seeds"

(I have daughters and want them to understand programming, but 1 is really young)

Edit: not clear from the book's title, but "Anno's magic seeds" is a charming story about exponential growth.


You're worried about ways to "counter the world". I say, good luck. I already screwed up on my daughter at 3, even while I was consciously and carefully trying not to.

Since she was little, I've been trying to treat her exactly the same as her brother. I vowed she would not become one of those girls who only thought about how they looked.

Around Christmas of 2012, I saw a red, Christmas dress at Costco, and bought it for her.

She had never had a fancy dress before, and she liked it enough. But the damage came when we went to the grocery store, and she wore the dress. Everybody praised how cute she looked. So many grandmothers and mothers in the store, stopped to tell her how much they liked her dress.

The constant positive feedback from strangers, in my opinion, had a huge impact on her. She liked the dress more and more, and we bought her more dresses. She also got more as gifts from relatives. Every time we go out, she's bombarded with compliments on how she looks.

We dress her brother (one year older) up in nice clothes as well, but strangers don't stop him to tell him how good he looks in them. There's something about girls, that makes people want to tell them how cute they look, and, in my opinion, it effects them.

Who doesn't like getting complimented? Who wouldn't want to do more of something that is generating so much praise from friends and strangers alike?

I've already lost the battle to have her grow up, not caring about how she looks. At 4, she cares deeply about it. Already, there is a difference in her world, vs her brothers world.

At this point, I've caved in and praise her dresses when she wants me to. You're only a kid once. It's nice when your Dad says you're pretty.

EDIT: In response to my commentors. I reject the premise that boys and girls are different, at least, prior to puberty. For a kid of 3 years, I contend that they are exactly the same, but that they are treated differently, and that is what makes the difference.


> I reject the premise that boys and girls are different, at least, prior to puberty. For a kid of 3 years, I contend that they are exactly the same, but that they are treated differently, and that is what makes the difference.

That's a fashionable notion in our post-modern world, but wrong. Young rhesus monkeys display gender-specific toy preferences in line with human behaviour: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0018506X08...

Boys and girls are different, though I'll agree with you that most of the pressure to look good is societal rather than innate. Worse: most of it comes from other women.


"I've already lost the battle to have her grow up, not caring about how she looks."

Not caring about how you look is just as bad as being vain.

"At 4, she cares deeply about it. Already, there is a difference in her world, vs her brothers world."

Boys and girls are different. I realize that's not popular, but it's true.


I don't see how you screwed up. You simply encountered laws of nature :)


Why would you think she may like to go and work for an Startup when she's in the age of working? Maybe she wants to be a musician or a model.


I think you need to go for just problem solving, not for programming. A shape sorter might be OK. Fisher Price made a remote control car that was very good for kids called a Bounce Back Racer. It was tough, so you didn't need to worry about a toddler breaking it, and it could flip over; so there wasn't really frustration with it being undrivable if something didn't work. You get to push buttons, see something happen, and have feedback. You can try to make the car go to Mommy or Daddy, so it seems like that is a start to having a machine do your bidding.


I have two daughters (1.5 and 3.5 years old). Every kid is different, but from what I've observed, you can't do what you want directly at this age. But that really doesn't matter at all.

Buy her tons of books. Make her love books. Read 3 books before bedtime. Read any time she asks, even when you're staring at your phone, trying to claw back that little shred of personal time by responding to something "important on the internet". Why? Because the earlier she learns to read in life, the more she'll have the wind at her back when it's time to learn more. Books are cheap. You can get them at Goodwill for next to nothing. You can get them from the library for free. We have so many, my kids can't possibly read them all, and that is a great problem to have.

I am also a fan of open-ended toys like big, wood blocks, a stack of blank paper and some crayons, and Play-Doh. You can never do too much of that stuff. It works their creative side, their problem solving abilities, fine motor skills, and hand eye coordination.


You are very thoughtful - love it. But as others have said, 1yos just don't have brain development far enough along that you can target specific toys with activities. What 1yos need are things that help them learn to control their limbs - a Johnny Jumper, blocks, hammer + block things to nail down. That's what they're focusing on at that age: I want my hand to do this.


I'm always bothered when I see these types of questions. Why do you feel the need to lead a young child to programming? Why can't you simply let the child be like all other children. Let them enjoy their youth and at around 7 or 8 you can introduce them to programming. If they like it great, if not let them decide what they do like doing.


Colorful wooden building blocks. Sturdy enough to last for years, encourages problem solving, and lets them make something.


> is there a toy that I could buy her at this very early age that would have the slightest influence on that?

Probably not; at this age, the real influence are going to be more subtle and indirect than a specific toy, etc. There might be something her parents could do to avoid laying the gender-stereotyping groundwork on which later influences that tend to push girls away from programmming (and math and physical science generally) build, but as a friend of the parents choosing a birthday gift there's probably no choice you can make that has any predictable influence either way.

Although, if her parents share your concern and are actively working in that direction, you could ask them what you could do that would fit into what they are doing.


She's too young for cuisenaire rods / blocks yet, but those are great.

Pound o' dice (chessex) are great. Really tactile, lots of colours. Again, severe choke hazard at the moment.

It's probably more important to teach logical thinking and questioning. When she says "why?" Say "that's a good question, what do you think?" Teach her to gather the information she has and to find out what information she needs.

Teach her about estimation.

But as for stuff that's available now? There's a big gap in the market for gender neutral clothing with positive messages. Onesies and t-shirts in a variety of colours with messages like "future rocket scientist" or similar "geek" slogans would be great.


I agree with everyone that's saying that you should focus on developing her problem solving skills instead of pushing her to program. At this point you don't know whether she will want to become a programmer or not. Problem solving skills are applicable to any career so why not teach her something that would make her a better person (and maybe a better programmer someday)? I have heard of http://www.goldieblox.com/ as a great way to get girls interested in engineering early on :)


Are the parents planning on doing (baby) sign language? If not, a book on how to do that would be, in my opinion, the best thing you could do.

I don't know what the latest research says about later brain development with early sign language learning, but I do know that teaching our kids baby sign language from birth certainly cut down on frustration as a parent, as we were much more likely to understand what the baby wanted/needed.

It's also a serious trip to see a 1 year old kid doing sign language.


It's almost ridiculous to consider 'programming skills' for a 1-year-old, let alone the presumptive pressure that she should become a programmer, etc.

But, programming in real life is much more about clean organisation, rather than clever algorithms. Buy her a peg board toy, building blocks, and a cupboard to keep it all tidy, and the constrained creativity and discipline she will practice will apply to almost any field.


Nothing. She's one. Wait till she's four.


Interesting question. I wouldn't mind seeing what suggestions come up as well, as I have a daughter that's almost 1 year old.


She's one. Buy her some Tinker Toys and finger paints. Read every night to her, until she starts picking up books and reading on her own (it happened for me by about the age of three, simply from reading with my mom every night).

FFS, she won't even construct memories that she'll recall later in life for another couple of years. This is all really kind of absurd.


Well, if you really want to turn her away from computers, why not try teaching her to program when she's 1 year old?


I think you're not quite in the position to solve this problem :-) But one characteristic that serves kids well is curiosity coupled with good mentoring. At one she is still probably working out object permanence, I found my kids were more interested in the box that things came in rather than the toys at that stage :-)


Why are you trying to influence a child who isn't even yours...thats the job of the parents...


heuristic play is putting a child amongst a bunch of everyday items and letting them experience this stuff without any guidance from a parent. The adult monitors for safety, and joins in, but should let the child guide the play.

So a box of suitable items for that might be nice? A soft safe play mat. Some hair brushes, fabric of different texture, stuff that crinkles, plastic bottles with dried peas in, pine cones, emery boards, glittery things, etcetc.

You have to be a bit careful because the mouth is a sensory organ and children at that age will put anything to their mouth to explore it. You might want to nicely print something about heuristic play.


Actually one of my friends taught his kids to count starting from zero.

For a while, someone other than him (e.g. a teacher) would ask his kid 'How many X are there?' and the kid would proclaim loudly and proudly: "Zero!"


coding win.

Edit: I actually disagree with this method (although it's hilariously awesome), because having an item is not the same as having zero items. It might be the zero-th item, but it is not zero items.


I bought my kid a Hexbug Nano around that age. It's a small robot. It's small enough to swallow, so it depends on the kid.


Bilibo chair. There's no replacement for imagination. Wait until she's 6 and then go after the programming angle.


Get a Towers of Hanoi puzzle.

For a 1 year old, it's just a stacking game, later on, she can learn how it really works.


Poor girl..


Something from Baby Einstein


I'm personally not a fan of Baby Einstein. There's too much research that supports that it's not making babies any smarter, and possibly making them dumber.

https://www.google.com/search?q=baby+einstein+research


Not true at all. In fact, the source your provided clearly states: "Research examining the specific effects of baby DVDs and other infant programming is limited." There's TOO LITTLE research on the matter. Everything in moderation - I wouldn't subject a child to more than 30-45 mins a day of DVD programs mingled with play and reading etc.


I agree that everything should be done in moderation, and we do let our 1 year old watch a kids show one in awhile, but there is evidence against it. Here's a specific study: http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/03/03/does-baby-e...

Every study I read says about the same thing, any kinds under 2 shouldn't be watching much TV, because it can actually bring their speech level down.

We are not really a "leave-the-TV-on" household, and we believe that you shouldn't completely substitute parent-child learning with TV shows.


While I think that the Baby Einstein videos and toys are great (my daughter loves the both), I wouldn't say these are specifically programmer oriented.


Creativity, engagement, problem solving - however rudimentary are all good - nothing more complicated. I would also emphasize language - having the child hear the spoken word - whether sits mamma or daddy or baby Einstein cd.


Yeah, but what is "specifically programmer oriented" that is also appropriate to 1yos? Nothing!


True, but that doesn't make "something" the correct answer.


This is a really great question. I have a daughter who just turned 2, so I guess I have some experience with this. Lots of other commenters are correct in pointing out that 1 year old is really still very young. A 1 year old is still trying to learn how to stand, move around, feed themselves. Their brain is spending more time developing gross motor skills than fine motor skills. They don't have much logic yet, and they are only beginning to learn things like cause and effect and object permanence. I'll try to point out what things she can do at 1, but also things she will grow into over the next year.

Blocks are a great gift for a 1 year old. We have some wooden ones with alphabet letters and numbers and animals, and we also have Megablocks. My 2 year old still plays with those, and as they develop finer motor skills and logic, they can play different kinds of games with the blocks (e.g. "lets put all the same colored ones together").

Musical stuff is also a really good gift for a 1 year old (and musical skill happens to correlate strongly with programming skill). So you could get her a xylophone or some toddler percussion stuff. At this age she will just bang on them, but that's fine, and like with the blocks, her play will develop as she learns finer motor skills and logic.

Reading to kids at any age is good for them, so you could also get them some board books.

Between 1 and 2, she will go through huge development in fine motor skills, logic, and language. In this year she'll become more ready for paper books, like Dr. Seuss books or Goodnight Moon, and will start to memorize them. She will start to learn that the words on the page go with the words to the story and pretend to read along. She'll also have the fine motor skills to put together the Duplo Legos. She will also start to understand cause and effect, and the basics of time (now vs later vs tomorrow). Her play will become more imaginative too.

Around 2 is when she will also start to understand the difference between boys and girls, and this is where you will want to be more careful in the kinds of toys she is exposed to. I try to acknowledge the differences between how boys and girls play, without enforcing the negative gender stereotypes.

A while ago, some HN commenter, who happened to be a child development psychologist, made a statement that stuck with me. She said something like "all kids can play with the same kinds of toys, but boys will play just for the sake of play, but girls need to breathe life into their toys." This has turned out to be really true, at least with my daughter and her playgroup of friends. She plays with Lego Duplos, but she wants to know what all the Lego people are doing, give them places to go, have them take care of baby Legos, have them use a Lego potty, etc. She plays with Matchbox cars, but again, she is more interested in building rich stories for them and having the cars talk to each other than racing them. Boys do this too, but girls seem to need this kind of play more than boys do in order to stay interested and engaged. Playing with a 2 year old is actually a lot of fun. :-)


Duplo.


This is a great toy for teaching kids basic engineering concepts. It's also fun for me to build stuff with my girls.


A chess board!


A macbook air?


ball




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