Ask Lemmy

I have this kid relative. Whenever they visited, I'd take out a portable whiteboard and draw mazes for them. Then I'd have them draw mazes for me. Ofc we'd play lots of tic tac toe. Sometimes I'd write word puzzles, or math puzzles. (i.e. simple addition problems) Then I'd have them write some math problems for me. ofc they'd write huge numbers for me to add and I'd pretend I was confused and bewildered and I'd count on my fingers to solve them. It was just to have fun. It didn't involve a computer but it got them thinking, and now that they're older they like math. It's important that you emphasize the fun parts.

I'd open up a computer with them and we'd look at stuff together. I'd say: "that's like the part that thinks. that's like the part that remembers. that's like the part that remembers a LONG TIME" etc. Then we'd look at the patterns on the circuit boards, etc. For Science Fair they did a project called "Will it Boot?" We took a computer, they opened it up, and removed the hard drive. Then we asked "will it boot?" and turned it on. Then we replaced the hard drive and removed the RAM and asked "will it boot?" and turned it on again. Etc. I took pictures of them opening the case, we made a table of what the PC could boot without, printed a diagram that I downloaded of the part names, put it all on a posterboard and that was the Science Fair project.

This is your kid, right? Severely limit "tablet time" but don't worry about it being in their life -- back in the day we had TV which was not much better, and it's important that the kid have some knowledge of mass media to talk about with their future classmates. But tell them they can take it apart and put it together again whenever they want. And if it accidentally breaks when they're doing that, then sincerely congratulate them ("your first unsuccessful experiment!") and immediately head out to buy them a new one. Just get an inexpensive box that you can put Linux on. Easily. Like, let them put the USB stick in and boot it, and tell them what to press. (ahead of time, try to make sure it'll work!) (tell them "it's just a toy now, but we'll turn it into a REAL computer!") Then point Firefox to youtube and look up a video or something. Make sure the PC is somewhere public where you can see it too. Hang out and watch what they're doing, watch what they're watching. Talk back to the show. Make jokes about the show and tell the show when you don't like it. Come up with fanfic ideas. Me and my fam came up with this awesome alternate-reality Pokemon world and role-played it, resolving battles with "rock paper scissors" oops gotta go.