Re: INVASION OF THE CHILD HACKERS

["Marco Ermini" <markoer () markoer org>]

On 4/16/07, Stack Smasher <stacksmasher () gmail com> wrote:
> My daughter is 3 and she has had a laptop of her own since she was 2. You
> would be amazed at how much more she likes going to the 6-7 sites I have
> bookmarked for her then watching TV. Sesame Street and Nick Jr. are her most
> favorite. My parents where over a few weeks ago and where shocked when she
> not only plugged in the laptop into the wall socket, but turned it on and
> went to her favorite web page. Needless to say when she goes to school she
> will probably know more than her instructor, I believe that there is a huge
> "digital divide" in the world and I want to make sure my child is
> comfortable with technology that is CRITICAL for her success in the future.

Actually, my opinion is that there is no advantage in giving a laptop
to a 2 or 3 yo to let him/her browse two or three bookmarked site,
over having a 6 yo appropriately starting grasping how a computer
works. If the first has at any stage any minimum "manual" advantage in
handling the instrument, it's just that (manual practice, for instance
using the keyboard and the mouse), the latter will recover it very
quickly.

On the other side, studies demonstrate with abundant evidence that
young kids (especially in your US) are becoming more and more fat and
obese because of the sedentary lifestyle. Since every decent school
has a computer program (and yourself of course, once your kid grows to
6 yo), when he/she is between 2 and 6 yo you should have your kids
running more outside in the garden rather then having her browsing the
Internet.

If you want to give her a real advantage in the life, then let her
learn several languages. In Netherlands and in many other EU contries
which are not native English speaker, they start studying English from
the age of 4 - in Netherlands they can then study up to 4 foreign
languages, depending on the school and choices.

Kids up to 12 are very very easy in picking up languages; instead of
growing the usual obtuse mono-language ignorant script kiddie, offer
her something better, like the deepness and the intelligence that
brings seeing things from different points of view - this is what
languages is about, it's about cultures. When you know several
languages, you can do whatever you want in your life and do it
successfull - being it computer related or not.


Cheers
-- 
Marco Ermini
Dubium sapientiae initium. (Descartes)
root@human # mount -t life -o ro /dev/dna /genetic/research
http://www.markoer.org/ - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcoermini

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