The kid’s grandparents got him an Amazon Fire tablet and I loathe the thing. It teaches literally nothing about computing and the games they have for kids are barely even games, and are more focusing on advertising various IPs.
I’d like to get the kid started, as he learns to read, on something that will be more useful than detrimental, let that soft little brain soak up some actual computer science, literacy. I teach him about basic electrical circuits and how that translates to computing, if, and, or, xor, nor, etc. He’s got some familiar with hex (colors) and the concept of binary (on/off).
But what to get for a first computer? I almost want to get him something Linux based and turn him loose. Is there anything like that, that would require him to learn some command prompt and basic computing skills?
Every time and try and Google it, I get a bunch of crap suggestions and ads.
I almost want to get him something Linux based and turn him loose.
I don’t have a five-year-old, but if I did, I would. Worse he can do is wipe what’s on it. Can just reinstall the OS.
Maybe also hand them a simple programming environment. When I was a kid, starting kids out with Logo was a pretty easy way to go. Pretty sure that current Linux distros have some Logo variant, lets you make pretty pictures. Dunno if that’s still considered an effective route to get kids interested today.
kagis
It looks like, in Debian trixie, there’s kturtle and ucblogo; the latter was written for university students, though.
For a five-year-old, if it’s a laptop, I’d probably get something relatively-inexpensive (unless you don’t care about the financial aspect). If you can install a Linux distro on it, can probably use any old secondhand laptop, even. Don’t think that the brand matters that much, as long as one can get it up and running.
A point someone made before, though, on a Reddit discussion I was reading talking about how “kids these days can’t use computers any more, just mobile OSes” – kids used to need to learn to use a computer if they wanted to play video games, so they had a major incentive. A lot of games are accessible via mobile OSes today, so that may degrade the appeal. YouTube/TikTok are accessible on both.
I teach him about basic electrical circuits and how that translates to computing, if, and, or, xor, nor, etc. He’s got some familiar with hex (colors) and the concept of binary (on/off).
There’s a genre of programming video games. Steam doesn’t list suggested age ranges, though, so shrugs.
https://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Reviews_DESC&tags=5432&supportedlang=english&ndl=1
I haven’t played much by way of programming games myself – I mean, I’ve got enough real-world programming stuff that I’d do – so I can’t recommend much personally. Played some Mac-specific Corewars knockoff years back. When I got into programming, it was because personal computers shipped with an actual – if simple – programming environment built into it.
Problem is, what you’re talking about is really a child-rearing problem, not a technical problem. I don’t know how one makes engineeringy-stuff appealing relative to non-engineeringy stuff. I didn’t have a smartphone with YouTube and TikTok and a huge library of video games as a kid.
I did Logo back in the 80s on Apple ][s and I still remember it. Definitely recommended and I’m surprised that schools don’t try to incorporate things like this more.
Just make sure he has a computer and he’ll learn
It’s great that you want to support your kid and hopefully get them away from the focus-destroying dopamine traps that are many „kid friendly“ apps. But please ask yourself what your kid likes first, not what you want them to be interested in. It’s perfectly fine to restrict tablet time and let him focus on what he likes, be it computer stuff or football or cycling or reading or painting or whatever. If he really interested in Linux and nor, xor etc that’s great, but don’t force it on him.
And that is coming from someone who bought and built his first own computer around that age and wrote his first few lines of very basic basic code not long after. Not because it was expected of me, but because I was interested and given the opportunity to follow those interests.
So, if that kid is interested in computers, Minecraft is a great game for kids. It encourages creativity, problem solving, perseverance and, maybe later, collaboration. It’s also possible to play together and scale their experience to their age: get started in creative or peaceful, then let them discover mobs and mods when they are a bit older, then let them play with friends.
If the kid likes building and Legos, you might want to look into Lego Boost and Spike, although they are rather expensive.
Oh, and paint. Kids love paint, be it MS paint, Paint.net or any other open source alternative. Show them that with a computer they can create, not just consume.
Shit, Minecraft is a great game for adults. I will follow up on some of these suggestions for sure.
The kid is five, and it’s an android device. You have options without trashing the thing.
Sideload some open source games through F-Droid, set up a simple emulator frontend/app with a few age appropriate games. Lemuroid is a pretty straightforward emulator frontend with a decent UI for a kid to poke the boxart they want to play and just go, but I’m not sure how much you could lock it down to prevent them from borking the settings.
Lock the kid’s access to the app store the fuck down. Install an on-device-vpn based adblocker like blokada or rethink dns to block ads across all apps on the device. It might break some games but the overwhelming majority will just fallback to “you don’t have an internet connection” functionality at worst.
You can look up how to enable adb on the device, then plug it into your computer and use https://github.com/0x192/universal-android-debloater to remove/disable built-in apps you don’t need. There’s a ton you can do with adb to tweak the device, but uad is the most user friendly way.
If you want to push programming, others have mentioned a version of swift that’s available on the kindle fire. Someone else mentioned Luanti as an open source minecraft clone, which I know is available through F-Droid (but can be quite janky due to not being made for phones/tablets).
Lego robots, those drawing robots, something that you can program to move forward, forward, left… A line follower. I’d be cautious at 5 yo and just letting them swipe on tablets and stare at flashing, colorful videos/games for too long. That just teaches them to mindlessly consume content. So I’d allow them to plat KTuberling, draw something in Paint and program a toy robot, but wait before giving them a whole PC or tablet of their own. And a tablet teaches nothing. That’s the reason why lots of people these days don’t have a clue how technology works.
I agree with sibling comments about not forcing anything on kids. I hate sports because I was made to play seasonal sports (tee ball, basketball, soccer) in elementary school and middle school. The only sport I’ll play is freestyle frisbee in a field.
Just have a computer available. Agree with the idea of showing how to create drawings and such. Then go full hands off. If it happens, it happens.
I say this as a computer person working in tech.
The kid is five… don’t.
I feel surprisingly insecure in my own parenting style and capabilities, if it is normal for such a young kid to even think about some of that stuff. When I was 5yo, I was eating pebbles outside and climbing on trees thinking I’d surely get to clouds this way.
You thinking back to when you were 5 is similar to what I was thinking. I’m not sure if giving kids tech that early on is a good thing. That said I’m not a counselor and not a parent so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
My biggest question is can your child read and comprehend what they are reading? I would think it’d be rather difficult to have them learn anything about tech if they are missing that skill.
Beyond that, looking back on my childhood (I was around that age in the early 00’s) I wish that there was less tech in my life then and that I was bored more often. That said I totally understand why some parents give their kids tablets or YouTube to get a break, parenting from the outside looking in is hella stressful and exhausting.
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.
Awesome suggestions. Thanks for the reply.
Force him to compile his own gentoo system and no desert until it boots
I don’t know what Gentoo is but this sounds hilarious.
Another vote for scratch. Most kids that age want quick results and not to spend ages debugging something. Funnily enough I’ve seen the same scratch interface used to program industrial robots.
How much time one on one are you committing to spend with the child? This will make the difference.
Alternatively, think about some sort of robotics kit. Doing stuff in software is great but if it changes something in the real world, even better. Have you thought about something arduino?
Just for balance though, make a raft, a treehouse, a tent, make a fire without matches. It’s all problem solving but I bet any kid will remember getting muddy more than writing a neat while loop.
Well, the amount of comments just going with the premise of a 5yo kid actually understanding logical operators or circuits is a little bit concerning, seeing as mine can barely do the car puzzles with the arrow commands, and they are 6.
Uh oh.
Listen every kid is going to go at a different pace, and they’re going to follow their own interests. Right before covid lockdowns started, so he spent his formative years at home with Mom and Dad, who worked from home, and who are both highly educated with masters and doctorates, and you don’t get that kind of education without being able to teach. So he was around adult language constantly and had two parents that knew how to take complex subjects and boil it down to its most basic forms. Like one example of teaching him logical operators was with a little plug-in night light/ flashlight that he has in his room. He could figure out no problem what the circuit must include. A power source, a light sensor, and a three-way switch, and so he can understand that that light sensor was checking to see if there was light and if so it would stay off, else it would turn on. I did a big project over the summer with installing PVC piping into a raised garden beds and ended up with a ton of extra parts. Splitters and valves and what not. And with that I was able to teach him some of the more advanced operators, and, xor, and nor. Like We would plumb one pipe from the water source and then split it and then put a valve on each side and then connect them back so it had one outlet. And from that or with some other connectors you can teach basically all the operators and even binary. Plus we would read books with him every night, and still do, four or five books a night, and often we talk about the books to develop critical thinking. We also encouraged transcendental thought (tell your brain what to do, ask your brain what you should do), and abstract thought. There was one awesome book for abstract thought that I can’t remember the name of, but every page was like a picture of a tree but each leaf was a hand. And the text would say something like, “what if leaves were hands? Then the tree could climb you.” And for a while we would make up his own all the time. There’s also a series of books called like Astrophysics for Babies, Optical Physics for Babies, Relativity for Babies, so we would read those and combine them with little experiments we would do with my telescope or my big laser. Also spend a lot of time reading the dictionary and going through an encyclopedia, each written for kids, like “my first encyclopedia.” He’s been in Montessori school for a year now and has a wide range of interests; they teach meditation, yoga, karate, and all sorts of practical and life skills. Stuff I never even thought about at his age. It’s pretty cool. We know that every child will experience their own heartbreak and letdown, and will internalize things as trauma no matter what we do. I wish my brain was still soft and as hungry as a kid’s. They suck up whatever info you give them.
4-5 books a night?
Jesus
I mean good for you and them, but that is wild
Everyone’s different, though, as you said, so for sure work with what you have and try and be the best you can for them, so that they may be the best they can
I mean, short kids books. Dr. Suess and whatnot.
What kind of stuff are 5yo supposed to be learning? I just hope it’s not to the detriment of those things. Like how people who skip too many grades never get a chance to learn social skills because they’re too busy with more theoretical stuff.
Ok, Ive just started doing this with my daughter. Im using windows because I know it.
Find a few of their “favorite” websites with games. Sesame Street, Paw patrol, whatever their poison. And put them in the hotlist.
“You want to play some games?”
Then they have to chose their profile, put in their “password” open the browser, and pick from their hotlist and work on basic mouse skills. Also get a TINY wireless mouse, it will make their life a lot easier.
My daughter and I also played through Grim Fandango, Curse of monkey island and just started on the Sam and Max games. All point and click puzzle games. Those are a bit hit and miss on the attention span but I read the walkthroughs before I suggest we play so I can guide the process along.
I like the idea of setting them up with his own profile so he has to log in and then Go through the steps of opening the browser and starting a game. Thanks for the reply…
Don’t 5 year olds struggle enough with learning fine motor skills and life skills in the physical world? Why on earth are we trying to push “marketable skills” or whatever crap on them. They are 5. They can’t even read yet, much less “develop user space applications”! Let them play with physical trains, dig holes, run, play, not force them to sit down and learn computer science when he can’t even fucking read. He will likely be spending 40% of his life after age 18 sitting on a computer and getting eye strain, why does he need to start early? Hell, he likely can’t even read an alalog clock yet. At that age they are just starting very basic math.
Is this a LinkedIn post? Do we want children to be in the toxic grindset mindset to make full stack apps at age 12? Let them be kids! Sure maybe get them one of those starter Lego mechanic sets or one of those push button light up books in logic gates and let them explore, but holy shit guys.
There doesn’t seem to be a single “the child is taking a huge interest in electronics/coding/etc”. It is just a dad forcing his kid to learn “job skills” when maybe he wants to play with dinosaur toys.
This post seems like digital version of “children yearn for the mines”
Maybe not a good start depending on your child’s state of mind and level. Simple games like audio surf let your child get used to the controls and respect the PC. My 9yr old cousin just banged on the keyboard like a monkey while my sister was taking and editing selfies before she could walk.
Second thing is RTS. I taught my brother C&C generals at 3 and he learned plenty of advance skills like finances, hot keys, long term thinking. I was really impressed.
RTS, yes. Another poster suggested that, related to my own start in computing with Warcraft I, and on from there.
buy him an automation game like shapez. its style relates to children I think and it is easy enough for them to learn how to think methodically
Looks pretty sweet. Steam on sale 80%. Got full. Game and all DLC for $2.58. Thanks for the tip.
