“I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You.”
7th June 2020
It’s easy to see why parents push coding on their children. What better way to prepare our kids for a future ruled by software than by training them how to build it? If everything is going to be automated, it’s much safer to be the one doing the automating. And if learning to code is good, then learning earlier is better. But while these products may teach kids specific coding languages, they actually have very little to do with the work of creating software.
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Coding is not the new literacy. While most parents are literate and know to read to their kids, most are not programmers and have no idea what kind of skills a programmer needs. Coding books for kids present coding as a set of problems with “correct” solutions. And if your children can just master the syntax, they’ll be able to make things quickly and easily. But that is not the way programming works. Programming is messy. Programming is a mix of creativity and determination. Being a developer is about more than syntax, and certain skills can only be taught to the very young.