Encouraging kids to take up coding is all the rage today, and it’s important to appreciate just why so many people are recommending it, aside from the promise of it improving their career prospects in the long run.
illustration by Anna Kajda
So what are the skills that learning to code will instill in your little ones? Here is a rundown of the main abilities it will help to grow and flourish in their malleable young minds.
Problem solving
One of the key aspects of coding is taking a problem and tackling it by breaking it down and dealing with it in smaller chunks. This can turn seemingly overwhelming challenges into far more manageable conundrums, which is an approach that applies not only to coding projects but also to any other obstacle that your child encounters.
Of course there is still the issue of how to actually get kids interested in coding in the first place, as learning it can be a barrier itself if all you have to go on are dry textbooks and dense online articles. It is far more fun for kids to learn coding through the games available via services online. By gamifying the learning process, you will be able to help them over the first hurdle with ease.
Creative thinking
You might think that coding is a robotic and repetitive process, with so many rules and limitations that you can have a tough time expressing yourself creatively. Thankfully this could not be further for the truth, as children who learn to code will be equipping themselves with a toolkit that can turn whatever ideas and concepts they might have into a reality. From developing mobile applications to making animations, coding is a compellingly creative pursuit.
Furthermore the framework for thinking that coding provides can be applied in other areas as well; kids will learn about how to structure patterns and the way to write logically, which will in turn help them if they want to use language to make a living further down the line.
Commitment
Coding is instructive because it encourages the people who study it to try, try and try again, even if their efforts are confounded by setbacks. When kids finally manage to achieve the goals set for them, the sense of satisfaction will be hugely rewarding, demonstrating that persevering in the face of a problem is worthwhile in the long run.
Likewise they will come to understand that persistence pays off because it forces you to look at problems and work towards solutions in different ways, rather than simply running into the same brick wall over and over. This will have advantages in every area of their personal and professional existence in the future.
Technical literacy
Last but not least, kids that learn to code will become completely comfortable with computer technology of many kinds. This is an often overlooked advantage, but one which is undeniably important at a time when PCs and portable devices are becoming so user-friendly that most people do not really understand what is going on behind the scenes.
Rather than just seeing tech as a platform for consuming media and playing games, coding kids will understand that it is also a tool which can be leveraged for anything and everything.
Whether that means they will be more self-sufficient if their own hardware needs fixing, or they decide to adopt a career directly related to coding, the lessons learned in these early years of study will set them up to succeed. It could also inspire you to take this journey along with them.
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