I just had a chat with my oldest (almost 13 years y.o.) asking him some theoretical questions in the hope to spark some curiosity: “When you connect to a Roblox game, what do you think you’re connecting to?”. It took him a few leaps of imagination to realize that he’s connecting to a physical machine somewhere, and now he’s curious as to how such a machine looks. So that server stack I’ll be setting up, he’s interested in tagging along.
He already knows full well that there are more to PCs than just the windows UI, as I’m a linux guy, but I don’t think they’re aware of just how much can be done with a computer once you go outside of the usual GUI app that connects to some cloud service.
So, provided that his teacher agrees (after all, I have to take him out of school for what effectively will be “alternative education” for a few days so we can fly down to the head office), he’ll end up with bragging rights of having dealt network hardware that costs more than the average computer, and computers that cost more than the average house.
I just had a baby and I’m already planning how to get her to help me run my home lab as a way to get her to figure all this stuff out, maybe run some game servers or do a little local blog. Then I think about how I can teach her to solder a hand wired keyboard or maybe build a little fpv drone with me and then I start to remember that kids sometimes just don’t like what you do so you never know what you could get them interested in or not or if you will each have the time when they’re older
I posted the result of the trip in CasualConversation: https://feddit.nl/post/19675883
3 and 5 years old here. They can get interested as long it’s short and they can do meaningful work. I’ve teared down a second hand game boy color that had his fair share of Pepsi in it. The old one helped me clean with a toothbrush for 10 minutes, then he had to show me what parts were going where (with guidance). Then boot up and verify it works. We try to include them in everything we do and they love to help. We try to avoid the “it’s adult business” and they just sit around and never be interested on whats going out around them. The 3 year old can cut mushrooms with a wood knife and the 5 stir them when cooking.
It’s definitely more work, stuff will be broken but I think it’s worth it.
This could be a very formative memory even if he get disinterested from computers, getting this kind of perspective on things can go a long way !
I posted the result of the trip in CasualConversation: https://feddit.nl/post/19675883
Good on you. You can teach your son some valuable perspective, while getting in some quality time as well. Please let us know how it goes, if you don’t mind. I feel invested now.
I posted the result of the trip in CasualConversation: https://feddit.nl/post/19675883
