Ask HN: Appropriate toy for a 1-year old girl that may lead to programming
I'm going to the 1st birthday party of the daughter of one of my friends. We're not required to bring presents, but in view of all the talk about how turning girls (and later women) away from computers and startups is something that happens when they're still children, I wonder - is there a toy that I could buy her at this very early age that would have the slightest influence on that?
If she was 8, or even 6, perhaps 5, some sort of computing device (perhaps a Raspberry Pi) would be suitable... at one, though?
Any ideas?
PS: I think it should be something that is fun and useable immediately, not "buy her this so she'll be able to use it in 3 years"...
68 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] threadAt one year old, it's not like most children are going to be doing anything more advanced than sticking a few blocks together in the easiest possible way, but you have to start somewhere. I have a son about that age and there are really only a couple of pieces in his Duplo set that are questionable, choking-wise. You could go with Mega Bloks instead, which are definitely too large to choke on.
https://www.google.com/search?q=baby+einstein+research
Every study I read says about the same thing, any kinds under 2 shouldn't be watching much TV, because it can actually bring their speech level down.
We are not really a "leave-the-TV-on" household, and we believe that you shouldn't completely substitute parent-child learning with TV shows.
This is just IMHO, because the above being said, you see 2-year olds with their own personal iPads these days, so perhaps I'm just old-fashioned.
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This is more general learning, but we got one of these, and my daughter loves it. She's still learning the different things it has to play with. http://www.target.com/p/b-zany-zoo-wooden-activity-cube/-/A-...
I don't know what the latest research says about later brain development with early sign language learning, but I do know that teaching our kids baby sign language from birth certainly cut down on frustration as a parent, as we were much more likely to understand what the baby wanted/needed.
It's also a serious trip to see a 1 year old kid doing sign language.
I was extra-careful and zoomed the page to make sure I was clicking the upvote arrow on your comment.
I'm just trying to counter the natural tendency the world will have to push her away from that career through millions of little cues like toy selection, teacher and peer attitudes, etc.
Her favorite toy is a cardboard box my wife brought home from her store. No joke, she loves that thing.
For the future I nabbed her a copy of Robot Turtles. (My wife and I play a lot of board games - my wife owns a brick and mortar hobby store.) I have a few of the neat things off of Kickstarter, like 3D printers and some other oddball contraptions, but I think my childhood collection of Legos will go a long way towards helping her build skills necessary to be creative and imaginative.
Stay away from electronic toys - overloading, no creativity - and screen devices - degrades eye contact, hurts imagination. This is just my observation based on seeing my friends perform how _not_ to raise a child, and its an American pastime to critique others on how they raise their children so take my advice with a grain of salt.
There is no need to worry about exposing children to programming concepts at age 1. They have enough trouble just learning how to be a proper human. Let her be a kid. If you want, buy her 1 share in a stock like Facebook or Twitter.
For a while, someone other than him (e.g. a teacher) would ask his kid 'How many X are there?' and the kid would proclaim loudly and proudly: "Zero!"
Edit: I actually disagree with this method (although it's hilariously awesome), because having an item is not the same as having zero items. It might be the zero-th item, but it is not zero items.
I'm conflicted about this. I don't feel happy about nudging a girl or a boy to learn a skill that's professional in its nature.
I still believe it's delusional to see programming as just an interest and something people need even if they're not programmers. We'll do to programming the same we did to math: people spend years being taught math but come out unable to do basic algebra, and forever scared of it.
Children turn into rebellious teenagers. I wasn't a very rebellious teenager, but I remember not doing things that would actually be good for me in the long term just out of spite for some authority figures. A heavy handed approach and your attempt to nudge her into programming could well lead her away from programming.
Give her a great education, be supportive of her interests and show her many different possibilities for personal growth. Do not try to build a better version of you.
(I have daughters and want them to understand programming, but 1 is really young)
Edit: not clear from the book's title, but "Anno's magic seeds" is a charming story about exponential growth.
Alternatively, find out what the kid's currently into and just get her that. 1 is a great age for being happy.
I'm not sure if I started with trains quite at 1, but at least before 2. The thing about trains or blocks is that it is really expensive to get a useful set and really frustrating to have a less than useful set. For trains, the set being able to go around you allows much more immersion in imagination than just a few pieces. With legos, it isn't much fun if you can't build a few buildings and vehicles. Neither are likely to be an issue right at 1, but are likely to be before 2. I'd suggest carefully considering you connection with the kid and what the parent's are likely to do, but while trains and building blocks can be great gifts, they are not good casual gifts IMO. Wooden blocks might be better, and can go with the trains or legos later, but might still be expensive.
If she doesn't have sidewalk chalk, that would be a good easy gift.
Probably not; at this age, the real influence are going to be more subtle and indirect than a specific toy, etc. There might be something her parents could do to avoid laying the gender-stereotyping groundwork on which later influences that tend to push girls away from programmming (and math and physical science generally) build, but as a friend of the parents choosing a birthday gift there's probably no choice you can make that has any predictable influence either way.
Although, if her parents share your concern and are actively working in that direction, you could ask them what you could do that would fit into what they are doing.