5 Benefits Of Learning To Code For Kids In A Technology-Driven Future
You may like to teach your child how to become a programmer because it is a fun activity. Some people do engage in coding for fun. On a similar note, if you teach your child how to code, you may be doing your child a big favor in the future. There are several elements and factors to programming that children may take advantage of in the future. If we assume that the future is going to be pretty tech-heavy, then learning at least one programming language is probably a good thing. Just like if the world is going to flood, then teaching your kids how to swim is probably a good idea too.
1 – It Develops Digital Literacy
Coding has a lot of transferable skills. It fosters an understanding of the digital world that makes many other varieties of technology more accessible, or at least more understandable. You go from wondering why a games console won’t run a game at 60FPS, to being able to adjust the settings so that there is never any frame rate loss or screen tear. It helps kids look under the hood of technology and understand its workings.
2 – Coding Literacy Has a Wide Scope
Let’s say you are learning about a big data program for the first time, something like the Nifi system. On the surface, you are no more or less prepared than the next person who has never used the system. Yet, if you already know how programming works and you already know a coding language, then learning how a big data program works is a little easier. Things click in your mind a little more easily, like when you learn French and suddenly things like Italian and Spanish seem a little easier. Learning to drive a car isn’t the same as learning how to fly a plane, but for some reason, it is easier to learn how to fly if you already know how to drive.
3 – It Helps Teach Problem Solving Skills
There is no guarantee as to how this will affect your child. It is possible that your child will learn some awesome problem-solving skills through programming, and still be unable to work a two-way door handle. Yet, the variety of programming-problem solving your child experiences will still beat what he or she experiences when playing computer and console games. There is a lot to be said for the problem-solving benefits of gaming, but when children learn how to code, they experience problems with hundreds of different solutions, each one creating and removing problems as the child progresses through the process. It is a new level of problem-solving with a lot more freedom than gaming is able to offer.
4 – Can Help Make a Kid More Dedicated and Persistent
On a similar note to gaming, it is possible that programming (and gaming) will make your child more dedicated and persistent. The problem is that sometimes this isn’t the case. There are some kids who will take to coding, they will push it to the limit, they will do their best work, they will try hard and they won’t stop until they have a solution. Then there are kids who will skip a problem, who will compromise on quality, who will let things get sloppy, and there are those kids who will just quit when a problem becomes too difficult. It is very possible that coding will make your kid more persistent and a more dedicated person, and there is a chance it won’t change your child a bit. Nevertheless, there are worse things your kids could be doing with their time than coding.
5 – We Can’t Predict The Future
In fifty years we may have biomechanical devices that do all our computing with organic brains that we grow in factories, but for the moment we have to make guesses about our future based on the trends that are happening now. Everything seems to be going digital and everything seems to be on the Internet. The future is shaping up to be very hardware heavy, very software heavy, and very Internet heavy. With that in mind, there is no way that a few lessons about coding will do any harm. If you decide to teach your child how to code, then you may be doing your child a big favor if things keep going the way they are going.
