My son is crazy about coding. I'm glad that he is developing a skill, but it's so much about designing violent video games (knights' battles with ghosts and skeletons for instance) that I have to wonder: what overall effect does this have on his imagination? To tell the truth, I'm worried.
He's been learning simple coding skills for about eight months now, and has made terrific progress...but I feel that it might be at the expense of so many other things: developing a strong body, improving his gross motor skills by learning a few different sports, going for a medium-length (3 miles?) hike or 7-mile bike ride at least twice a week, learning snorkeling so he can do that in Hawaii (which we plan to visit in the next year or so), improving his fine-motor skills through art class and just sitting down with a pen and writing something, reading chapter books with ease and understanding more complex stories, playing an instrument, learning martial arts, joining the Cub Scouts or 4H so that he improves his social skills and learns about other things besides software...and so forth.
I need to make more progress with signing him up for some of the aforementioned activities...I've been slow about that, partly because I've been busy, but perhaps in large part because I know he'll be reluctant to try anything except coding classes, which he's already taking...but that's all the more reason to do it.
And even if I do sign him up for various things...we need to set a harder limit on the time he spends in front of a computer. Too strict a limit and he'll hanker for it...but he simply needs a more balanced life.
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