Once thought to be an arcane pastime for the socially awkward, coding is growing in popularity- among professionals, hobbyists, and increasingly, among educators. Teachers and educational professionals now posit that it’s essential to teach kids about algorithms, programming, and the big boss of all successful human endeavors: logical, sequential thinking. Furthermore, teachers and parents say that girls in particular need to be encouraged and included in STEM fields, where they often face systemic bias.
I’ve been teaching my 6-year-old daughter about coding for a while now, and it’s been super rewarding. Learning to code may not be immediately appealing to kids - it wasn’t to Olivia - but after getting past the feeling that it was uninteresting and/or “work,” she has warmed up to it. Both of us are learning a lot. Of course, at the age of six, she’s not writing “real” code, but rather doing activities that simulate coding.
A few of these that we have enjoyed and have shown amazing results are Cubetto, Code Safari, and Codespark.
Cubetto, by Primo Toys, is a physical game with physical pieces. It’s essentially a robotic toy that teaches sequential logic. The cute, woodblock robot is controlled by game pieces, which are plugged into a sequence line on a wooden game board. Each piece commands the robot to perform a different action. So by ordering the pieces in various ways, kids can learn about cause and effect, thinking ahead, and imagining a sequence before testing it out.
Coding Safari and Codespark are apps that Olivia plays on her iPad. They use the typical, kid-friendly characters and upbeat music that you usually find in kids’ games to teach focus, logical thinking, and basic functions. As she solves different puzzles and challenges, she levels up to harder and more complex ones.
There are also afterschool programs and summer camps that incorporate coding logic in their activities. These are a great option when you’re looking at extracurriculars and aftercare. CodeREV kids, which offers classes and camps in a number of major cities from LA to Miami, is running in-person and livestreamed options over the summer that include app creation, video game design, Minecraft mods, focus on math, and tons of other options. Engineering for Kids is another program offering everything from virtual classes to birthday parties to summer camps, all based on STEM learning.
Olivia attends a program like this, and the hands-on learning projects she’s completed have been both fun and impressive. For a project using 3D-printing, she created a trophy and other objects. She made her own t-shirt with a special computer program that she proudly wears and loves telling everyone she designed herself. She also studied elementary robotics, building her own robot as a result.
So what benefits have I noticed from teaching my daughter about coding? There are actually quite a few, and some of them may come as a surprise.
1. I Take Two Steps Forward - You Take Two Steps Back (Logical Thinking)
When you spend a lot of time working with coding-oriented puzzles, your ability to think through problems logically is challenged. With challenge and effort comes growth. It’s that simple. I’ve seen Olivia grow in her ability to think in a logical sequence - thinking in an orderly fashion and anticipating consequences before testing them out.
2. Less Fidgeting, More Focusing
Kids aren’t usually well-known for their powers of concentration and focus. But I’ve noticed that over time, Olivia’s ability to focus has come a long way. Sometimes she’ll be working on a problem, and before I know it, an hour has gone by with her patiently putting in the effort to solve it. I’m sure the colorful and tactile nature of the games we use is a big part of that, but it’s still really awesome to see a kid her age learning to concentrate to that degree.
3. Level Up that Confidence
Experiencing success builds confidence. And in this case, the tangible, concrete success that comes from solving a coding puzzle is a big self-esteem boost that can be regularly repeated through increasingly challenging scenarios. After a few months, Olivia now loves working on these, and has leveled up from beginner puzzles to puzzles with 200 pieces - and she completes them on her own!
4. It’s All In The Details
Because order and sequence really matter in coding, my daughter has learned to pay close attention to each decision and action she takes throughout the process. She has also learned to break down a large task into smaller chunks in order to finish it better. For example, in her Pre-K math homework, she quickly grew comfortable adding and subtracting two- and three-digit numbers, because she had learned to break large numbers down into smaller numbers, and regroup them. That’s pretty impressive for Kindergarten! And this detail-oriented thinking is a major benefit from learning to code.
5. I Got This, Dad
In the beginning of our coding journey, Olivia mostly observed while I showed her how the games worked and led her through each step. For parents trying to teach their kids new skills, it can be frustrating to see them avoid engaging. But you shouldn’t give up, even if you think your child isn’t paying attention or learning. Being consistent pays off.
Now that Olivia’s been doing coding activities for awhile, she has developed a lot more initiative and self-reliance. I will sometimes leave the room while she works, letting her experiment and troubleshoot independently. And it’s working! I’m still there to step in and help her if she needs me, but the point is that she is learning to trust herself to try again, think of a different tactic, and work out solutions.
6. It’s Bug Hunting Season
Bugs in the code, that is. And this may actually be one of the most important benefits I’ve seen Olivia gain from coding. Because learning to bug-fix is hard. It’s tedious. It takes an extraordinary amount of patience, and it always involves a certain amount of surprise and disappointment - after all, if you thought there would be a problem, you would have avoided it in the first place!
Basically, bug-fixing means learning from your mistakes and patiently going over old ground. This is hard for adults, let alone children. And because fixing code often involves asking for help from someone more advanced than yourself, it can be very humbling! But it teaches you that you can’t always solve your own problems and see your own mistakes without some help. Developing a willingness to persevere and fix problems, despite the challenge and frustration involved, is a huge benefit.
7. Out of the Box and Into the Sandbox
Open-ended coding activities are interesting not only from a problem-solving perspective, but from an experimenting perspective. With Cubetto, for example, kids might wonder, “what exactly can that robot do?” and work concretely to find out. How can the snippets and functions that they have learned be combined in new ways?
One way that Olivia’s been experimenting and thinking outside the box lately is by building extensions onto her Barbie’s house. Using Magna-Tiles and Legos, she’s been building whole new rooms and areas for her dolls to sleep and play.
Kids who code strengthen their creativity by adopting a “sandbox” mentality that encourages concrete, reality-based creativity, which is really a strong life skill.
8. Extreme Efficiency
Iteration is a big deal in coding, of course, and often iteration is about increased efficiency. For Olivia, that may mean that she begins a process and uses eight or so steps to achieve her goal. That’s great! But as she works, I’ve noticed her grow in her ability to realize where she can take shortcuts and eliminate unnecessary steps to achieve the goal more quickly the next time, maybe in five steps, or three.
Going back to the example of homework, I’ve noticed that Olivia now finishes her homework very fast - sometimes so fast that I’ve felt compelled to check it afterwards, to make sure she had put genuine effort into it. And not only had she put effort into it, she had done it all correctly. I was in shock, and continue to be, as she now will sometimes do a week’s worth of lessons in one sitting! Basically, coding teaches kids to “work smarter, not harder.’ A major benefit.
9. Feel the Rock, Be The Rock (Emotional Strength)
If you know anything about kids, you probably know that they tend to take disappointment hard. Emotional fortitude is a life skill that can be taught in a lot of ways, but the simple, impersonal world of coding is a safe place for kids to practice quieting their frustrations, working past their disappointments, and ultimately finding success.
In the past, Olivia would sometimes try out a new toy, only to find that it didn’t work the way she wanted it to. Some toys were “too hard.” In the end, she would abandon those toys. But that happens way less now. After months of working with code, Olivia has gained the emotional resilience that comes with facing disappointment - after all, a lot of the things coders make don’t work, or partially work, or break - and then working through it anyway to find solutions. This process teaches kids that they can solve problems and achieve their goals, if they’re willing to try long enough. From there, it’s easier to face the next challenge with patience and optimism.
10. Talking to Robots >= Talking to Humans
It may seem illogical - isn’t coding so arcane as to be almost unintelligible to the average person? Well, it might seem that way. But in reality, there’s a certain strength in communication skills to be learned by coding. Being able to think through the request you want to make, or the idea you want to impart, and forcing yourself to communicate it clearly to a computer - that’s a big deal. If you can learn to communicate logically and clearly to a machine, you can begin to channel a similar level of logic and clarity when you speak to others.
While better communication is great across the board, it’s especially helpful for kids who are trying to communicate with adults. Interacting with adults is significantly easier and more fun for kids who think logically and express themselves clearly, and it’s helpful from the parent side as well. There have been times I’ve found Olivia spending her playtime not playing, but having lengthy, real conversations with her friends’ moms!
11. Go-Go Power User!
This may seem a little backwards, but learning to code actually makes you a better user of software and computer products. Coding gives you an insider perspective. It helps you get inside the mind of the developer, and instinctively you become a “power user” because you know - or at least, can guess - what the maker intended. These days, when Olivia uses a computer or an app, she is very quick to understand how it should work. Sometimes I’ve even gotten stuck, and she’s helped me out!
So there are the eleven biggest benefits that I can attest to of teaching kids to code. I could go further-- there are the obvious relational benefits of just spending time with your child, learning and figuring things out together. There are the benefits that girls especially will realize from being introduced at a young age to the STEM subjects.
I’ve seen it firsthand. My daughter is growing in her ability to think clearly, communicate clearly, experiment, push through, and so much more. Things that were difficult or bothersome to her have turned from obstacles into achievements. She’s happier, better-adjusted, and more confident. So I’m pushing coding for kids, not just because it’s a trending discipline or the latest educational soapbox item, but because of the concrete and far-reaching effects that training in logic, sequence, and critical thinking can have.
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