Every child should learn how to code

TLDR: If you are a parent (probably pre-teen) you should give your child little assignments to start coding. Because it’s one of the most important skills to learn. Everybody should code, but especially younger generations as tech becomes a bigger part of our lives.

There are numerous benefits to learning how to code, however most of these are focused on achieving an end result. For example you want to automate things around the house using if/then, or visualise data for your work or create a beautiful website to share photos with friends and family. This post is not about that. Sure if you have a clear product in mind that will be a great motivator, but most young children probably don’t have a goal in mind… yet.

One day probably, and once that happens here’s the first huge benefit to learnig how to code: The blank page syndrome. Coding helps children to create something that doesn’t exist yet. And the act of creating will help your child in developing a better relationship with the unknown. Rather than work from some existing template they will learn how to start something new. Whether that something involves programming in the first place is actually in a way secondary. It could easily be a simply homework assignment. Or something grander like building objects of art in the backyard with some wood, nails and paper. That brings us onto benefit two.

Problem solving. Programming is all about analysing a problem, finding a pattern and solving it using a set of rules. In foundation this skill is incredibly important for a child to have. Pro tip: if you have an iPad try Swift Playgrounds and do some of the beginner puzzles. They are amazing, visually attractive and allows everyone to learn the basics of code such as if, else, for and while keywords.

Coding is all about solving puzzles. It’s why I love to code, solving the worlds’ largest puzzles just sounds very exciting. That’s why it’s important for schools to teach programming children how to code at school. By starting the development journey early it becomes less of a “scary animal” and becomes second nature. Children may and probably will forget the syntax of code (wording), but not the problem solving foundation or the ability to face the unknown and create something new.

And we could all do with more problem solvers in the world.