/sci/ - Science & Math

Show him some good science fiction to get him interested in science. Popsci books and documentaries are basically this but too pretentious to admit it.

Build model rockets, take him fossil hunting, or whatever else fits his interests. Try to do things like calculate how high the rocket went rather than using it as a mindless toy.

>>6231303
TV is your friend. PBS science and math shows for kids.

Honestly, I can't remember being "introduced" into liking science and math. Either I came to it on my own, or my dad (he was a big science guy) did it very sneakily.

I wouldn't want to make your kid feel forced into it. Make him come to love it in a way that makes him feel like he loves it because he loves it, not because you want him to.

Also, pic related (when he gets old enough, of course)

When I was younger, my dad made money with his hobby as a photographer. We went from place to place and I spent a lot of time with him. I kept asking him questions like how power plants work, where wind comes from, why the sky is blue. Being a civil engineer by education, he could answer all or most of my questions instead of dismissing me.

Now I have a pretty solid model of how the world works around me. I found chemistry interesting and not at all a chore. I didn't like memorizing ion charges and name but that's beside the point. Physics was ez, math was a bit challenging in highschool. Now I'm blazing through calc 3.

AMA

>>6231303
Learn to introduce the subjects in the right way to your kids. I'm 20 and I love programming. My mom showed me Visual Basic when I was 8 and I enjoyed it.

Problem was that it went way over my head. She used Some kind of visual tool to draw a form and all kinds of shit that is not the beginnings of learning programming. When I was 10 found HTML and started making a megaman fanpage. When that was done I really thought I had explored the limits of web development. Keep in mind that webpages back then weren't all that sophisticated usually, not the ones I came across. My parents have both since I was 8 tried to give me stupid educational programs to help me learn programming, but they're all incredibly boring and doesn't introduce you to the subject. They treat it like a game where the hidden objective is to learn programming. When I was 15 I got my first real introduction to programming. And I've gone from there.

So get to know your kid and learn how to teach him something. There's no surefire way to teach everyone I'm fairly sure. Hopefully he's much like you can you can teach him well.

>>6231314
Science fiction is a great idea. Building a general interest in something helps motivate.

Don't introduce him to videogames or anything like that ever, it's going to happen. Don't keep rules regarding them but rather arbitrarily forbid videogames for periods of time. If you put some kind of limit on how much he could play (if its an issue of course) he reacts far too positively to the videogames and he grows an addiction (like I did).

>Try to do things like calculate how high the rocket went rather than using it as a mindless toy.
Present things like this in the right way. "Wanna know how high it went?". Not "I know how we can figure out how high it went". Accept a no and figure out why he said no to that.

this book has some pretty interesting ways to think about numbers for kids

>>6231314

Popsci and scifi were definitely big influences in my decision to be in the sciences. I'll make sure to keep a nice stock of children's science books, even as bathroom reading.

>>6231321

I loved PBS, too.

>>6231325

Toys and magnets already litter my house. I bet the little one will have fun playing with those kinetic sculptures in my office.

>>6231328

Travel will be great once the kid's older. I'm sure I'll be able to answer those questions, too.

>>6231333

I had to learn BASIC in 3rd grade and it made me love computers (more than just a timesink for the internet). I'll keep that in mind.

>>6231347

I'll keep a copy in the library. Thanks, anon.

>>6231354
>I had to learn BASIC [...] it made me love computers
Not what I would have expected. Just don't go over his/her head. That's pretty much the entire point I was making.

>>6231354
An interesting thing happened to me. I'm the traveling photographer's son.
I was around 7 years old and I asked my dad what he wanted me to be. He said "I don't know... I guess, programmer." At that point it was just that no questions asked. I decided I was going to be that. I can't say I pursued it, but what I did realize from that memory was that I had an uncanny desire to please him that persisted up to even today, in some aspects.

Can we get more content on how to raise kids?
I hope that one day, I can suppress my autism for long enough to reproduce.

>>6231303
read the following quote carefully
>I taught my children to lie the best way I knew how, by punishing them every time I caught them at it

I mean it as an illustration that teaching a child is not simple, and you don't always end up instilling the lessons you intend to teach.

My advice is to make learning fun in any way you can and then encourage that learning no matter which way it goes. Gentle guidance rather than force seems to be a better long term method.

I remember learning to read and do the 4 basic operations mentally simply by using a Children's math workbook.
I have loved math ever since (I'm deep into it atm)
Also my interest in science came from my love of dinosaurs and space... I loved jupiter, and I loved stegosaurus and diplodocus so much...
Even if we were poor at the time, my parents made sure that I could get a small illustrated book from time to time.
While growing up, I kept those and was fascinated by encarta and every dictionnary I could find images in (make sure you have a simple encyclopedia when your kid hits the age of 7 or 8 maybe)
I tried experimenting... None of my parents are scientists so no one could really give me cool tips, but it was fine, I still tried electrolysis and thought an electromagnet was a magnet that was plugged on the power.
So yeah don't be too harsh on failed experiments, my mom loved when I was experimenting most of the time!

>>6233455
I plan on installing a whiteboard and maybe projector in my kid's room. Also, allowing him/her to do "grown up" shit if they can prove to me understanding of higher up science and math concepts before they are supposed to know them.

>>6233508
You don't wanna do that unless you like repainting walls...

>>6234451
What, you think I'm going to condition them to write on vertical surfaces? I didn't have a whiteboard when I was little and still drew on walls. I figure just the opposite is going to happen. As soon as they are old enough to understand my instructions, it will be in their best interest to confine to the borders of that board. You can't really prevent them from fucking shit up at an earlier age without watching them every second.

>>6233455
I remember my first contact with science being a dinosaurs book I got (it even came with figurines of some dinosaurs). Though I never really got into dinosaurs at all.
Instead I'd have to attribute it more to another book I had which pretty much was about the history of science and talked about important discoveries and such, started from the greeks, I remember it went over galileo, the telescope, the different planetary models, newton, einstein, relativity (talked about things such as the twin's paradox).
I really liked that book, it was part of series, another one dealt with some simple experiments for a kid (like the lemon batteries), and went over things like morse code and stuff.

I later got a chemistry kit, so I could perform experiments and such, at some point another book, which also dealt with experiments but with magnetism and electricity, and a microscope.

>>6234798
no, you can't stop it completely, but you can get pretty close.

>>6231303

It was actually a book called the "Dynamics of Change" done for some heavy metals group by Don(?) Fabun back in the 60s. A lot of the stuff is (obv) outdated but the way of presenting information and the attempt to extrapolate trends was just fascinating.

>>6231303
velmas tit's aint that big

Get this book for sure. It's the #1 reason I'm now in college to become an engineer.

>>6234843
wow, thanks!

>>6231303

Dinosaurs were my window into science along side construction toys like meccano, lego, lego technik, k'nex etc...

>>6234825

do you think the creator of scooby doo could have ever predicted that velma, not daphne, would be the most sexually fantasized character of the series?

>>6234863
i predicted it. guys who swoon after anime/cartoon characters are gonna be massive nerds themselves.
velma is a nerd, Ipso facto she'll be the one they fantasize about.
nerds want a nerdy girl to be nerdy with. simples

>>6234870
no, she's just not a blond.

Seriously, blonds in cartoons are most of the time retarded and too thin to be any attractive

>>6234888
>too thin
erm, i thought guys like thin girls?

>>6234894
Attractive
>>6226150

>>6231303
Show him the time-life books like Physical Forces
They simplify mid-level sciences in a pretty fun and intriguing way