Google taught my kid to read. Can I hire her now?
- Sunday, March 8, 2009
My daughter taught herself to read using Google at roughly 3.5 years of age. I noticed she would search for the few sight words she knew and then find them on the page of results. She would click through the websites shown in the results one by one until she found what she was looking for (usually pictures of dogs). She continued to improve her repertoire of sight words that way and eventually was actually reading and comprehending the content she would pull up. Later, at about 5 years of age, she started searching for information about her favorite video game, Petz 5, and read tutorials on how to download and install hacks to customize her Petz. She started using paint to draw new background scenes for the game and would browse to the appropriate program files and deploy the design. She is 7 now and has at least 10 blogs, regularly creates and edits her own videos and continues to research via Google. She's passionate about the computer much the way her father and I are.
So the question is do I continue to foster that by giving her some of my real design projects? Certainly, she can batch resize a group of photographs in Photoshop or enter new products into a shopping cart. I suppose one could look at it this way: This is our family business. She is expected to contribute to the family by doing chores whether it is washing dishes or writing a SQL stored procedure (wishful thinking!). Many kids (usually older) work in their family business. I suppose this is no different and she would love the chores assigned to her.
There is also the question of balance. Lately hubby and I have made it our mission to get our entire family outdoors more and to enjoy low-tech activities such as camping. My daughter enjoyed a short stint taking dance classes, but found it wasn't her thing. She is also enjoying girl scouts. Maybe she is on the computer enough and needs to broaden her horizons. It is really a tough call. I don’t want to squelch her natural passion for technology, but I want her to learn balance.Labels: Google, Parenting, SEO 
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