<div class="text-justify">

For some reason, my daughter grabbed an abacus to play with, that she hasn't played with for years. As I have said before, she is a pretty analogue kid, and isn't surrounded by screens, so she ends up making her own games, drawing, reading, or playing the piano. We do let her watch some kids shows these days, but not too much - a few hours on weekend mornings as she eats her breakfast, and her parents can get a little more sleep. Other than that, her imagination is her playground.  

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/23wqkdvMwmZbMA6zsEJqbiQmT7S1ngxzPohTmeFFML9orLU4bYZjxHGhQ2fXv9yLU3gNK.png)

So, she got the abacus out, and was randomly playing with it, but this evening asked if I could teach her about percentages. So, using the counters, we looked at percentages and fractions, cutting them up into halves and quarters, and building the concepts around percentages. For instance, the idea that 2 out of 10 is 20%, 2 out of 20 is 10%, and 2 out of 40 is 5%. Then out of 80, it is 2.5%, but we can't half one of the markers. 

> She really enjoys these kinds of basics. 

She also has a math test tomorrow, which she was upset about on Friday, because she had lost the "prep sheet" she had been given as homework as a trial run. While she was concerned, my wife and I are not, because not only is it all pretty meaningless at this age, other than when she was ill for a test, she hasn't missed an answer all year. It is the same for her language results.

> Little of it matters.

However, what does matter is that she is enjoying the experience of learning, and is thirsty to learn more. Today, with my wife out for the election count (her candidate won and is now President), Smallsteps and I spent the day together, talking and heading into the city for a coffee with a friend of mine. She doesn't open up to too many people, but my friend is really great with her, and enjoys teaching her things also, including chess moves, and gives her little riddles to work out. With his own sun now an adult, I feel he is enjoying the time with a little more wisdom under his belt, and less obligation.

I like to think about counterfactuals, even though I know that it doesn't really help that much, since it *didn't happen.* But, I wonder what I would be like as a parent had I had kids when I wanted to, which would have been around twenty five years of age. That would mean my child would be around twenty now. I have always been a relatively "old soul" in many respects, but I wonder what kind of impact my *relative* immaturity would have had on my parenting abilities, and would it have been a net positive, or a negative for my child. I would have had more energy, but likely had less patience. I would have been more active, but I would have had less resources. 

>Would it matter?

Like most parents, I think Smallsteps is pretty clever and I want to be able to support her to be her best. But, if I had had her twenty years ago, would I have done an adequate job of raising her, or would my own immaturity rub off on her development and slow her down? Obviously, it is impossible to say, but maybe I would have also had a more technological view, relying more on screens like many of my friends did at that age, and she would be one of those Gen-Z depressives that are so common now.

The trouble with the current culture perhaps, is that technology is not only changing quickly, it is also being adopted quickly, which means that the impact of a misstep is going to be on a shorter timeframe. In our history as humans, the changes that we see in the space of a decade, might have taken a millennia to materialize, so each incremental shift, didn't have such heavy consequences. 

Right now however, many people are making decisions right now, that will affect the not too distant future heavily, including the way we raise our children. The fallback position is that children need to learn how to use technology to cope in the world, but it becomes a default, with little regard to the affects of immersing children into a completely engineered world, where there imaginations are lessened, as they consume more and more. They learn and repeat what they consume, but they might not be building the creativity skills to take what they know, and turn it into something that doesn't yet exist. 

Honestly, I don't know what is going to be the best thing for Smallsteps in the future, so I am going to go out on a limb and *not do* what the majority are doing. Perhaps, it will mean that she will be at the extreme, underprivileged, struggling to engage in a world that I haven't helped her prepare for. Or, maybe she will be at the other end of the spectrum, where she has the skills and mental frameworks to onboard new processes when she wants to, and can use the information to create value, not just consume.

> It is all a gamble?

While the world of technological advancement will keep speeding up, we as humans are much the same as we were thousands of years ago. The way our brains process information, the feelings we have, and the basic building blocks of requirements to consider life worthwhile, haven't changed. So, if we have raised kids to advance and create for the next generation, and then for the next and so on as we evolve as a technological species - do we think that the technology is the answer to improving the next round?

At least I believe, not in the way we are using it. 

Many are counting on it though.


Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]


</div>