It should come as no surprise that the number of jobs that require coding skills continues to increase every year. As we become more and more tech-reliant, our need for capable and good coders continues to be in demand.
By the time the children of this generation are adults, it is estimated that nearly (if not more) 75 percent of jobs will be in computer science, so the need for coders seems inevitable. While some parents and educators think that children spend enough time in front of a computer screen, others believe that coding for kids can be beneficial. Aside from an excellent chance of job security, here are a few reasons to consider getting your child involved in coding sooner than later.
Improving Computational and Sequential Thinking
Many adults look at coding as just creating software, but it can also help strengthen computational thinking, which is another way of solving problems and understanding human behavior by using concepts in computer science. Computational thinking is beneficial to logic, philosophy, as well STEM studies.
Sequential thinking is often linked to logic, order, practicality, attention to detail, and organization. While sequential thinking is essential to coding, it can also help your child improve reading comprehension.
Learning To Code Can Be Empowering
Every child should have the opportunity to find the thing that makes them excited, happy, confident, and makes them feel empowered. For some kids that thing is sports, and for others it’s coding. While coding is becoming more popular and widely accepted as a useful and necessary skill, there’s still a lot of stigmas attached to getting involved in tech stuff. Parents and educators can help to foster the positive aspects of coding rather than encouraging the negative stereotype of a “lonely nerd wasted his or her time.”
The confidence and sense of accomplishment that a child can learn when coding is crucial to other areas of life as well.
The Ability To Unlock Potential
Many people assume that individuals who succeed at coding are only those who are “tech-minded” or good at math. Coders are also creative, imaginative, and curious; coding requires people with interests in every field from arts to agriculture. By gaining an understanding of how people with different interests work together, your child can grow up to have a variety of interests and general knowledge on several topics beyond computer science.
Creating and Maintaining
Coding can teach children about responsibility in the sense that when you start a project, you must find a way to fix any problems and continue to maintain it to keep it working. Consider website creation, for example. Coding is essential, but it’s also beneficial to know about optimizing and maintaining a website. This can include making sure that the page is responsive, the basics of SEO, or just ensuring that the page runs as well as it can and without any glitches.
Fostering Independence and working with others
As adults, we are expected to thrive as independents but also have the ability to interact with others. When a child learns to code, they will not only become confident and more self-reliant but will also learn that to succeed on a project they must work well with others.
