5 Benefits Of Learning To Code As A Child
Thomas Suarez understood the benefits of learning to code as a child! Now 21-years-old, Thomas, a highly successful developer, and entrepreneur, actually taught himself to code at the age of nine and began designing and developing apps on Apple Inc’s app store. In 2012 at the age of 12 years old, Thomas gave a TED talk about his experience coding as a child and his growing interest in game development. Thomas explained that children no longer want to simply play a computer game, they now want to learn how to design and develop one themselves. With that being said, here are 5 benefits of learning to code as a child and why you should sign your young entrepreneur up for an online game development course.
1: Promising Job Prospects
According to money.usnews.com, a computer programmer in the US will earn approximately $86,550. On the higher end of the pay scale, coders were able to take home over $100,000, with the lowest pay packet at $65,760. This is certainly an incentive to encourage your son or daughter to consider learning to code. Even if they don’t pursue this particular career in the future, knowing how to code will open up their job prospects to a wide range of IT-related fields. From cybersecurity to digital marketing, knowledge is power as they say!
2: Support Systematical Step By Step Thought
Learning to code as a child will also help your son or daughter to think systematically and break down a process into step-by-step tasks. This is also known as computational thinking, which basically means your thoughts are formulated in a sequence. While this type of thought process might seem rigid at first, it is highly effective for problem-solving.
3: Unlock The Creative Mind
Signing your child up for online coding lessons is a great way to unlock their creativity and imagination. Game design especially requires a child to conjure up plots, storylines, challenges, and puzzles. In order to create, design, and develop a game or app that will be popular, your child will need to learn how to assess their target market, understand what people want from a game or app and then, make something truly unique. This creativity can then be applied to other areas of their life and in particular to school work.
4: Accept Failure & Overcome It
The fear of failure, whether it’s getting an answer wrong, or just not ‘winning’ at a game, can be emotionally challenging for children. And not being able to cope with this situation can limit, restrict and hold back a child’s education and ability to advance their skills, as they are no longer willing to try, in case they fail. Game development and learning to code as a child can help expose your child to failure and help them to build up resilience to it.
5: Real-Life Application Of Maths
Another reason to introduce your child to the wonderful world of coding and game development is to provide them with a real-life example of why we need math. Children can sometimes see no point in applying themselves in a math lesson, as they never seem to use their math skills outside the classroom. But, by learning to code, your children will realize the importance of math as they have fun creating new games and apps.
