On 29/10/12 29-Oct-2012;2:30 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > I really think that you can only nudge, not push. If you keep > pushing, you make very obvious what your values are, and every > kid would want to avoid disappointing you, up to the point of > complete misery. And sustained misery leads to permanent revulsion. > > It's supposed to be fun, so I would try to keep it strictly fun.
I agree, and am not planning to push. The trigger for this thread was when I used the term "probably" in the loose sense of the term while talking to my daughter, and that started a conversation which cascaded [1] into trying to explain mathematical probability. I gave up fairly quickly because it was obvious I did not have the vocabulary to translate my knowledge for her yet. My plan is to start off on a joint reading project of this book [2] at some point in the future - it is almost as ambitious a work as _Principia Mathematica_ [3] in its own way, trying to recap most of Mathematics. Since it starts from first principles (counting sticks and so on) it might be a good way to rediscover math with my daughter some day. [1] Udhay's parental axiom #1: Starting from *anywhere*, it is possible to get to "how did the Universe begin?" in at most 5-6 iterations of the question "Why?" [2] http://www.amazon.com/dp/039304002X [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Mathematica -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
