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Palo Alto is an anomaly and an outlier. There were a spate of teen suicides at the area's high schools, with a lengthy report by the Atlantic. If Silicon Valley

Palo Alto is an anomaly and an outlier. There were a spate of teen suicides at the area's high schools, with a lengthy report by the Atlantic. If Silicon Valley schools are a pressure cooker then Palo Alto is 5X that. Parents working in high-pressure jobs who think the entire world revolves around tech and consciously and unconsciously passing on those messages to their kids. A couple years back I was at this place called Hacker Dojo, it is a co-working space, an older, nerdier WeWork, and has a storied history in the Valley. There was this startup camp for kids - teaching 13 year olds how to pitch companies, are you kidding me? Let kids be kids.

weimerica 5y ago
I agree and disagree with your example. As a child, I was very big into entrepreneurship. Running lemonade stands at the pool, making bootleg tech-deck finger snowbords, tried starting what could have been Dropbox in high school with a classmate. Took classes on business accounting and such in high school. Having a for-kids course isn’t bad... forcing your kids into it sure is.
- steve_adams_86 5y ago
  That’s just it - I loved a lot of boring, dry stuff as a teen too. I went to competitions doing CAD and 3d animation. Some kids will gladly take a school bus for 6 hours to compete in CAD, and that’s fine. But man, if I made my kids do that… They’d learn to resent me pretty quickly.
- naturalauction 5y ago
  > Having a for-kids course isn’t bad... forcing your kids into it sure is. As anyone who has been to one of these Bay Area high schools can tell you, it’s not so much forcing your kids into something that is the problem (plenty of parents do this all across the country for a variety of things). I think the high schools themselves have a massive culture problem where kids who really should just be doing things they find enjoyable in their free time feel like they have to do so many things they don’t enjoy just to keep up with everyone else. Even at 13, I’m sure many kids had drank the kool-aid and truly believed that doing that course was helping them get ahead in life. All this attitude does is create a massive rat-race where kids are just trying to get the best CV for college applications. I honestly think this seriously stunts the development of these kids, as no one is doing something just because they find it enjoyable.
- sharadov 5y ago
  If you have a natural inclination for it, more power to you. And it seems like you really enjoyed it. When it becomes the be all and end all, as it is in these parts, then it robs you of your childhood.

weimerica 5y ago

I agree and disagree with your example. As a child, I was very big into entrepreneurship. Running lemonade stands at the pool, making bootleg tech-deck finger snowbords, tried starting what could have been Dropbox in high school with a classmate. Took classes on business accounting and such in high school. Having a for-kids course isn’t bad... forcing your kids into it sure is.

steve_adams_86 5y ago
That’s just it - I loved a lot of boring, dry stuff as a teen too. I went to competitions doing CAD and 3d animation. Some kids will gladly take a school bus for 6 hours to compete in CAD, and that’s fine. But man, if I made my kids do that… They’d learn to resent me pretty quickly.
naturalauction 5y ago
> Having a for-kids course isn’t bad... forcing your kids into it sure is. As anyone who has been to one of these Bay Area high schools can tell you, it’s not so much forcing your kids into something that is the problem (plenty of parents do this all across the country for a variety of things). I think the high schools themselves have a massive culture problem where kids who really should just be doing things they find enjoyable in their free time feel like they have to do so many things they don’t enjoy just to keep up with everyone else. Even at 13, I’m sure many kids had drank the kool-aid and truly believed that doing that course was helping them get ahead in life. All this attitude does is create a massive rat-race where kids are just trying to get the best CV for college applications. I honestly think this seriously stunts the development of these kids, as no one is doing something just because they find it enjoyable.
sharadov 5y ago
If you have a natural inclination for it, more power to you. And it seems like you really enjoyed it. When it becomes the be all and end all, as it is in these parts, then it robs you of your childhood.