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This may be just an insignificant anecdote, but as a gen-z person, what helped me as a kid was a sense of community. In my case specifically our parents bought

This may be just an insignificant anecdote, but as a gen-z person, what helped me as a kid was a sense of community. In my case specifically our parents bought us ipod touches and that sense of community was the early jailbreak community. It didn't get me into math but into computer science which got me into math. But this could extend to many things, e.g. the kid who likes Minecraft may get into "logic puzzles" through red stone while the kid who likes Roblox may get into creating roblox games. Then, they will get into math once they actually need math as something useful for their "logic based hobby" as I will call it. Of course it is very hard when a kid is just hit with theoretical math and there is no real association with something they are already interested in. But there are actually countless associations, now you just need to find them and bridge your kids interests with math through them.

underlipton 3y ago
And I'll give an anecdote from the other side. I loved math as a kid, as well as logic puzzles, Erector sets, Legos, computers, video games, the whole pre-engineering shebang. My birthday present when I turned 11 was a copy of one of those home design CAD suites. I coded simple websites (helped along by a neighbor who, unfortunately, moved away). I had good grades in advanced courses; seemed on track for some sort of career in some STEM-related field. But I was very much alone in my passion. I couldn't seem to get anyone around me interested in this stuff, nor could I find anyone to share that interest with. I remember once, when I was in middle school, programming a very basic Pokemon battle simulator on my TI-83+. There was a software engineer who went to our church, and I was so excited to show him and get feedback, but he just kind of blew me off. Probably a few months later, I was watching The Screensavers (remember that?), and they mentioned that users on the TechTV forums were drawing free art requests. The guy who took mine mentioned that he was posting it to deviantArt. "What's that?" I thought. Long story short, I hold a BFA instead of a BS now. Community takes most people from hobby to passion. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to go it alone.
- rusty_venture 3y ago
  > There was a software engineer who went to our church, and I was so excited to show him and get feedback, but he just kind of blew me off. I'm sorry to hear that you had this experience. I'm sure your Pokemon battle simulator was cool!

underlipton 3y ago

And I'll give an anecdote from the other side. I loved math as a kid, as well as logic puzzles, Erector sets, Legos, computers, video games, the whole pre-engineering shebang. My birthday present when I turned 11 was a copy of one of those home design CAD suites. I coded simple websites (helped along by a neighbor who, unfortunately, moved away). I had good grades in advanced courses; seemed on track for some sort of career in some STEM-related field. But I was very much alone in my passion. I couldn't seem to get anyone around me interested in this stuff, nor could I find anyone to share that interest with. I remember once, when I was in middle school, programming a very basic Pokemon battle simulator on my TI-83+. There was a software engineer who went to our church, and I was so excited to show him and get feedback, but he just kind of blew me off. Probably a few months later, I was watching The Screensavers (remember that?), and they mentioned that users on the TechTV forums were drawing free art requests. The guy who took mine mentioned that he was posting it to deviantArt. "What's that?" I thought. Long story short, I hold a BFA instead of a BS now. Community takes most people from hobby to passion. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to go it alone.

rusty_venture 3y ago
> There was a software engineer who went to our church, and I was so excited to show him and get feedback, but he just kind of blew me off. I'm sorry to hear that you had this experience. I'm sure your Pokemon battle simulator was cool!