[clarkevans]

I'm a Girl Scout leader in the Midwest. Most of the leadership in this area (adult & youth) is at best skeptical about this initiative, and at worst openly hostile.

Young ladies face a cultural up-hill challenge with STEM expectations. Girls are told, for example, that they shouldn't bother with video game construction, but instead should learn knitting. As a parent, I have first hand experience with well-meaning social institutions that actively discourage science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Girls do not come to Scouting to learn about financial literacy and cybersecurity. They come to spend time with their friends, to be outdoors, to have parties, to do craft-y things.

In an enthusiastic environment, my 7 year old daughter and her friends enjoy MIT Scratch just as much as the boys. She's very into her transaction journal where she records her allowance income and outgoing expenses, adding up the numbers weekly with a new account balance. She likes to take her microscope outside to look at bug wings, etc.

[Spearchucker]

I don't think ffmike was trying to denigrate, discourage or otherwise be negative about STEM. Rather, the suggestion is that there might be other, better places for STEM than Girl Scouts.

Which is just as true for Boy Scouts.

[meheleventyone]

Not really as a boy in the UK I got a programming badge in Cub Scouts in the 80s. Which was about the only venue I could have got some recognition for that ability at that age. I think it's a great idea to recognise STEM skills in venues that are socially important to children at that age.

[Spearchucker]

Recognition is not something I want my son to learn to crave. I got into computers in the '80s of my own volition, in an environment where I was ridiculed for my interest (being a nerd/geek in the 80's was ensuring you had no friends).

If my kid shows an interest in a thing I will support him in that, but I will never push him. Recognition comes from being exceptional, not for being able to open a command prompt or writing a Hello World app.

[meheleventyone]

I think you're putting way more meaning into the word recognition than I am there. It's far more about acknowledging work and effort than turning a child into some sort of egomaniac.

Earning badges for your achievements is socially important if you take part in Scouts. Having badges for STEM subjects helps with the sort of stigma you are talking about by normalising them alongside less stigmatised activities.

[24gttghh]

If you never push your kid, even just a little with kindly parental suggestions, I fear you may raise a un-motivated dullard.

[jasode]

You and Spearchucker are using different semantics of "push":

It's a difference between "pushing unwanted interests on a child" vs "pushing the child's effort for interests he already desires".

The result of the first type of push is the child resenting her parents' forced violin lessons that she hated. (E.g. Tiger Mother's youngest daughter rebels.)

The result of the second type of push is the child's gratitude for his parents because they pushed him out of bed to make swim practice because he wanted to compete in the Olympics. The parents didn't push the love of competitive swimming on the child but they once that desire was identified, they helped maintain the child's discipline for training.

[Spearchucker]

If I push my kid, even just a little with kindly parental suggestions, I fear...

Hey who knows. You're probably right. I'm probably right. That's parenting. I try to facilitate his learning by letting him play. It's how I grew up. And yes, I'm not that naïve that I think I can give my child my childhood.

He's a human being, and a human beginning. As such he must (and will) find and tread his own path. My job is to show him how exceptional his path might become. His job is to choose the degree of exceptionalism he desires.

[Tenhundfeld]

Yeah, I think a parent's responsibility is to expose your kid to things they might like or find fulfilling, but it's up to the young individual to pursue it.

The tricky part is that sometimes you have to push a bit to expose them to something out of their comfort zone. Take learning a musical instrument, as an example.

The first couple of months of learning an instrument aren't a huge amount of fun (for most people). It's legitimately frustrating. IMO, it's okay to push your kid a little bit. For example, make the child take at least 3 months of lessons with two different instruments, of their choosing, and if at the end of that, they still have no interest in learning an instrument, okay, that's fine. We can move on to sculpting or painting or programming or origami or gardening or dance or whatever.

The point is that kids are discovering the world and to a large degree, don't really know what they like or don't like yet. You have to expose them to a lot of things to find something that resonates with them, and at times, you may have to push them a bit, to get past the initial hump of awkwardness or frustration. I think that's healthy and responsible.

That doesn't mean you should force your child to take 10 years of violin when they hate it. I think a lot of parents fall into the trap of trying to force their kid to enjoy hobbies the parents enjoy or hobbies they think their child should enjoy. It's fine to start with those (hey, why not), but ultimately you have to listen to the child and understand the difference between temporary frustration and permanent personality incompatibility with some activity.

[24gttghh]

> My job is to show him how exceptional his path might become

See, there you have provided a push :) For anyone else reading, it doesn't need to be complicated or overbearing to still be a push. Think of it like mass-ejecting material from an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. It's a slow process, but the asteroid is still an asteroid, and it doesn't explode and destroy life on the planet.

Edit: It might crash into something else though...Good luck!

[JadeNB]

> Rather, the suggestion is that there might be other, better places for STEM than Girl Scouts.

That's true—like in the schools! But, since girls aren't getting the support and the role models that they need there, it's good if they're at least getting them somewhere.

[gorkonsine]

If you're talking about the US, no kids are getting the support and role models they need in the schools.

[JadeNB]

> If you're talking about the US, no kids are getting the support and role models they need in the schools.

While I can't argue with the sentiment, I think that this is unnecessarily dismissive of the efforts of teachers (as opposed to administrators or politicians), most of whom do not bear the blame for the current de-prioritisation of education. Certainly I got both support and role models in school, and it was from excellent teachers; and I can't believe that there are no such teachers left.

[gorkonsine]

There are some such teachers, but it's a totally mixed bag and for every good teacher, there's a couple of lousy ones. This comes down to the administration, since they control hiring and firing, the work environment, etc.

[whatshisface]

But - as hard as I suppose it may be for Hackernews to imagine, there are both girls and boys who would rather not go to space camp. Even if space camp has the best career prospects.

[pyroinferno]

If I sent my child to a coding camp, and found out they were only taught crafts and camped outdoors, i'd be pretty upset.

Maybe the solutions is to send your daughter to a school/organization that teaches programming, not an organization that has always taught children crafts and outdoorsy things.