[roamingdave]

I couldn't agree more. It's always interesting seeing people shelter their kids from thinking that might become frustrating.

I forgot who said it but there was a quote like: "don't be afraid to push your brain, you won't break it!" Of course someone will reply to this talking about burnout which is real but a common sense approach to introducing cognitively difficult topics to kids is very different from that.

A couple of weeks ago one of mine (4yo) asked what the 'D' in 2D and 3D is since I had mentioned it to her while watching a movie. I took out a small ruler and went over to a corner of the TV unit. We then put the ruler along one edge and I explained how that's one measurement or 1D and how we can make a dot with a marker anywhere along that line. We then repeated for the next perpendicular edge and said that it's now two measurements or 2D. You can see where this is going. After 3D we talked about how we can now put a point anywhere in this imaginary cube.

She responded by asking how 4 rulers would look!

Kids are incredible and we frequently underestimate them.

(edited to add the age in there since it's relevant)

[gibba999]

I don't think people understand burnout.

If your kid is studying 16 hours per day, bored, you're gonna get burnout.

Burnout isn't about challenge -- which is good. If you have dinner table conversations about hard topics, that isn't leading to burnout.