7 tips for doing technology projects with kids

I like to think that I like to do technology projects with my son. The truth is, technology is tough and working on it with a kid is a road with lots of blind corners and potholes. Technology is in just about everything these days though, and I like to stay on top of it and help my son be a part of it.

Any project you do with your kids will have times that feel more like after-school detention rather than the bonding experience you want it to be. Add a little technology and your detention turns into a prison sentence complete with riots and pleas for mercy. To keep our projects in a happy place, I follow a few rules:

Have the supplies at hand

Even standard crafting projects have parts and tools that you will want to have on hand, but tech projects require lots of specialized parts that you won’t find lying around your average home. I always purchase the project parts ahead of time, and I often have extras of key parts in case we have a soldering disaster. I also make sure I the other tools we will need, like pliers, wire cutters, and wire strippers, handy so we don’t have to stop work to look for them.

Do some of the work on your own

Sometimes, just to keep a project moving, it is worth doing some of the work on your own. It could be the hard, boring, or incomplete tasks or it could be fixing something that didn’t go together quite right the first time.

If your project requires programming, do some prep work

This is especially true if your project requires you to write code to run microcontrollers and other physical devices. Hardware may require extra software plugins or device drivers to get everything working. Even simple block coding programs like Scratch can have compatibility issues. Doing this work ahead of time will keep your kids interested and engaged.

Work in small chunks

Technology projects can be overwhelming so try keeping your sessions short. I aim for 20 minutes and I never go over 60 minutes. I will even cut the session down to 10 minutes if we run into a snag that I need to sort out on my own. I keep project parts in a container so I can easily box the whole thing up and stash it away until the next session.

Have plenty of hands-on work for them

Kids need to be actively engaged to get anything out of the project. If you hit a point where your child is not that engaged, do that on your own later and shift to some other part of the project. Also, consider giving your child some extra parts and let them create with them while you work out an issue. This form of parallel-play is great because you are still more or less working together, and your child sees you working and is learning from that.

Pretend you need their help

When I want to do some work on a project and I can tell it will be a challenge to break my son out of his Snap Chat or Fortnite trance, I plead incompetence. I let him know I’m going to do a little work on the project, then I tell him that I will need his help with a hard part, maybe soldering or gluing, because he is better at it than me. Then I give him a heads up when he has a five-minute window to wrap up what he’s doing. Once he gets involved in the project, he almost always forgets his game and keeps working with me.

Let go of your finished vision

The real joy of working on projects with your son or daughter is the time you spend with them. Parts may get destroyed, and you may go through more glue and duct tape than you ever thought possible, but the point is to bond with your child. They aren’t going to do everything the way you hope, and it is best if we go into the project with that in mind. In the end, it is about learning something new and spending time together.