"You will either love coding or hate it"

October 27, 2022 by MrMYTEK

Sometimes it's easy to let someone's words or opinions plant a seed in your mind. Consider what would happen if you told a young person who expressed an interest in coding: "You will either love coding or hate it." While you may hope they would fall on the "love" side of coding, saying this also gives them permission to just as easily hate it, maybe even giving up before they gave it a real chance. Just a simple phrase like this can have such an effect on how one thinks about coding as it becomes easy to identify as either loving it or hating it. For most people, learning to code is not easy, and within just a few minutes, the urge to give up is quite strong. If the person new to coding has been told already "you'll either love it or hate it," the first challenge might give them enough reason to decide they hate it, and give them an easy way to quit.

That person may end up thinking, "Well, I suppose I'm someone who hates coding!" But, this actually couldn't be further from the truth. The new learner might identify as someone who hates coding because they don't understand it.

Anytime we try to learn something new, we face challenges. And sometimes, those challenges make us want to give up. We may have initially loved the idea of cooking, but decide we hate it after the first burned dinner. Especially if you happen to be prone to negative self-talk, when learning a new task, it's sometimes easier to give up than work through the challenges and realize the joy in a new skill set.

I have worked with thousands of students who have aspired to learn how to code. I've noticed something: the only students who haven't enjoyed coding are the ones who don't understand it. I would often hear, "I don't like coding" and "it's boring!" This line of thinking could easily become "I hate coding" if they'd already been primed to think in terms of loving or hating code.

These students don't like it at first because they don't understand it. However, what I've also noticed is that students who put forth some effort into learning coding and overcoming the challenges associated with it along the way always change their comments to, "I actually really enjoy coding!" and "what can I learn about coding next?"

Be careful of allowing a simple phrase to alter your, or your child's, mindset as it relates to coding.

Persistence is the key to learning coding and the reward of learning it is so worth all the effort!

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