Immunising my daughter against technophobia.

It's a pity we can't find a cure for induced fear, you know the fear of trying something new, experimenting and even failing that most of us acquire as we grow up.

At the moment Lydia is learning how to play chess. It's a painless process since I've not taught her any of the rules, I doubt if she knows that the object of the game is to eliminate the other side. All she is aware of is that she can move some pieces in a certain way (the game won't allow illegal moves) .Sometimes those pieces are taken and some times she can take the opposing sides' pieces. The idea of losing doesn't come into it. For her its just another video game to play with.

The point is that not whether she learns to play chess well or not , but rather the most important thing is to experiment, try new things. If you try a hundred ideas and fail 90% of the time then you've come up with ten successful ones. If you try only one new thing and succeed 100 % of the time then you've only thought of one new idea.