What's going on in there?
A study of how the human brain forms in the first five years of life describes the critical period of development a child goes through and what parents can do to help their children's brains develop.
Stats for nerds
4recommend
5mentions
5people
2010–2023years
80% recommend20% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Strongly recommend that you and your spouse (hope you have one, this is hard to do alone) do night duty on alternate days. You'll get a full night's sleep every other day. It's essential.
Enjoy these first few weeks and months. Take all the parental leave you can. Maximize the amount of time you spend holding, playing with, and talking to the child.
Do it for you, because you will always remember these days.
Do it for the child, because their brain is developing very, very rapidly at this time, even if you don't see much evidence of it. The time you spend with your child now will have benefits for the rest of his or her life. (You won't have time to read books, but if you do have a look at "What's Going on in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life".)
A few days from now, programming will seem a lot less important.
- Recommending books seems to be not in fashion. I read some during the pregnancy of my wife. They were helpful. The most helpful one that I am using right now is unfortunately in German. It is really good, but with no translation (Largo, Babyjahre). The rest is in English.
1. What to expect When You're Expecting
http://www.amazon.com/What-Expect-When-Youre-Expecting/dp/07...
It is the classic on the subject and helped when there were some questions. Nutrition is really important. It becomes especially important after the birth.
2. What's Going on in There?
A book about the brain development of the child. It helped me to understand things better.
http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Going-There-Brain-Develop/dp/055...
3. Beyond the sling.
This book is about parenting in general. It helps you broaden your mind. I would not recommend all of it. But carrying your child around helps in a lot of ways.
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Sling-Real-Life-Confident-Attac...
- Be the parent you want to be. A lot of people are going to talk about what the best way to raise a kid is, but you are going to know your kid better than all of them, so do what is right for your family.
Dote on your wife. Give her a foot rub every night.
The burden of a child kind of weighs heavy at times - "holy crap I could serious fuck this kid's head up!" - but remember that most people grow up to be okay regardless of their parents. As long as you're a good and loving person so will your child be.
If you're like me, jokes about kids are going to become seriously unfunny for a few years. If you watch cop shows and dramas you'll notice a lot of kids dying or being threatened and where you might not have had those heartstrings to be tugged in the past, when they first get installed they are fiercely powerful.
My favorite book about childhood development is http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Going-There-Brain-Develop/dp/055... "What's Going On In There" which was written by a neurobiologist because she started thinking about what was happening when she was pregnant. I consider it the Hacker's Guide to your Kid's Brain.
My oldest is 4 now, he's about to start junior kindergarten. Seeing him (and my youngest who is 6 months) develop is fascinating and rewarding. Don't give up on your goals and dreams but remember that there's always going to be work waiting for you. Your kids are only kids for a while.
- I haven't read that book, but the best book on brain development in kids that I've seen is What's Going On In There? You may like it. (My kids are 2 and 5.)
- You got some great answers already, but to your first point check out Hennessey and Patterson's books, namely Computer Architecture and Computer Organization and Design.
The latter is probably more suited to you unless you wanna go on a dive into computer architecture itself. There's older editions available for free (authorized by the authors) on the web.
I first read the 3rd edition of Computer Architecture and besides being one of the most clear textbooks I've ever read it vastly improved my understanding of what's going on in there in relation to OoO speculative execution, etc.
