I happen to have a 11 y/o daughter too. I teach her coding not because I want to make her a dev: but to me it's important that she gets, early on, the mindset.

So "gamified coding" it is. Online platforms with simplified source code (but still actual code), making little animals move on the screen, by using code, to solve challenges. She already did more than 300 such challenges and understood loops and variables. She begins to understand how functions do work, side-effect, pure functions, etc.

But the thing is: she's 11 y/o. I'm the boss. A nice boss, a gentle listening boss. But I'm the boss. I get to decide whether she can spend 16 hours per day in front of screens playing or not (she can't). I get to decide how many time she can play out in the street with the neighbour's kids (as I type this she's doing just that) and how many hours she does maths, code, etc.

Then I apply concepts between maths on paper and code. For example she loves having one variable named "O_o" as a joke.

This shows a great understanding of what a variable is (although a poor choice in naming it!).

Then we do maths, on paper, and I literally generate her exercise on paper sheet with:

    O_o = 3 * x + 2 * y + 7

    Find me the value of O_o for the following values of x and y.

She loves that: suddenly she sees, on paper, that same O_o variable she sometimes uses in the code as a joke. And she sees me doing the joke.

She'll be a rebellious teenager soon enough that, as of now, I still get to decide ; )

P.S: at 11 y/o she doesn't have a phone yet either. That shall come soon enough too.

P.P.S: space repetition too. For maths for example... I see where she's struggling, then it's space repetition mode. I generate her custom exercises and three times a week it's hammering.

Ask HN: Best stack for building a tiny game with an 11-year-old?