Guys, I have a teenager with ADHD and is struggling to find friends but he’s wicked smart (99% in his last IQ test) and I think software coding would be a fantastic hobby for him. He does a lot of online education and I would like to enroll him in some coding classes.
Question is, given your opinion of how technology is progressing, what courses would you guys recommend?
Bonus points if you know of a good program in south easter VA (job / internship)
Thanks!
Give him a Raspberry Pi Starter kit of sorts. Can be had for below 100USD (plus shipping of course) from various US vendors. Check around to find a suitable kit. It’s a nice way to get into maker-space territory and I’m sure he’d be able to find like-minded peeps who’d love to help him develop his skills on all levels 
Here’s the official reseller list for the USA:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/resellers/?q=usa&country=1
HTH!
ADHD can be a challenge not only for the individual, but for their parents, too.
In NoVA (Fairfax County) the high schools offer IT oriented academy classes that offer paid CompTIA+ certifications. Check if this stuff is available in your area as well.
Also, the high schools offer basic coding classes (Python and Java), even as AP courses.
There are so many aspects of IT that I would recommend. Expose your teenager to these and see what interests him/her. Support any interest as good as you can. Expect regular changes in interests (I consider that good as it exposes the teenager to many different things).
I second the raspi route mentioned above.
I say try something like game programming.
Its practical, it teaches a lot about algorithms and its applicable to other areas of programming.
I would say maybe something like Godot, cause iirc it uses known programming languages, and the transition to traditional programming won’t be so rough, compared to something with proprietary language.
Honestly, I would give Arduino a shot. Yes, its complicated, but, basically, its easy to visualize since you actually can program a light to flash and things like that. There are even kits for kids(haha), which try to bring one into this eco system.
A few weeks ago I bought an e-ink display with an arduino like board. It took me a while (I am a dev, but not in cpp), but I was excited as hell when I (a 35 yo boy) managed to draw an image on that screen.
If your kid will get hooked up into it, then you can proceed. Plus knowing cpp is a good start. I would recommend Java afterwards (but Im a Java fanboy).
Raspberry pi and python programming go together very well.
Arduino is another single board computer that is a competitor to the raspberry pi that you can get great results with.
Look to a micro center if you have one locally or amazon for them and kits.
The great thing is both companies are relatively cheap to get up and running and have what seems to be a million and one add ons for either platform for cheap. It’ll give your son both mental exercise to write the code and something physical to build and play with afterwards and improve on as well.
My $0.02 for what it’s worth!
It isn’t. Arduino is a microcontroller (uC), RPi is a basic desktop computer/glorified mobile phone. (encircle your preference 
) The RPi Foundation has made its own uC in the form of the RPi 2040, which has been absorbed into the Arduino eco-system and thus programmable via the Arduino IDE. They don’t compete, they compliment instead 
It is until you realise Arduino code is essentially just C++. If one can program in one, one can program in the other as well
I know, but I didn`t study C++. My road started from basic, then made a jump to php, then took a leap to Java. Its been close to 8 years now with Java being my bread and butter.
Fair point / correction! Still a good place to start learning programming with physical / real world feed back!
Great points, I’ve been looking at some of these tinker boards (especially pi) but I really want to enroll him in a good and challenging intro class for his online curriculum.
I’ve been looking at Code Academy (https://www.codecademy.com/) but I have no idea. Lots of these online courses look “scamy” at best…
I’m a computer idiot. But if I wanted to check out different types of programming I would probably start with khan academy. Its free.
https://www.khanacademy.org/computing
My wife was just talking about that one last week. On the list!
The thing with online courses for a kid is like I was introduced to algebra at school - no explanation on why and what it actually means (and no real understanding of why the hell I need it), just the bull drops of you-need-it. As a surprise, to this day I hate math (and have been working as a developer for 7 years now). And did not get any real understanding of it (and I do wonder at some point if I would be declared attention deficiency if I had been examined at that period).
So dont push it. I dont know how old is the kid, but if he`s still in school and somewhere like me, a kit, where you can actually touch and see your progress (and not some abstract thing) would make a better fundament, and give route to actually give self motivation to study something new and more complex in the development world.
not to pile on things but having him learn about how electronics work, capacitors, resistors and such and eventually branching out to making PCBs with kicad might be good
and the good thing is audrinos and raspberry pis are good for that too
Completely agree! He’s asked for a class and is excited.
I just want one thatis relevant.
He’s been playing with snap circuit since he was a toddler and we got him Elegoo kit this past year. He love electrical circuitry so that’s another idea.
That is kinda where I was going with this. you can get all sorts of kits for the raspberry pi / arduino for blinking light to signs to rc / line following cars to spider and other robots to building something completely different / new!
One small thing as a suggestion - help him think of a goal, that would be interesting to achieve.
If you press a button just to press the button, it’s one thing. But if you press a button to turn on the lights in the room or something - here is where things become “personal” and interesting.
I started with flash games, dream weaver, html, css.
so maybe playing around in game maker studio and its visual scripting drag and drop system could be a good enty way.
there is also scratch
Setting goals is a challenge for him that we’ve been working on for some time. Or I should say, maintaining goals 
This looks cool! I’ll let him know; he likes to “play” on google maps after classes (and during classes), maybe this would peak his interest.