I vividly remember conflicts with my parents over sitting in my room in front of a computer. Potential benefits are never obvious, and certainly not to everyone. "Small C games" seem innocuous in hindsight (specially through the hn lense), but could easily have been center of debate and concern of well meaning parents back then.
You're absolutely right, thankfully my father was in the tech field back then and could very easily discern if I was wasting my time or actually learning/doing something.
Even then I was scolded quite a number of times to go do my homework ^_^
Creating a framework of communicating and channeling children's energy into a path that aids learning in today's attention/dopamine hungry world is something I'm still struggling with.
