When my kids were little I thought I would teach them programming. The biggest problem I had was teaching them what a variable was. They finally did figure it out after a lot of work.
Abstraction is the same barrier between elementary school math and algebra. Some people never do learn algebra.
I am not sure how old you are but everything seemed to change when abducted children were put on milk cartons in the mid 1980s. Before that, kids roamed free. I tell my foreign friends that kids used to run the streets in America and they can hardly believe it.
The funny thing is that the danger of "stranger abductions" has been over blown. Most abductions are non-custodial parents.
When my kids were little I thought I would teach them programming. The biggest problem I had was teaching them what a variable was. They finally did figure it out after a lot of work.
Abstraction is the same barrier between elementary school math and algebra. Some people never do learn algebra.