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I would suggest you teach them about spatial thinking and problem-solving.
Basic skills that every programmer person needs. Then comes ethics in about 2 years.
Skill in a particular technology isn't hard to achieve after that.
Moreover, they might switch interests in a few years and not even like programming that much.
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Do they want to learn programming?
At that age I was making go karts and stuff, dens in woods, rope swings. Perhaps let them be kids? 
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Yes, and no worries, I'm not pushing it on them.
The big one started playing around with Scratch at school, and since he knows I'm working as a programmer he wanted to learn more. So I showed him Lightbot. And now he wants more.
I guess it's just a period, but why not. There are so much worse things they can do.
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OK, fair enough.
(My daughter, 15, looks at what I do and is in horror at the sheer complexity of it! )
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It's obviously not for everyone, especially not the under the hood stuff you do.
How did you get into that by the way?
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Yes, I suppose what I do doesnt look fun or funky, has no UI.
I guess I naturally gravitated to the low level stuff, I found it much more challenging and interesting. My second job was writing a driver for Windows. I only got it because there was no one around any more capable than I was, and I had no idea, I was just in the area, looking for a new role, and had a couple of years doing low level user mode stuff in windows.
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Munchies_Matt wrote: I guess I naturally gravitated to the low level stuff,
Are you that fat?   
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Gravity and I have an intimate relationship....
Actually no, I chose my pen name from the two atomic bombs, fat man and little boy. Plus fat boy is an affectionate name in Cantoneese (my wife lived there many years and speaks it fluently. SOmething like 'faizai', at least that is how it sounds to me.  ) I am not particularly overweight, for a 50+ year old programmer at least!
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I raised 3 daughters, now in their 30s. None were interested in programming, but all 3 married IT guys.
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They always say a daughter finds a husband like her dad!
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I started programming when I was 8 
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NERD! 
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My first program ever (Basic, Amstrad 6128) was a small database named "Cave à vin", for my father, to keep track of the bottles of wine in our cellar (all 25 of them  ). If that's not French ...  It had an opening splash screen with a bottle of wine filling an empty glass, animated. Which was about 85% of the code. 
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Rage wrote: splash screen with a bottle of wine filling an empty glass
For a splash screen it shouldn't have all ended up in the glass.
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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I am impressed! THats pretty good for an 8 year old.
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Quite a few games for kids are programming, even though not done typing programming language statements into vi on a linux machine.
I really dislike that "learning programming" idea. What you should learn is "methodologies for problem solving". That is "programming without Linux or vi". And you see that in a lot of children's games. I have no worries about emphasizing that aspect in children's activities.
An old example: My bookshelf holds a 1950s book for boys: A forest manager and his two sons, attacking the problem of how to build a cabin out in the woods - the planning of the entire operation, getting the materials, transport, and setting it up. Is is wrapped up in so much nature and forest, watching animals, fighting with the rowboat... A ten year old will read it as a wildlife adventure story. Without noticing, he will also learn a lot about how to approach a large problem, how to solve it.
I didn't read the book myself until I read it to a nine year old daughter (she's visually handicapped; that's why I read it to her), and she loved both aspects of it. And I learned a lot about how to build a cabin!
You can take a similar approach in a lot of familiy activities, such as planning a long and varied vacation, bringing the kids in on the family budget (exception handlers come in as a natural concept) and so on. Any sort of strategy games.
Almost all kids are into such activities, never thinking of the methodologies and strategies. What you could do is to draw the attention of your kids to these aspects so they become aware of them. While discussing the family budget, you bring in the "what ifs" and exception handling (obviously not calling it "exception hanlding").
This way, the kids can continue being kids, doing kids' activities, but maybe more aware of methodologies than their playmates.
(I just re-read good old "Tom Sawyer" - that is a kid who can develop a program for the activities of the kids in his gang!)
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u can get them a ps4 or xbox and let them play games...or give them their own computers with VR sets .... i'm sure they will love it...
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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I got this a few weeks ago: Homepage | Minecraft: Education Edition[^]
To be honest didn't checked yet...
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge". Stephen Hawking, 1942- 2018
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If they survive x86 assembly, they will be ready for the real wörld!
"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"
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I recommend checking out Zachtronics' puzzle games, they're very much programming in disguise. I'd start with Infinifactory as it's learning curve is the least steep. They're all hard and great fun.
Depending on the kids' history with games and computers they might get into the harder ones (like Shenzhen I/O and TIS100).
Here's an article on this [^]
But keep in mind - quote :
Sometimes people mention SpaceChem as a good game to introduce people to programming. I would not recommend that at all because an introductory programming course is laughably easy in comparison. If anything, it is a game you may want to introduce a subset of programmers to.
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Maybe in a few years. 
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If you have an old android phone or tablet (rooted Nook?) lying around, check out MIT App Inventor.
Similar paradigm to Scratch, but you can run your own apps on your phone/tablet.
iOS version in beta!
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