Many adults who dislike math were once kids who disliked math and just like many cycles in child rearing, it is easy to perpetuate the cycle of “I’m not good at math” or “math isn’t fun” if you are a parent who doesn’t like math and didn’t excel in it when you were younger. However, before you can help our children address and overcome their math anxiety, you must first address the math hatred you might be carrying around. Talking about your level of dislike of math within earshot of your child can not only increase your child’s bad attitude toward it, it can lower their success and confidence when it comes to the subject.
Reducing negative communication regarding something you dislike doesn’t change how you feel. You shouldn’t be expected to act as though you know everything about math and that you have all the knowledge your kid needs to help them through every school year of math, but it does help to not talk about the distain. Here are a few tips for ways to speak more positively about math.
There are many ways to enjoy math in the daily things that surround you. So much of our lives has math in that we don’t realize! Everything from amount of dinner plates being set out, to the amount of legos it takes to build something, to bugs on the ground are something that can be counted. Counting is really a basic use of math that is easy to incorporate into most everything. There are also many math games out there that are not super common and practice all sorts of math skills like memory, rotation, critical thinking, pattern recognition, estimation, algorithmic expression and computational thinking. Click here to read about some of our game suggestions. Cooking and baking are other great to ways to practice math while having fun.
For parents who don’t use math in their jobs on a regular basis, it might have been a long a time since more formal, higher level math was studied or used. Some of the way that math is taught now might also be different than the way you learned it in school, so your child’s book might be confusing to look at. When you don’t know the answer, it’s ok to admit it. More collaborative effort, like “let’s look this up together” or “let’s call grandpa to see if he can help us” are healthier and can reduce anxiety for you and your child. Having all the answers can be a lot of pressure!
Understanding if there’s a skill gap with your child is something that should also be addressed in a classroom, but it doesn’t hurt to have a second pair of eyes on it, too. Math, like a building, is very foundational. When a skill is missing, it can be like chunks of bricks missing from the foundation of a building. The building might continue to stand, but it’s a bit unstable and at some point, it all might come crashing down. If all/most concepts aren’t understood in math before moving onto the next, it can add up to your child feeling lost as the math curriculum continues. With your help and patience, your child can learn to build a strong math base, but it takes a consistent effort. It then might be necessary to relearn or reinforce previous concepts before moving onto the next chapter. That might mean a little extra work with parts and concepts that are sticky.
Let’s turn that math frown upside down! Just as a negative attitude can create a barrier to learning, a positive one can help your child remain optimistic about their future relationship with math. Giving your child the right support and encouragement will boost their confidence and help them recognize the math all around them in this dynamic, fast-paced world and pretty soon they’ll start being able to use it to their advantage.
If you are a point where your child needs more help than you can provide, we would love to help you at Mathnasium of Parker! We specialize in creative, effective ways to teach math and works with your family’s schedule and we offer summer programs that focus on multiplication, long division, fractions, algebra and more. We help instill math confidence in kids, while having fun.
