When Your Child Hates Math
Understanding grade school math angst
As a math tutor, I once received a phone call from a mother so desperate for help that she held the phone out so I could hear the shouting match ensuing as her husband attempted to help their son, Chase, with math homework. It sounded more like the chaotic bedlam of a Jerry Springer soundstage than a suburban kitchen!
Homework dramas are common throughout Kansas City. Chase said he hated math, his frazzled parents were “losing it” trying to help, and emotions escalated. Throw a demanding teacher or challenging curriculum into the mix, and math mayhem emerges.
Deconstructing Math Angst
Most of my students are like Chase. They’ve lost their joy for math, fallen behind and now feel hopeless about catching up. Many find it difficult to engage in the abstract thinking expected in the higher grades. Then there is the cool factor. Few students would brag they cannot read, yet there is little stigma attached to “I can’t do math.”
While a magic bullet for math angst has yet to materialize, hope remains for your child--even if she is failing. Everyone can get better at math.
High Anxiety and Low Confidence
Taylor Swenson, fifth grade, could barely speak during our first tutoring session. Her eyes filled with tears as she described feeling overwhelmed on test days. Staring down at her exam, she “felt clueless where to begin.” Test anxiety is common for students like Taylor who lack confidence.
Confronted with repeated failure, math anxiety may be masked with callousness (“I’ll never use this stuff anyway”), anger (“It’s too difficult!”), or false indifference (“Whatever”). This complex emotional soup can unnerve parents trying to assist with math. Sometimes tutoring can help.
Why Kids Shut Down
Children who struggle with math often “shut down” in math class to avoid painful feelings and defeat. So develops a vicious cycle of poor performance, shutting down and failure to anchor new material.
If your child is caught in this cycle, they likely need to feel safe before they will open up. Instead of diving right into solving problems or rehearsing math facts, a good tutor will take time to build trust with your student and explain why investing effort into math is worthwhile--critical steps toward improved performance and grades.
8 Strategies to Build Math Confidence
Use these as a framework for discussions with a math tutor or teacher
- Engage students in a working relationship. Most students wonder why they must bother with math. Better performance in math is most often a result of positive seeds planted in tutoring, hard work and a strong relationship with the tutor.
- Explore strengths and obstacles to learning. Frequently, math teachers have suggestions for how a student may improve. Tutoring sessions will reveal a student’s learning style, impairments and strengths.
- Set them up for success. When possible, students should be given choices. Rather than telling a student how to approach a problem, tutors may ask, “What math operation could be applied here?”
- Ownership of success is so much more satisfying than being just the submissive recipient of a tutor’s help.
- Improve math vocabulary. Students perform better when they understand terms such as product, quotient, equivalent fraction, average, etc.
- Provide tools to seek help. Vocabulary for math is a valuable tool in soliciting help quickly and effectively from teachers and textbooks. When vocabulary is weak, a student may query, “I don’t know what to do with these fraction thing-ies.” A developed vocabulary helps them express, “I keep forgetting how to find a common denominator.”
- Explore self-image. With repeated failure in math, students may become vulnerable to negative self-talk like “I’m just dumb” or “My teacher thinks I’m bad at math.” Parents may unwittingly reinforce such negativity by saying, “I was never good at math either.” Students need encouragement that a math grade does not reflect intelligence and math can be learned in different ways.
- Restructure counter-productive self-talk. Direct students from a negative “I’m horrible at word problems!” to a more positive “Reading comp is tricky for me so I have to draw pictures to get what the problem is asking.” A child’s “I’ll never remember all these decimal rules!” can become “Until I master adding decimals, I’ll refer to my notes.” Even subtle shifts in thought patterns re-shape math attitudes.
- Acknowledge there is no substitute for hard work. There is just no substitute! Conquering math angst is an honorable quest and never a waste of time. (By the way, Chase won a math achievement award at school last month, and Taylor has a solid A- in math!)