Are you complicit in your child’s distaste for math?

Many children enjoy math when they are young, but by the end of third grade, very few children still like math, and a great many hate math. What is causing this turnabout at such a young age? Why do children stop liking math and what can we do about it?

There are various reasons that children stop liking math. One reason is that school math becomes too abstract before children are developmentally ready. Another reason is that math concepts are presented in a disjointed and procedural way that is hard to make mathematical sense of. And a third, I believe, is societal attitudes toward math.

Math is a cornerstone of a complete education. It is a core subject every year in school and it is one of the most important areas of accountability for schools. Math is also a topic that is highly regarded on private school and university admissions tests. It filters out students who do not perform well in math and opens doors to students who do perform well in math.

We parents want our kids to do well in math, and yet many parents unwittingly undermine their children’s math success in subtle ways that build up over the years.

Many well-educated adults have admitted to me that they were not good at math, or that they can’t do math. Sometimes they follow up with, “and I came out okay.” Meanwhile, they have been reminding their kids to get their math homework done, and maybe even reward them for good math grades. I believe this sends a mixed message to children.

This is the first summer I have offered summer math camps and I am finding that parents do not want to sign their kids up for math during the summer because they worry that it is a punishment or that it might ruin their child’s summer. While I can understand a parent wanting to find fun activities during the summer, I think that totally avoiding math during the summer is a way of validating the child’s negative perception of math. (It also sets students back in the fall, but that’s another blog).

Except in rare instances, a dislike for math doesn’t go away on its own. Subtle, and sometimes blatant, negative messages about math from parents, teachers, TV and other societal influences reinforce negative views of math. Appropriate intervention is necessary to change deeply held beliefs about math.

If your child hates math, the time to intervene is now. Negative feelings about math inhibit learning and lead to further negative feelings, including math anxiety.