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A really common hang up for homeschooling that many parents have is – how do I teach math if I’m not good at it or don’t like it? Many of us grew up not liking math, or feeling like we weren’t very good at it, so it can be overwhelming to think of being responsible for teaching math to our kids. So how can we get over this hangup??
I can relate to this a lot, because math was not my strongest subject. Give me language arts all the live long day! But math… well, I definitely don’t love it, even now. I’ve learned how to help my kids enjoy math, though, regardless of my own feelings. And to be honest, I’ve learned to enjoy it a lot more than I did when I was younger!
Often, our feelings about math come from a negative experience we had: we were put on the spot in front of a class when we didn’t know the answer, we were poor test takers, someone told us we weren’t smart, or we struggled and didn’t get the tools to move forward.
So the first thing to do is to recognize that your kids don’t need to have the same negative experience you did. You get to help shape their experience with math in a positive way!
The next thing to do is put aside your own disbelief that you aren’t good at math. This mindset can interfere with the way you teach your kids, so even if this seems a little strange, take some time to think about why you feel this way about math. Do you remember a specific incident from when you were young? Our educational experiences – good and bad – can come through when we speak to our kids, so try spending some time working through any negative experiences you can recall. Remember, you have learned all the math that you need to do to all the things you’ve done so far in your life! There is no need to hold on to those negative feelings anymore.
Remember that you don’t need to have all the answers. If there are questions that come up, you can find the resources to help your kids:
- look up a YouTube video
- enroll your child in a math course (online or in person)
- use a video curriculum
- hire a tutor or ask a friend/family member to teach a concept
- teach a different way from the curriculum (there are times I tell my kids “I didn’t learn this way, but I can show you the way I know how to do it”)
Find the FUN in math! If you and your kids can find fun ways to learn math, you’ll not only help them to have a good experience with math, but you may even change your own perspective on math! Remember that best practices for a school setting (like the “drill & kill” method of memorizing math facts) don’t have to be the methods you sue in your home. I was never good at remembering math facts quickly, and it made me feel like there was something wrong with me – even as an adult. So it’s been very important for me to find different ways to teach these concepts that don’t trigger those feelings for me, or cause them in my own kids. Here are some ideas:
- play board games that use math (adding, money, etc.)
- read math stories
- play: set up a store to learn about money, use stuffed animals to create patterns, act out word problems with toys (ex: “Luke Skywalker has three light sabers and Darth Vader wants to give him these two, how many does Luke have now?”)
- get out in nature and use sticks, acorns, leaves, etc. as real life tools for counting, adding, making shapes and patterns, etc.
- switch up the curriculum – if the curriculum you’re using is triggering your own negative experiences, that’s a good enough reason to change it! If your curriculum is causing your kids to dislike math, change it!
If this is something you’ve struggled with and overcome, please share about it with us if you can! It would be great to learn from each other about this.
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