Do you remember how enthusiastic your children were about learning the basics of math when they were very young? How they were fascinated by the repeating elements and patterns that nature creates? How did they rearrange objects and discover with delight that their numbers had not changed?
Before children start school, they often talk about math with interest and wonder, but soon after attending school they decide that math is a confusing and scary subject that is “definitely not for them.”
This is because in many schools, math is associated with memorization, performing certain actions, and making judgments about which children can do them and which cannot. Mathematics has become a subject that indicates a child’s ability, and most students (of all ages) will tell you that they associate it with solving problems correctly, not with the beauty of the subject or how interesting or useful it is to them.
In order to get children interested in math, try to follow these six tips given to parents by Stanford University professor Joe Bowler.
- Encourage children to play math games and puzzles. A young Irish mathematician, Sarah Flannery, says that her ability and enthusiasm for learning math came not from school, but from her passion for math puzzles at home. Games that use dice, puzzles, and other puzzles can help children love math, as well as develop logical thinking and numeracy skills.
- When working on math problems, be sure to encourage children and never tell them they are wrong. Try to find the logic in their solution, because some logic is always present in children’s thinking. For example, if your child multiplies three by four and gets seven, say: “I understand your thinking! You’re using your addition skills to get seven, but when we multiply, we’ll have three groups of four.”
- Never associate math with speed. Learning how to solve problems quickly is not important, especially in childhood, given the fact that by forcing children to solve math problems at high speed, we create anxiety about math, especially in girls.
- Never reveal to your children that you did not do well in math at school or that you do not like this subject, especially if you are a mother. Studies have shown that as soon as mothers revealed such facts to their daughters, they showed a sharp deterioration in math performance.
- Encourage children to “feel” numbers. What distinguishes high performance in elementary school from low performance is the understanding of the quantitative characteristics of numbers, as well as the ability to flexibly operate with them, dividing them into components. For example, when performing the addition operation 29 + 56, you can take 1 of 56 and imagine the operation as 30 + 55, which is much easier to perform mentally. Thus, the flexibility of working with numbers determines the ability to feel them, which is extremely important.
- Perhaps the most important tip is to encourage a growth mindset, which is the idea that your abilities and intelligence develop as you try to work and learn, making more and more efforts. The opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset, which assumes that our abilities are predetermined and limited, and you either can do math or you can’t.
When children have a growth mindset, they do well with problems and do better in school overall. When children have a fixed mindset and are faced with a difficult task, they often conclude that they do not have the ability to do math.
One way parents encourage a fixed mindset is by telling their children that they are smart in situations where they are good at something. This may sound right, but in reality it puts children in a difficult position later on, because when they fail at something, they will inevitably conclude that they are not smart at all.