How to Help Your Child Build Confidence in Math

by Beth Fornauf

The first day of school is exciting: new teachers, new supplies, a fresh start. While many kids are able to coast through September on back-to-school momentum, others battle anxiety and a lack of confidence from the start. For many students, the cause of these feelings is related to one subject: math. In metro Atlanta, many students score poorly on tests to assess math comprehension. On the most recent Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, metro students in the fifth and eighth grades were seven times more likely to pass the reading portion of the test than the math section. Nearly half of the eighth-graders in seven DeKalb County middle schools did not meet the CRCT standards for math.

You’ve heard the claims before: “I can’t do math” or “Oh, I’m just not a math person,” or even, “I hate math!” Most often, it’s adults sharing these thoughts, but as a teacher I frequently heard these cries creeping into my classroom. Nothing kills motivation like negative, can’t-do attitudes. Math anxiety is a real condition, defined as a fear of math that interferes with one’s performance. Researchers have been looking closely at its roots and impact since the early 1980s. Causes vary greatly, and are largely environmental. For children who lack confidence in math, or suffer from anxiety, simply seeing a subtraction sign is enough to send them into a panic. If this sounds like your child, here’s what you can do to help them overcome their fear of factors (and multiples), and begin building confidence in math.

Step 1: Identify a Comfort Level

As a teacher, it’s important to have a sense of how students see themselves as learners. As a parent, and your child’s most important (and influential) teacher, you need to have the same sense. So ask them: on a scale of one to five, with five being the most confident, how confident are you in math? Accept the answer your child gives you, even if it seems way off. Your job isn’t to convince him he’s wrong, it’s to help him feel intrinsically confident. So if he says he’s a two, talk about why. Brainstorm how a three confidence level would feel and jot down ideas about what she could learn to get there.

Step 2: Set Measurable, Achievable Goals

Kids who struggle in math feel that “not being good at it” is a life sentence. They’ll never get it, so why try? Don’t allow that attitude to prevail.
Setting small, measurable goals achieves two purposes. Students feel ownership in what they want to accomplish, and success when they master it. The key is to make the goals specific. Instead of saying “I want to understand subtraction” or “I want to be good at algebra” start with something manageable, such as, “In two weeks, I will know how to subtract using regrouping (borrowing).” This way you and your child can map out the steps you need to take, and there will be no confusion once the goal is met.

Step 3: Eliminate Your Own Negatives 

An Ohio State University study published in March 2014 concluded that math anxiety is not purely environmental. The research indicates that genetics can actually have a role. This doesn’t mean that if a mom struggled in math, her kids are doomed. But it does mean you should eliminate your negative associations – or at least keep them to yourself. If you say you don’t like math, or you shudder when your daughter brings home a fractions sheet, you’re sending a message that math is scary. And if your child is predisposed to have some difficulty in math, adding fear into the mix won’t help.

You can’t expect your child to feel good about math if he knows that you don’t see value in it. Stay positive, and model the learning process. If your child needs help with something and you don’t have a clue what to do, show him some steps she can take to get going. Check online for ideas or similar problems. Email the teacher and ask for examples. Maybe even have your child call a friend for help. Let him know that being stuck is not an excuse to give up, and that struggling is part of learning.

Step 4: Allow Affect

It’s hard to see your child upset. Parental instinct dictates that kids need support, encouragement and affirmation. And they do – but they also need to feel frustrated. Students who genuinely lack confidence in, or even fear math, need to feel like they are being heard. Honor their feelings. Don’t try to change their minds or convince them that math isn’t so bad, because to them it is. Accept and acknowledge the way they feel, and help them to move past that.

Step 5: Let Them Teach

Once your child thinks he has learned a skill, let him practice by “teaching” a younger sibling. Even toddlers can learn strategies like sorting shapes or drawing pictures that solve problems. In addition to boosting your math-anxious child’s confidence, these skills are useful math tools that are great to introduce to young kids. But don’t let the lessons stop there. Parents of my former students were often puzzled about the “new math” and how solving problems isn’t like it used to be. Okay, so learn. Let your kid teach you how to divide using the partial quotients method. Or maybe the Pythagorean theorem is a distant, fuzzy memory? Relearn it. Ask questions, reinforce, and model positive learning habits.

Step 6: Don’t Rush the Process

One of the biggest issues kids have with math is a problem that is not quick or easy to figure out. As kids advance in elementary and middle school, problem solving evolves into a multi-step process, and there are different ways to figure things out. Encourage deliberation. In math, struggling is a good thing – it means you’re working hard, trying different approaches, not giving up. Going through that process will help kids learn perseverance as they continue in math, and in life.

Step 7: Celebrate Success

Remember those goals your child set? Achieving them is cause for celebration, especially in the beginning. No, you don’t need to throw a party when your child masters place value, but you do need to acknowledge when a goal has been met. So slip your student some stickers (even older kids like them!) or let them stay up a little later that night. Celebrating small victories will help maintain momentum as math becomes more challenging. Celebrating also lets your child feel good about an area that previously caused them stress. Building confidence won’t happen overnight, but with consistent support at home, it will happen. You may even end up sharpening your own skills. So fight the math fear from the start and help your child go back to school with confidence.