How to Help a Child Who Believes They Are Bad at Math

Helping a child who believes they are bad at math can be very challenging. Naturally, parents want to help their children to feel encouraged, and capable. A child who believes they are bad at math will be affected in various ways. Obviously, any school work involving math will be a source of tension. The mindset that one is bad at math will also affect a child's self esteem, leaving them even less able to push forward and work through the difficulties. If you need to know how to help a child who believes they are bad at math, the following suggestions should be considered.

Can you identify why the child is struggling in math?
A child can have trouble with math for different reasons. Realistically, it is more likely that a child's math troubles are not occurring because a child is bad at math. Often, a child who is having trouble in math is doing so because they have missed critical concepts in the past. It's also very common these days for public school math teachers to simply hand out worksheets to students without actually teaching the concepts it displays. My own children have had repeated situations of a math teacher who simply gave worksheets, without first working out any examples on the board. My son's 4th grade teacher even refused to answer questions about math when the students raised their hands! Perhaps, your child's teacher has tried to answer math questions, but does not really understand your child's learning style. Or, they understand it, but they don't have time to accommodate it. When you consider all of the possibilities, it's easy to see why a child might believe they are bad at math, when really that isn't the case at all. If you can identify the specific reasons for why your child is having trouble with math, then you will be on the road to helping them shed the idea that they are simply "bad at math".

Identify and re-teach key concepts that your child has not learned.
For instance, a child who was not adequately taught fractions, is going to have one heck of a time moving on to Pre-Algebra with much success. Likewise, if your child has not mastered their times tables, then long division is going to be more of a struggle than it needs to be. When trying to help a child who believes they are bad at math, identifying and re-teaching key concepts that were not mastered in earlier grades is a must. To do this, ask the school for help in assessing your child's math strengths and weaknesses, so that the weaknesses can be strengthened. You may end up in the situation of needing to re-teach the missed concepts to your child yourself, so be prepared to do so.

Find less stressful ways to work on math.
Can you commit to staying relaxed and nurturing while your child works on math homework, being as helpful as you can, for as long as it takes for the assignment to be completed? Is it possible to allow your child to work on math while sitting in a comfy chair outdoors? Can you modify certain exercises - for instance, allowing the child to sometimes say his/her times tables out loud, rather than writing them every single time? Finding alternate, less-stressful ways to work on math can go a long way in helping a child who thinks they are bad at math.

Reassure the child that things are going to be okay.
Once you realize that you have a child who thinks they are bad at math, it's important to immediately explain to them that that's likely not the case at all. Reassure them that you are going to do everything in your power to figure out why they are having trouble in math, and also that you are going to help them work through it. Be sure they understand that there are many reasons that people struggle with math that have nothing to do with how capable a person is.

As you work to help a child who believes they are bad at math, you may have times when progress seems to have come to a halt. Sometimes that will happen simply because you have focused intensely on one of the suggestions listed above, while the others may have received less consideration. When that happens, reevaluate the items in this article, focus on the ones that are applicable at the time, and you'll be back on your way to successfully helping a child who believes they are bad at math.