If parents can examine and work through their own anxiety related to math andrecognize it’s source, they can get over it at least enough to not pass it on totheir children. It very likely can be traced back to a particular incident thathappened to you in school. Did you miss school because of chicken pox and comeback to discover the class had moved on without you? Did you feel lost andconfused and just never could catch up? Was there a subject that confused you andyou always felt “dumb in math” after that? The culprit is most often eitherfractions or algebra. You very possibly really do not want to even think aboutyour own feelings about math. Avoidance is the most common result of math anxiety.You may think you aren’t even math-anxious, but math just never really comes up inyour life. Those are the thoughts of a math-anxious person, though. Math iseverywhere and there is no chance at all that you’re not living a life immersed inmathematics. You may not want to see it, because you associate it with shame,fear, and misery, but you are living in a mathematical world.An example of mathematical thinking that you almost certainly engage in on aregular basis:You’re at the grocery store, cart loaded, and you’re ready to check out. What doyou do? You eyeball the lines at each checkstand, noting how many people are ineach of the lines. You also note how full each of their carts is. You notice thatsome checkstands have baggers helping out while others don’t. You might evennotice the rate of speed the checkers seem to be working. You quickly take in allthat (mathematical) information, estimate the effects of all those variables inyour head, and choose the line you think will move the fastest. This is not justmathematics; this is sophisticated and complex mathematics that includes solvingsystems of simultaneous equations and incorporating probability-of-errorestimates. Yet you do it almost effortlessly.So, I hope you realize by now that you’re clearly a math genius. (As long as wedon’t put it all down on paper, right?) Seriously, you HAVE a “math brain.” Icould give you many other examples of how you do higher-order mathematicalthinking all the time in your daily life. The fact that you doubt your own mathability, that you think of yourself as “not good in math,” is a result of what wasdone to you in the name of teaching. You should be royally pissed off that it wasdone to you, but what’s the point of stewing in those juices now? You’re a parentand your children need you to move on! You can do it.Start with thinking hard and maybe writng/blogging/talking to someone else aboutyour own school-math experiences. Sharing these experiences with others very veryoften releases us from the old emotions, the fears, the shame, the self-doubts,that we’ve buried for years. Turns out you were NOT the only one feeling this wayand turns out it wasn’t your fault at all, it was the teaching methods! Theymessed with you!So - share and express and that’ll help you recover. You’ll still have a lot ofnegativity associated with math, it might not turn you into a math-lover, butletting go of the old baggage will free you for the next step.Enjoy math with, for, and through your children. Yes, you get a second chance.Don’t let on to them that you’re anxious about it. Act like anything involvingnumbers, measurement, patterns, or anything else “math-like,” is just about themost fun and interesting thing you can imagine.Many parents with a bit (or a lot) of math anxiety don’t even realize how theystiffen up and withdraw when their children innocently draw their attention tosomething math related. Make a conscious effort to do the opposite. Smile warmlywhen your child asks a question that just might involve some math. Touch, hug,
Leave a Comment
Hey - I wrote this! Cool that you have it on your site. I'd love to hear people's reactions!