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Math Phobia
What If Your Child Has A Math Phobia?
Sometimes math just looks too difficult. If you let that attitude fester, then you might end up with a phobia. If you are lucky enough to see it early, you can take steps to remove the dread of math, but what if your child tells you – in different words – that they have a math phobia?
One of the problems is best explained by the cliché – you can’t see the woods for the trees. There are so many difficult math questions in the test that panic sets in. Rather than taking a methodical approach, the child just sees the whole forest and doesn’t take the questions one tree at a time.
The Teacher
First, you need to look at the teachers. If they are not enthusiastic then that lack of interest will roll over to the student. In schools where the teacher handles a range of topics, it may be that English and science are their thing and math is just one of those subjects they must teach.
The teacher needs to stay enthusiastic whatever the student’s viewpoint. (As a parent, keep your own math performance out of it. If your child knows you sucked at math, then low expectations could be the norm.) Smaller children like numbers and games with math so they can like math if helped correctly.
Confidence Is the Key
If you, as the teacher are able to remain confident even if the subject bored you at school, this confidence will roll off onto the children. If you, as the parent, really can’t stop those feelings about math, then explaining this to the child will make them aware that it’s your reaction and not theirs. They will then know the situation and you will design ways to make sure the student doesn’t fall into the same trap.
You need to explain to children why math is important and show them real examples. Learning times tables by rote isn’t fun, but it can become fun if you show real life examples of where it’s helpful for children to know their times tables to be able to achieve something that is important to them.
The Solution
There are many possible solutions to the issue of math phobia. The first is to look at the way math is being taught. If the teacher has the rule that it’s taught the one way and no other then this might conflict with the way the student learns. Children are not all the same and some need to look at a math problem from a different angle or approach so they can find a different way to reason out the answer. Just one minor change in teaching how to get to a math result might be the difference between math failure and passing the test.
Students shouldn’t worry about getting questions wrong as long as they understand the correct process of getting the answer. Stressing the results of those answers which are correct will give the student confidence. This is key, as lack of confidence in finding the right answer is at the heart of having a math phobia.
Test Technique
Another way to help students is to explain carefully that it’s best to take one question at a time. When they face their first long story book they aren’t expected to read every page immediately. They take one page at a time until they complete a chapter. Then they take a rest before starting on chapter two and so on.
Math is just the same. Being faced with 100 questions looks a difficult task for a person with a math phobia. As an alternative way of focusing on getting through the test, is to miss out the really tough looking questions and do the easy ones so they will at least get a grade. The more easy questions answered, the higher the overall score. And focus on one question at a time.