Expert advice on how to keep math from stressing your kid out.

Your child cringes when presented with multi-step math problems, struggles to understand basic concepts like time or money, and dislikes math more than–well, just about anything. Yet math is here to stay, and as students progress through school, the math concepts will only continue to build upon themselves and become increasingly challenging. Help your child overcome math anxiety and learn to actually enjoy math with the ideas detailed below.

Chan‎ge Your Attitude! (Yes, YOU The Parent!)

Many parents feel that they themselves were poor math students when they were in school, and developed a strong dislike for the subject. Yet if your child hears you express disdain for it and complain about how challenging and anxiety-provoking it is, he will likely come to dislike the subject as well. Even if you as a parent were never “good” at math, don’t let your child know. Instead, try to be as positive and empowering about the subject as possible. Having the right attitude can go a long way.

Build Foundations

Without mastering basic foundational concepts, grasping more‎ complex math concepts will inevitably be challenging. With this increased challenge often comes reduced self-confidence and increased anxiety. To prevent this struggle, help your child build key foundations early on by trying some of these activities at home: For young kids, have them learn to count out basic objects, like jelly beans, tooth picks, or paper clips. Then play games like Candy Land or Chutes and Ladders, where they must move their playing piece one square at a time, thereby building one-to-one correspondence skills. Encourage them to build with blocks or LEGOs to develop stronger visual spatial skills (think geometry down the road!). You can also play a “shapes” game where players must find shapes around the house and identify them, like plates (circles), windows (squares), or laundry hampers (rectangles). Developing these basics will help build the foundation for math success.

Make Math Relevant!

For many kids, math seems completely abstract and not relevant at all to every day life. Do family projects and activities that help make math relevant so your child can see the connection between the math they learn in school and how it plays a role in day-to-day life. For instance, when baking, have your child measure, say, 1/4 cup of oil, 1 cup of flour, and 1/2 cup of water–then ask questions like how much oil or water you would need if you doubled or halved the recipe. When grocery shopping, she can help you weigh fruits and vegetables and try to figure out the total cost based on the price per pound. Younger kids can do basic tasks like counting three red apples and four green apples at the supermarket, then adding them together to find the total number of apples. If you’re planning a road trip, sit down with your child to help figure out the total distance you need to travel, how long it should take based on an average speed, how much gas you may need, and even a budget that might be relevant for daily snacks and meals. The more you can show your child how math truly does play a (large) role in our daily lives, the more she will likely enjoy and appreciate the subject.

Teach STRATEGIES

For many children, the mere sight of a long word problem or multi-step computation problem makes them want to cry. ‎You can help ease this sense of panic by teaching them strategies for attacking these types of problems. With word problems, for instance, teach your child the OINS strategy for solving math word problems, which stands for O (Operation), I (Information), N (Number Sentence), and S (Solution Sentence).

After reading the word problem, your child should create four separate lines underneath the problems for each step of the OINS strategy, and write down the following:

O (He writes down the correct operation to use.)

I (He writes down the relevant information from the problem.)

N (He creates a number sentence for solving the problem.)

S (He writes the solution to the problem in a full sentence.)

By using this strategy, he is learning to convert the problem from language to arithmetic and back to language, while solving the problem in a structured, organized format.

If All Else Fails, Get Help!

If your child continues to struggle despite these at-home interventions, it may make sense to seek help–either ‎from her teacher at school, the school’s learning center or resource room, or a tutor. The more proactive you can be in helping your child grasp math concepts, the more you can prevent future challenges down the road.

Math can truly be an engaging, interactive, and very relevant subject. Yet some students just don’t (and feel they will never!) see it that way. Try the strategies detailed above to help your child reverse these negative emotions and feel confident and successful with math‎.

The post How To Help Your Child Overcome Math Anxiety appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Some students naturally thrive in school.  They enjoy the thrill of solving complex math word problems, ace timed writing exams, and find pleasure in creating mnemonics for new science terms. Yet for others, school is a stress-inducing struggle. They dread completing homework, have difficulty studying for exams, and develop poor self-esteem from their academic challenges. For these students, a tutor may be immensely valuable. How do you know when your child needs a tutor?

Slipping Grades

For many students, the beginning of elementary school is a cinch. They master basic reading and math skills and enjoy completing homework assignments and worksheets independently. Their grades typically remain consistently strong. Yet some students reach a pinnacle – often around 3rd or 4th grade – when the academic demads accelerate and their grades start to drop. If you notice that your child’s grades dip consistently for a period of three to four months, he may benefit from some additional support. Certain concepts may confuse him, such as fractions and decimals in math, or metamorphosis in science. He may have trouble understanding what he reads or making inferences from the more complex material. While writing may have previously been a stregth for him when it was limited to basic sentences,  composing full paragrpahs or essays may completely stymie him. In such cases, working with a one-on-one tutor can be very beneficial.

Her Confidence Dips

Parents always find pleasure in raising a confident child who has a strong self-esteem and belief in her own abilities. Yet when this confidence dips – or doesn’t exist from the ghetgo – a parent may develop concerns. Often times, when children feel they are not “good” at an academic skill – they see their peers reading chapter books, for instance, when they can only read 3-letter words in basic BOB books – their self-esteem may tumble. They might feel they can “never” be good at math or are terrible at writing when, in reality, with some one-on-one coaching, they have the ability to excel at each of these skills. By building a child’s academic skills through tutoring, her self-esteem often improves along with it.

Homework Meltdowns

Some children come home from school and complete their homework independently with no or little prompting. If they encounter a challenge,  they calmly ask a peer or parent to help them through it. Yet for other kids, the task of completing homework – or at least certain types of homework – can seem insurmountable. They may lose their patience, become easily frustrated, and often have complete meltdowns. When parents try to help, the turmoil sometimes rises – ultimately negatively affecting the parent-child relationship. Often times, a third party tutor – someone who is not mom or dad – can be just the solution for building skills, easing frustration, and preventing these dreaded meltdowns.

Poor Time Management Skills

As children move through school, the studying and time management demands increase rapidly. The number of exams and homework assignments quickly rise – often along with additional extra curricular activities and other time-intensive demands – and children must learn to effectively manage their time ‎in order to fit it all in. Many students, however, have poor executive functioning and time management skills. Those who once thrived in school often start to plummet academically as these demands rise. They may push off studying and assignments to the last minute, turn in projects late, or stay up until the early hours of morning to complete all of their work. A tutor can teach these students concrete strategies for more effectively planning and managing their time so their seemingly insurmountable work and activity load feels much more manageable.

Your Child Asks for a Tutor

When most of us were children, the idea of working with a tutor seemed almost like a punishment. Children felt subpar, or not “good enough” to succeed on their own if they needed a tutor. Yet in our current high-demand environment, with Common Core standards and new advances in our curricula, having a tutor – someone to help students navigate this challenging path – can seem like a gift. The negative connotation connected to tutoring has turned positive and many kids and parents now see the real positive value tutoring offers. In fact, while parents used to be the sole tutor-seekers, many students now self-advocate and ask their parents for a tutor, seeing how this support has helped their peers and friends and can help them too.

As children move from elementary to high school, the academic and studying demands increase exponentially. Some students can keep up with these increasing demands on their own but many benefit from additional instruction. If you notice your child struggling, you may want to consider a tutor. Having this added support can help your child feel calm, confident, and successful in school.

The post How Do I Know When My Child Needs a Tutor? appeared first on EBL Coaching.