With pencil in hand and a math worksheet on the desk, your child may suddenly feel anxiety overtake every part of their body. It’s more than nerves – it’s the kind of fear that makes their palms clammy and heart racing. This is a sign of math anxiety.
Learning with math anxiety can be difficult and frustrating to any child who has it. Furthermore, it’ll inhibit a child’s confidence and academic ability to do math. Keep on reading to understand what math anxiety is and the parental support you can provide for a child with math anxiety.
What is Math Anxiety?
Math anxiety is when people feel tension and anxiousness when having to solve a math related problem. Learning with math anxiety leads to a series of emotional and physical reactions. From fast beating heart rates and short breaths to low confidence levels and poor academic performance in math, are just a few examples. It’s a lot different than your child finding math boring or getting nervous when a math test is coming up.
Math is a part of everyday life. Most importantly, it’s a subject within school that no one can avoid. Children with math anxiety have trouble understanding and doing well in math due to their anxiousness and fear of the subject.
Causes and Symptoms of Math Anxiety
No one is born with math anxiety – it happens as a result of the relationship your child has formed with the subject over time. Receiving negative responses and punishment from teachers or parents when mistakes are made causes a fear of failure. This leads to math anxiety. Additionally, if parents reinforce that math is a scary or unnecessary subject, your child could form the same mindset towards the subject.
There are several symptoms to look out for if you suspect that your child has math anxiety. Here are just a few common reactions:
Anger and frustration
It’s common to feel frustrated when you can’t figure something out. However, children with math anxiety easily get angry and frustrated when faced with a problem they can’t solve, understand or one where they feel they’re taking too long to solve.
Negative self-talk
Children learning with math anxiety often repeat negative and self-doubtful comments towards themselves. It won’t be uncommon to hear “I just can’t do it” or “Math is too hard for me.”
Low grades
Children with math anxiety generally have a low performance in math classes given the anxiousness they feel. Math anxiety hinders our working memory and parts of our brain that is used towards critically solving math problems. Our working memory allows us to remember concepts and critically think at the same time. People with math anxiety have less efficient working memory when solving math problems because their minds become more focused on dealing with the anxiety.
How to Support Your Child
If your child has math anxiety, the first step is to listen and understand where their anxiety is coming from. Here are other things you can do.
Encouraging conversations
As parents, the best thing you can do for your child with math anxiety is by encouraging them and giving positive reinforcements. Don’t punish them for getting the wrong answer. Normalize mistakes – let it be known that each mistake is an opportunity for improvement and learning. Additionally, you can reward your child if they complete their homework or solve a difficult question.
Take Time To Help Your Child
Every child learns differently and at their own speed. As such, patience is key when helping your child solve math problems. If teaching isn’t your strong suit there’s nothing wrong with that. You can hire a tutor or bring them to a tutoring centre where they can get the help they need. As a result, your child will have a better relationship with math.
Finding the perfect math game for your child will make the material more engaging as well. Understanding which method is best for your child will ensure you know how to help them out when needed.
Understand > Memorization.
The greatest setback in any math learning journey is being taught to memorize rather than to understand. Especially because math is not a subject where memorization is sustainable. In contrast, understanding concepts and applying theories will maximize the chances of your child succeeding in math. Furthermore, they can see for themselves the importance of math.
Math anxiety can be hard on your child. However there are ways to lessen its impact, so your child has a better math learning experience. Knowing how to support your child with math anxiety will encourage your child to form a positive relationship towards the subject so they can tackle any math problem that comes their way.
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