Math struggles

A friend on a list posted something like this:

"My 7yo struggles with math every single day. It takes us at least an hour and a half every day with her crying and we're still getting nowhere. I struggled the same way as a kid, and I'm not enjoying this."


Here's my response:

The great thing about homeschooling is that if what you're doing isn't working, you can do something else! Here are some of my thoughts. This is a subject I really care about. Math is really lots of fun! So if I get too passionate, forgive me. Take anything that works, and toss the rest. You know your family best.

I get that you're expecting a baby soon, and that keeping up with everything is starting to get overwhelming. Honestly, it's ok to just take a break, or at least relax your approach, until the baby is older and you're starting to come out of the baby fog. You could call it "extended spring break" or "unschooling" if you need to explain it to anyone (yourself included!)

7 is so young! I promise, you have plenty of time for her to learn what she'll need as an adult.

There's a fair bit of research that shows that emotional content affects learning. If what you're doing is hard on both of you, you're probably suffering needlessly. Things that have a positive emotional context tend to be remembered, with the positive emotions reinforcing the material. Negative emotions tend to be remembered too, associated with the material, and the material itself isn't remembered.

You say you struggled with math and still don't like it. I bet she picks up on this. She's a smart one. I think finding something you both enjoy, at least a little bit, could really help.

I have a B.S. in Engineering and a minor in mathematics. I loved math after about age 10. Before age 10/11 I was considered "remedial" but after I was "gifted". Both of these labels are wrong, made up to describe a child who doesn't meet the expectation of "average". Honestly, some kids just take longer to grow into themselves, and that is perfectly normal. She just might not be ready. Sometimes we get into our heads that we are "bad" at something, when really we just didn't meet another's arbitrary expectations. Unfortunately we can grow up believing someone else's inaccurate judgment of us.

So with all that in mind here are a few quick ideas to consider:

Set your curriculum aside for a bit. Take a break or try something else.

Play store, use play money to pay and make change. (My kids made up a game on their own where they cut pictures out of catalogs and then "sell" them to each other from their individual "store" and set up their own "house" or "town" using what they've purchased. )

Pennies are great manipulatives. Get some paper change rolls and roll the coins in your change jar. Give them to your favorite charity or use for a family treat.

Check out some books with math puzzles or math games from the library. We have math because it's useful and fun, work together to find out how it's useful and fun in your life.

Games - most games have an element of math in them, just play them! Have some fun! Try anything that uses dice, adds up points, has shapes, etc... Yatzee and Scrabble both use math. Legos, tiles, blocks, etc... all have innate mathematical relationships that help build math intuition.

Take a look at the book "Family Math" it has lots of games at different levels.

Check out Living Math for more ideas of how to "do" math, w/o boring work sheets.
http://www.livingmath.net/

There are so many ways to approach math, don't get stuck in something that isn't working for you.

Common struggles

On two entirely separate lists a similar topic came up. They went something like this (paraphrasing):

"My son is currently 6yo and in the 1st grade. He fights doing his school work. He's much more interested in playing with his LEGOs. He really hates writing, but I'm afraid to not make him do it. I am so stressed out."

or this

"My 7yo struggles with math every single day. It takes us at least an hour and a half every day with her crying and we're still getting nowhere. I struggled the same way as a kid, and I'm not enjoying this."

I posted about "language arts" earlier, and posted my response to the math here.

I hear the very real pain in these parent's voices. When both the parent and the child are struggling with homeschooling, it's time to change something.

When I write back (sympathetically I hope) I have to start with "They're still so little!" This is an age when they should still be playing. Play is a child's work. Play is how they learn. If you feel the need to guide their learning, then play with them! Don't make the learning process painful for either of you.

What's the Heinlein quote? "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It frustrates you and irritates the pig."

Unlike the pig, your child will learn, I promise. They might not learn the way you want or expect them too. By forcing something in a way that is contrary to their learning style, or too early, you run the very real risk of turning them away from something that presented differently, or just a little later, would be very natural and satisfying to them.

Folks, don't irritate the pig.

How do you do it?

Another newbie posted to a group I'm on it went something like this:

"I'm concerned about being good enough to teach my kids."
"If I homeschool I will have no time away from my kids. I won't have time for myself."
"How do you do it without going crazy?"

Does this sound familiar? I hear variations of this all the time, from newbies, wannabes, and excusies. ("I would homeschool, but...")

Mostly I try to keep my mouth shut. No one really wants my opinion. I don't need to proselytize. I don't want anyone to homeschool who doesn't want to do it. But, since you're reading this, you either want my opinion or are a masochist. Either way, I aim to please. So, for what it's worth, here's my (until now unspoken) response.

"I'm concerned about being good enough to teach my kids."

If you want to be good enough, you are good enough. My experience is that healthy humans want to learn. The world is a fascinating place and kids know it. Wanting to learn is at the heart of homeschooling. I don't have to "teach". I'm here to facilitate and occasionally inspire.

Sure, when my kids were little, I "knew" enough to "teach" them. As they get older - not so much. For example, my 11 year old has surpassed my experience in computer programming. Yet, he's making great progress with out my expertise. Why? Because he wants to and has found mentors and resources. (Last time I programmed was in college using Fortran 77. Yes, that was a long time ago. Yes. I am an older parent. Moving on.)


"If I homeschool I will have no time away from my kids. I won't have time for myself."

If you still have toddlers and babies, you probably don't have much time for yourself. That's a function of having little ones, not of homeschooling. If you're at this stage in your life, you know that you have to make an effort to make time for yourself. I hereby give you permission to get out on your own now and then - for your own sanity, and for your children's safety. If nothing else, get your partner or a friend to take the kids occasionally so you have have just a little "me" time.

As the kids get older they get less suicidal in their choices and better at entertaining themselves. Especially if you have more than one child, they seem to be able to make their own entertainment for whole moments at a time. This is when things get fun. You can each work on your own projects yet be available to each other. You've already had practice making time for yourself when the kids were little. Don't stop now. Show them through example how important it is to take care of yourself.


"How do you do it without going crazy?"

Who says homeschoolers aren't crazy? We are outliers, 3 sigma out. To anyone who doesn't "get" it, we've got to look insane. I'm going to go on letting folks think that too. After all, if too many more people homeschool the parks and zoos and museums are going to get awfully crowded on weekdays.

Some days are like this, and some are like that

Yesterday at park day a friend said she wanted to "pick my brain". She had a not so wee baby wrapped on her, as well as a 5 year old and 7 year old running around.

"How do you do it?" she asked. She seemed tired and frazzled. "What do your days look like?"

So, here it is. What our days look like.

Some look like today. It's spring break in our local school district, so my oldest has a public schooled friend over. They're playing Magic the Gathering, safe from little brothers in the sanctuary of his bedroom. The two brothers across the street are off school too, so my younger two are outside playing with them, drawing a village on the side walk with chalk. When I'm done typing, maybe I'll go do some spring cleaning in the garden and spread some brown gold around. These are golden days.

Some days look like last Tuesday. We were home all day. My 11 year old did his piano practice and math before he got on the computer. My 8 year old decided HE wanted to do math too and picked up the first Life of Fred, doing the first test. Later in the day he asked if he could start Math-U-See and proceeded to do the first beta test. When our piano teacher got here I had to tell him to stop doing math so he could have his piano lesson. My 5 year old felt left out so got out markers and a write-on/wipe-off mat and practiced his numbers. Just before bed time the younger two were doing dot-to-dots, and the oldest was working on The Python Challenge. Wow! With the kids begging for more math, I tell you, I felt like a brilliant homeschooling mom.

Then there are other days. There are days when we have to do laundry, and the children are fighting, and it seems like every set of toys with small parts has been out on the floor for eons. There are days when we are running around doing errands and picking up and dropping off from classes, just to come home exhausted and grumpy.

The days I notice that the spoodge around the toilet is beginning to look back at me, the weeds are as tall as the children, my energy is falling and my temper is rising -these are real homeschooling days too. I don't write about them too often, I figure any parent would know those days are to be expected. I realized talking to my friend at the park, maybe you don't know. Maybe you think my days are really all golden magic math days. They're not. Still, I'm here to tell you it's O.K. The golden days will come, the hard days will pass. What your focus on is your own choice.

I could tell my friend was "doing" more than enough. This stage in our parenting lives, with little ones and babies, is a great time to explore unschooling and relaxed eclectic homeschooling. I'm not suggesting unparenting, nor am I suggesting letting the children run the house hold. I'm suggesting that we think about what is really important to us and then choose where we'll spend our energy.

If we treated left brained children like we do right brained children

Thank the gods that we live in a world with a variety of people. We need all of us to muddle through. I, for one, am grateful for the presence of those who are able to easily keep accounts, and even enjoy the process. I wish though that the processes and skills of right brained people were as appreciated, especially in the years of childhood. Too bad the world in general, and schools in particular, are currently dominated by the left brained mentality.


What if it wasn't? What if right brained processes were more valued? What if children were made to feel bad if they couldn't draw or make music? What if the inability to write and tell a good story was an obstacle to success? What if not visualizing in 3D was considered a learning disability? What if we had remedial creativity classes? What if the delayed learning of creative skills such as playing an instrument, singing, drawing, fiction writing, designing, etc. were emphasized at an early age? Would we improve the overall creativity of these poor people?


I think we can teach creativity. It's true that for these creativity disabled children, creativity may always be a struggle, but it's important to make sure that they are well balanced and able to be creative as adults. If we don't start now, it will only be more difficult for them as they get older. Imagine not being able to perform with an ensemble as an adult. Imagine the shame in needing a camera to make pictures, to record feelings, rather than being able to draw and paint original pieces. Imagine the inability to tell an original story. We can all understand the financial hardship that would be caused by not being able to create innovative products and business models. Such a life might well be said to be hardly worth living.


In fact, there are many techniques for helping the creativity disabled to exercise their weak creativity. Brainstorming techniques can be taught and practiced, improving many aspects of creative writing. Extra instrument practice, as well as more time with composition instruction, will improve their musicality. Remedial art classes, including visualizing and identifying color gradations, can help improve the artistic abilities of these slower children.


It's true that there are some children so disabled that they will never compose a truly unique piece of music of any real quality. There will always be some so challenged that their inability to write a story will never be remediated. Not every child can be an artist. But all can be taught to achieve a certain baseline level of technique. Many of these children are just slow to develop and access their right brained abilities. Given time and remediation many will achieve a basic skills. In time, with our help, I believe many of these kids will straighten out.


Luckily, for those who are unable to learn creativity, there are some jobs still available to the disabled. Even so, we must never give up trying to correct and improve their deficiencies. Much research is being done and new treatments will soon be available that will allow even more disabled children to achieve creativity.