5 Simple Tricks Parents Use To Ease Their Kid’s Maths Anxiety

Many students across the World suffer from a fear of maths or believe that they are simply not a “math person.” These thoughts can be incredibly detrimental to their progress and can hinder their ability to perform at their best during maths exams. A student who feels that they cannot learn math will be less inclined to take the necessary steps to try because they believe that the solution is beyond them.

As a parent, there is a few things you can do at home to dispel the myth of the “math person” and build their confidence, unlocking their potential and boosting their self-esteem.

Understand The Problem

What is maths anxiety? It is the negative emotional response that occurs when a person is faced with mathematical challenges. The fear and feeling of tension often lead to underperformance, and a lack of confidence, and can lead to students falling behind in maths. It is not an uncommon issue either, it’s thought to affect roughly a quarter of the population with around 2 million students in England alone, feeling some form of maths anxiety.

Much maths anxiety research has been done and Vinod Menon, a Professor at Stanford University, conducted some tests to uncover the brain activity of students who deal with math anxiety. What he found was that the anxiety elicits the same responses found with common phobias, suggesting that students are indeed scared of maths. Knowing that there is an issue and understanding how it can affect your child, can help you to provide better support and encouragement. It’s important to note that if they believe there’s a problem with their ability to understand math, it can act as a self-fulfilling prophecy, so continued support and encouragement is needed.

Help Them To Relax

As mentioned above, support is key to helping your child combat maths anxiety. You can support them by reminding them to relax and by implementing breathing exercises when they feel overwhelmed. Another way to help your child relax is to reassure them that you’ll support them no matter what the outcome. A lot of students feel the pressure to perform well for their parents and this expectation can negatively affect their performances.

Similarly, perceived stereotypes of maths abilities within specific genders, cultures, and races can also affect their performance. This is known as “stereotype threat” and it can induce anxiety during difficult maths questions. The fear of living up to stereotypes or parental expectations, adds an unnecessary level of pressure during your child’s exams.

Put Math into Terms They Understand

I am sure at one point or another, your child has said that maths is “boring” or has asked you “When am I ever going to need this in real life?”. It’s a question you probably asked your parents when you were their age too.

It’s also a question that can be used to capture their imagination and get them thinking about maths outside of the classroom and into more

Get Involved in Their Homework & Revision

Sitting with your child as they go through their maths homework will give you a better idea of what causes their anxiety. Find out where their strengths and weaknesses are, and use that information to build out more effective revision strategies. Sitting with them and spending an hour or two a day on the website can dramatically improve their performance in class and in exams.

You can also utilize Study Pug’s content to research upcoming topics or review what your child is studying so that you can provide more informed and more effective support during their homework sessions and revision.

Prepare Your Tests

A good way to make your child feel more comfortable and confident with maths is to introduce pop quizzes at home. These can consist of a few questions that test their knowledge and will reinforce their understanding, helping them to retain the information. To encourage them to participate, you could introduce rewards like choosing dessert or having extra time on the games console/mobile phone.

You may also like to use practice papers to sit informal mock exams. Whilst they are informal, you should try to adopt some exam conditions (no phones, no distractions). Try to stick to the time limit and have them answer as many questions as possible.

Once they have finished the test, mark the paper for them. Once returned, review their scores together and highlight their strong and weak areas.

The results from the mock exams can be used to inform their revision content and your future pop quizzes. As they progress and sit more mock exams, you will hopefully both start to see improvements in their scores and turn, a boost in their confidence ahead of their actual exams.

Hence, Genius Kids National Mathematical Competitions Helps Students to Overcome all the Problems related to Mathematics and Encourage Students with Exciting Prizes and Awards. Also, Genius Kids Provide Scholarship to Top Three Winners.