Maths anxiety: It’s an issue and it holds students back
Parents’ maths fear also impacts kids’ confidence
There’s a lot of subjects which students study, but the one they are most likely to fear is mathematics. In fact, research has shown that maths is a subject that elicits stronger emotional reactions than any other subject. No surprise that many students, when given the chance in their senior years, will avoid the subject altogether.
But maths remains an important subject which helps students develop problem solving skills, as well as critical thinking and logical reasoning. Most importantly, maths skills allow you to understand basic processes such as converting money, how to adjust a recipe to feed a few more people, and which jar of honey is better value. Unless you understand what to do to work these things out, then the calculator on your phone is pretty much useless.
Children’s feelings about maths often get in the way of them putting their best into the subject. Students who have a level of maths anxiety — fear related to doing mathematic activity — also tend to do badly in the subject.
When anxious in class, a student’s fears take up most of their brain activity when they should be occupied solving the actual task. So rather than a student putting their best efforts into the calculation they are working on, a lot of their working memory is taking up with thoughts such as ‘I won’t do well on this’ or fears about getting it wrong.
This can be so great, that they remain focussed on their negative thoughts rather than completing the work they must do. Often their fears make them less likely to keep up with their classmates. They might come to the next lesson not able to understand the next skill, as they haven’t mastered the last one. Thus, their belief almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
There are other factors which predict a student’s likelihood of having maths anxiety. Girls are more likely to feel fear when doing maths than boys.
Parents also seem to have an impact on student’s confidence in the classroom. Research has shown that if their parents are less sure in maths, then their children are more likely to develop maths anxiety and likely to learn fewer maths concepts over the year.
This impact becomes even more pronounced if their self-doubting parents tend to help them with their maths homework. Importantly, even if the parent does know more about maths than other parents, their misguided belief that they aren’t knowledgeable tends to impact their child’s results.
It’s not too hard to imagine parents, when helping with homework, might be sharing their hesitations and beliefs about their own lack of skill. This might make a child mimic the parents’ statements or reduce their own motivation, particularly if the parent is disparaging about the subject.
Interestingly, a child’s primary teacher’s maths anxiety also can impact their students’ confidence in the subject. There has been some suggestion that maths anxious teachers don’t encourage student questions because they are fearful that they won’t know the answer — children would likely sense this. Additionally some teachers might communicate Maths in a somewhat rigid way because they lack confidence.
What’s the solution? As with all anxieties, to overcome it you need to address problematic thoughts and deliberately undertake more helpful behaviours. When your child offers a generalisation such as ‘I’m bad at maths’, then challenge it. Tell them that an open mind will allow them to put their best into it.
Suggest that the most important thing in maths is persistence. Giving up too early gives them no chance of working the problem out. As with everything, it is showing up and doing your best.
Takeaway for parents
Make your child more math confident.
· Don’t tell your child anything negative about your maths skills and show calm confidence when helping them.
· Watch Eddie Woo’s videos with your child and learn things together.
· Keep discussing the importance of patience in all subjects — learning the skill is more important that what amount of time it took you to learn it.
· Encourage courage — every night, ask your children what they did that was brave today in class.
· Use opportunities to show value in Maths, such as working out the best value products when supermarket shopping or developing a budget.
