I think a lot of parents are facing this problem, not only in middle school but also in high school. I will try to give few steps that might help your child.

Let’s keep in mind one important thing while talking to your child – a middle school or a high school student is almost an adult! Their habit, what type of a person they will be in future – all these things are making a solid foundation at this age.  Not liking math might become a strong habit very soon and we as parents will have to break that habit as early as possible.

Generally speaking, something becomes boring when a person finds it either too easy or too difficult. For a very large percentage of students, it is the second reason for math (unfortunately). They think math is too difficult, math does not make sense! There is a lot of research going on to understand this issue but we need the answer today! So let’s take a step back and try to think about the issue from a different angle – What will I do to like something, to overcome the fear of something?

Let’s take an example of what we, the adults do in December:). We make a resolution that we are going to exercise every day for an hour starting from January 1st! And how many of us actually stick to that resolution? Very few! In fact, study shows over 80% people fail by February! We fail because we have taken a very big step. Big steps sound good but very very difficult to stick to. Now, if we make a resolution that we are going to exercise just 15 minutes a day, I think the chances of success is thousand times higher! As soon as I talk to myself that I will exercise15 minutes – I feel some kind of encouragement hearing the word “15 minutes”.( Please try it on yourself :). That is the magic of small steps. Often time our culture gives people two options – “take big steps or do nothing”. But when it comes to sticking to something and in the process start enjoying that something, it’s the small steps that do the magic.

I think this ” small step” approach will help your child in overcoming the fear for math and make him confident. Here is my suggestion by steps :

Step 1: Talk to your child casually that math is not going to go away. Math might not be the most important thing for him when he grows up but at this point, it is important to learn. Not only knowing math helps to build confidence but also it helps to think logically. And logical thinking will help in the career path.

Step 2: So ask him to do math for 60 minutes a day! Of course, he will resist. And probably will start arguing with you. And then you give him the option – How about doing math 15 minutes a day! Just 4 days a week? At his own time, at his own pace! I can almost see the smile in your child’s face. His brain will take it in a very positive way – because it is just 15 minutes!

Please try this and see how it goes. I am super confident that once he starts doing math regularly, he will find that math is not difficult at all. In fact he might start showing off a bit which is a good thing when it comes to confidence building.

Now I think you will ask me another question 🙂 –  “Where can I find a teacher who will teach my child 15 minutes a day at his own time? “

Well, this is why we have created Cratoo. To give the freedom of learning and remove that notion that math has to be done 60 minutes day! Ask your child to start on the topic they are learning at school and just watch the Cratoo videos. Every lesson in our platform is 10-15 minutes long just for this very reason. As every lesson at Cratoo is a video, he can just watch it without even working on a piece of paper (but eventually they will need a pencil and paper to practice- that cannot be avoided in math :). The beauty of this approach is – they might not understand a topic in just 5 minutes but they can watch again or watch another video with another example. And I am super confident that once he understands a concept, he will start thinking – “why did I think math is difficult?”

Hope this will help your child. Please feel free to write to us or leave your comment below. We will be more than happy to write more to.