Whether done full-time or part-time during the holidays, homeschooling has a wide range of benefits to both students and their parents. For instance, it offers more freedom to learners while at the same time allowing them to keep up with what they learned at school during the holiday breaks. Parents also get the opportunity to strengthen their relationships with their children during homeschooling. However, just the regular kind of schooling, homeschooling doesn’t come without its fair share of challenges, especially on the student’s part. One of the many challenges is anxiety for mathematics! In this article, we’ll take a look at math anxiety, what it is, some factors that cause or trigger it, and a few ways you can deal with it as a mentor if it occurs to your child or student.
Math Anxiety: What Is It?
Before we define math anxiety, it’s important to mention that in most cases, learning mathematics starts from home when a child is at an early age. Simply telling your child that you’ll buy them two sweets or candy instead of one if they stop crying… that’s mathematics! This may not be the best example, but you get the idea. Now, depending on various factors, some kids may develop a mental discomfort or fear of performing mathematical tasks or solving math problems. the effect may range from simple discomfort to total uneasiness or tension when exposed to situations that need mathematical operations. Some even develop a tendency of avoiding mathematics as much as they can. If not addressed, math anxiety can affect your kid’s overall performance in schoolwork, especially since many subjects or disciplines require one to have some level of math proficiency. Math anxiety may also develop at any age or academic level.
Causes of Math Anxiety
Anxiety towards mathematics can stem from a variety of things, ranging from environmental factors to inadvertent influence, lack of practice, poor mentorship, fear of exams, and pressure from teachers/parents. Here’s a brief look at some of the most common causes of math anxiety in homeschoolers and how it can be dealt with.
1. Lacking the Right Tools and Resources:
As mentioned earlier, homeschooling has several challenges. Apart from books, some of these may include physical objects like cubes, spheres, geometric sets, mathematical tables, and calculators, just to name a few.
Among these things, calculators tend to be one of the most important tools used in learning math and solving problems. The good thing these days, however, is that you don’t even need to have a physical calculator to perform various kinds of calculations. The guys from Calculator Bee say that calculating difference in percentage, discount, average, significant figures, trigonometry, and other variables can easily be done online. This way, homeschoolers can have it easier solving math problems as opposed to doing calculations manually. It’s a fun way of learning and they’ll feel less pressured. With time, your kid may even start developing a passion for mathematics.
If a kid is raised by a parent who fears mathematics, there’s a high chance they’ll have math anxiety. For instance, a parent who complains in front of their children about their own negative experiences in math can pass the anxiety to their homeschooling kid. As a good parent, this is something you don’t want so it’s always important to speak positively about math even if you have your own fears for it, at least when your kids are around. This way, you’ll avoid instilling the thought or belief that math is bad, boring or difficult.
3. Pressure:
Sometimes homeschoolers end up having chills whenever the name mathematics is mentioned because of the pressure they receive from their mentors, teachers, or parents whenever they’re unable to grasp concepts or perform to certain expectations. While putting a bit of pressure is important, exceeding certain levels will only make your kid fear the subject more. Therefore, parents and teachers should avoid being too hard on homeschoolers, especially for topics or concepts scholars can’t seem to understand.
4. Lack of Practice:
Without sugarcoating things, mathematics is one of the most demanding subjects. For most people, it requires repetitive practice for concepts to sink in. Unless you’re a genius, no one is a natural all through in math, and the lack of practice can trigger some kind of anxiety to the subject. To beat the anxiety, parents and homeschool teachers should try and develop fun ways to get homeschoolers to practice and study math more regularly, of course without straining them so much. Even a few minutes each day will go a long way in making them more confident in the subject.
Math anxiety is real, and it affects many students. However, it’s never permanent and it can be overcome with the right approach. The above are just a few ways to deal with math anxiety in homeschoolers from the root cause.
Allen Brown isa keen writer covering topics such as Internet Marketing, SEO, Travel, Beauty and the such. He enjoys spending time with his two kids on his past time.
