How to encourage your kids to love maths

Encouraging your kids to love maths should begin at their formative years because the myth that mathematics is difficult is usually internalised at childhood.

Whether you’re a maths pro or not, these tips will help you groom your kids to love maths, improve their problem-solving skills and prepare them for advanced math concepts.

 Address the common fears around maths

Demystifying some baseless claims will give you the right headway. Even some parents hold the opinion that maths is not for everyone and don’t get bothered when their children have bad maths results.

Although some kids are naturally likely to do better in maths than others, the facts remain that everyone has the propensity to know maths if properly taught.

So, your first step as a parent is to have the right mindset on the subject, and this will translate to how you communicate maths with your kids.

Make it tangible

One of the reasons children dread maths is because the subject is often introduced as an abstract concept. Mathematical concepts are everywhere around us, you have to make your kids ‘feel’ them.

Discussing how many miles you spent driving your child to school every day, measuring your child’s heights at home, or counting how much change you have left after paying for a special family treat, are great ways to make maths real to your kids. It also helps them to get comfortable with mathematical terms without having to work hard to memorize them.

Games 

Games like chess, checkers, snakes and ladders will help your kids understand shapes, sequence and patterns in a fun way. Creating a fun maths quiz where you give clues on how your kids can arrive at the correct answers also encourage them to love maths.

You can also encourage kindergarten kids to count out numbers while playing hide and seek, or just count numbers on a colourful abacus.

You can also introduce the use of Legos’ blocks for simple addition and subtraction at home.

Don’t force it

You will have to exercise patience during this process. Allow them to make mistakes and celebrate their success too. Be careful not to present maths as a difficult task you want them to pass. Rather, make them see it as a part of life they should naturally gravitate to. Motivate them where necessary and believe they can excel in maths.