Recommended Reading
Over the years, there is one phrase which is almost guaranteed to be uttered by a well-meaning mother during her child's first visit to me: "I was always terrible at maths". Now this is no doubt said with good intent: the mother doesn't want her child to feel bad about needing to come to a tutor. She wants to show that she is sympathetic. And perhaps she wants to appeal to me to be merciful to her offspring.
On my part, I have to force myself to be calm when I hear this, almost always said in the presence of the child. I usually just smile and nod and say something soothing, about how she probably just didn't have the right teacher.
But that's not what I want to say!
I want to say something like this: "Lady! What are you doing?? Don't you realize what you are subliminally telling your children by saying that you were bad at maths? First of all, you're telling them that they are hereditarily going to be bad at maths; it's "in the blood", like their eye-colour or height. And secondly, you're telling them that, actually, it doesn't really matter that much. After all, you were bad at maths but you did all right in life -- well enough to afford a private tutor for your children, anyway.
What should parents tell their children, if they have to talk about their own sad experience with maths? Something like this: "Well, I too found maths was not easy... I had to work really hard in order to do well at it."
Which brings us to a second point: Don't praise your child's ability, praise their effort (when they make an effort). This is especially true, if your child is not in the very top rank of achievers. Children need praise -- and so do adults, by the way -- but they need to be praised for what they do -- when it's praiseworthy -- not for some innate ability, especially when that innate ability may be rather average.
There are many other ways that parents can help their children with maths and science, and I will look at some of them in future articles.
