How to deal with your child’s Math phobia

Arithmophobia, that’s what they call the fear of math. Interestingly, psychologists do not recognize it as a separate clinical phenomenon, but as a mix of phobias: fear of large numbers, of calculations, of failure, or simply of the unknown.  

Symptoms of Math phobia  
Is your kid simply being cranky or is it a real fear? Math phobia has 5 major manifestations. Once you identify them, both of you must acknowledge the phobia. The first step towards solving an issue is to know it exists. Here are the symptoms to watch out for. 

• Panic: Is your child beginning to sweat, fumble, cry, get chills or have a strong urge to visit the washroom? These are all panic reactions in kids when they are seriously scared  
• Paranoia: Is your child scared of not being able to solve a math problem even before attempting it?  
• Passive behaviour: More common in teens, it is indicated by a supposedly indifferent attitude towards punishments and bad grades, when the actual problem is much deeper   
• Lack of confidence: Your child starts on a problem, but seems unsure at every step. On asking, they cannot give a clear or logical explanation about the method  
• Hopelessness: School children see peers performing better and develop a belief that they are not “naturally” good at math like these kids. It leads to hopelessness and an acceptance of failure without trying 

How can you help?  
Here’s what you can do as a parent to help your child overcome math phobia.  

Clarify the basics: In most cases, children develop math phobia since they lack early math skills. Clarify the basics. They can’t move on to multiplication and division if they don’t understand addition and subtraction 

Apply Math in real life: Involve your kids in estimating prices when shopping, fractions in dividing food, decimals through counting money and understanding geometry through real objects. This is how you can connect mathematics to everyday life experiences 

Practice math daily: Be the role model. Work with your kid at solving problems, making it a daily routine till they get used to numbers 

Encourage questions on concepts: Children are usually taught steps and formulae with little or no explanation. Explain the logic behind it all with live examples and encourage them to know ‘the why behind the what’ 

Replace fear with love: Make your child fall in love with math through board games, puzzles, flash cards and math toys