If you have a child who goes to school, you can be one of the two kinds of parents. You can either be the one who loved math and mastered the subject with ease or, you can be one who never did well with that subject. By now you must have understood that math is a subject, which builds up one concept on the other and clear understanding of the basics will lead to gradual development of the skill needed to deal with complex mathematics. So, there are basically two choices. First, you get your base strong at the early ages and become “good at math” or, you do not develop a strong base and become “bad at math”.
Unfortunately, no one wants to be bad at math. Somehow many chidren are and a lot of the time this is because of the lack of proper guidance during the early years of learning. For instance, if you do not understand the number system, you cannot understand addition. If you cannot understand addition, you fail to understand multiplication, which is nothing other than repeated addition. Opposite to addition is subtraction and multiple subtraction is division. To understand subtraction, you need to understand the number system. So, you need to understand the core concepts of math to be able to master the subject.
This is true even for your children. So, as parents, you will need to introduce your children to the basic concepts at a very early stage. If the foundation becomes strong, your child will not face any problem with the subject. It is true that regular practice will help your children to enhance their skills but again, if you force your children to practice the same for long hours, there can be an adverse impact. They may start disliking the subject. It is therefore important that you should break these practice sessions in smaller parts and occasionally incorporate those into the whole study session.
Board games introduce simple math.
Additionally, you need to engage them in day to day activities and try to explain to them how math relates to almost everything in real life. This correlation can be attained through money, grocery, coupons and even banking. Give money to your children and teach them how to save some and put the saved money in the savings account. Explain the monthly statements to your children and you will see that gradually they will develop their interest on the subject. As a matter of fact, money is the most effective method of growing their interest. You can also reward them with their favorite food every time they succeed in solving a trick and challenging math problem.
You can also get some board games for your children, which are pretty effective in teaching them the concepts of basic mathematics like addition and subtraction. This will lead to some fun moments for the whole family and some valuable learning for your children.
It can be pretty difficult to help your children with their math homework or even teach them the basic concepts but you need to be patient and encourage them in all possible manners. Eventually they will learn the subject and choose to be good and not bad!
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