How to Build Confidence About Math in Your Teen

Knowing how to build confidence about math in your teen is important for their overall success in school.

Ever heard any of these from your teen?

I can’t do math!
I’ll never get this.
I’m going to fail this math class!
I’m so dumb.

Well, you’re not alone.  I hear it from parents all the time…and I hear amazing feedback from them after their kids find success!

Let’s talk.

Thinking of math as adding and subtracting or even solving equations (what even is x?!) is a really limited view of math.

It makes sense that we think this way…for many of us, it’s just another class we took in school, along with history and science.

When you learn how to build confidence about math in your teen, you start to recognize the skills they’re actually developing when they learn to factor in Algebra.

For example:

1. They’re learning a sequential process–most of the career fields we go into will utilize a pattern or sequence of activities on a daily basis.
2. They have to remember at least a dozen details in order to get to the correct solution.  What career path doesn’t involve specialized details that are required for success?
3. The next steps after factoring are directly dependent on having those details correct…many aspects of our lives involve others depending on us to do our part well.
4. Even though there is a sequence of steps to follow, they still have to consider your options and determine the best combination of numbers to get the right answer.  This is so true of life–sorting through possibilities, eliminating ones that won’t work, and adjusting as you go.

“Math,” in terms of the classes we take in school, is actually just one more method we use to teach problem solving, reasoning, and analysis.

These are skills everyone uses every day.

You’ve seen all the memes about the ridiculousness of math problems…100 watermelons, anyone?

Haha, I get it.  Yes, a lot of it is ridiculous.

And I think the memes are funny, too…even as a teacher who loves math.

If you’ve never talked about math (positively or negatively) or if you definitely talked negatively about it, consider a new conversation with your teen about what you’re learning that math really is.

One of my favorite things about parenting teens and young adults is how honest and real we can be with each other.

Maybe you think that your teen shouldn’t have to take Geometry and Algebra 2 (and it’s ok for you to think that).

But in a world where we often have to do things that don’t make sense, look for the good in it.

That math problem that took an entire sheet of paper to complete?  It might remind you of a project at work where you had a ton of steps to map out.

Or it might remind you of the diagram that you used to build the fort in the backyard when your kids were little.

Having to learn about the quadratic formula?  Google “quadratic formula real life applications.”  There are so many cool connections between a crazy looking formula and the universe we call home!

I don’t mean that we need to be all rosy and happy about math all the time.  That’s definitely not my personality.  I do mean that the way we talk about things relates closesly to our mindset about them.

And building confidence about math involves understanding how math fits in to the “rest” of our lives.

 When discouragement about being able to learn a new math concept fills the air, it can be helpful to recognize that your teen has been here before.

No, he or she hasn’t ever had to do this particular skill before but has had to learn something new and really difficult before.

Make a list of 3-5 things your teen can do well today that they couldn’t do 5 years ago.

Really.  Stop and think about it.

Drive a car?  That one alone is huge.  Most of us can still remember what it was like when we were first learning how to drive…especially if a stick shift was involved, haha.

Play an instrument?

Play a sport?

Cook a meal?

This is a great list to pull from in those moments.

Your teen utilized the key components for success in math in order to learn to do those things, namely perseverance and problem solving.

Ask your teen to think back to how he went from someone who couldn’t do more than make a bowl of cereal to being the go-to spaghetti maker in the house.

Possible ways that happened:

• Uncle Jeremy taught him in his kitchen, using the family recipe
• He watched youtube videos and practiced until he perfected the recipe
• He got out cookbooks and made spaghetti 15 different times until it was exactly what he wanted

Do you see that all of those ways are also ways to learn a math skill?

• Someone personally helps you–a tutor, teacher, friend, or family member
• You watch youtube videos and keep practicing new problems until it “clicks”
• You look back over your notes and examples, and practice doing those problems so that you can check your work against the way the teacher did it until it’s right

Making this connection is a vital part of how to build confidence about math in your teen.