Math Phobia in Kids: Causes and Remedies

In today’s era, many kids are not curious about Mathematics, rather they sometimes fear it! If you agree with this statement, let’s spend some quality time today looking at possible causes and how we can tackle this challenge.

Causes: Why Do Kids Fear Math?

Let us see why kids often develop hatred for an amazing subject like Mathematics.

• Maths is stereotyped to be difficult. People often believe that Maths requires a lot of hard work and intelligence to be an expert.
• Nowadays, everybody just focuses on obtaining good grades in exams which ends up pressurizing the child and learning with a narrow mindset for only scoring. This leads them to ignore the core concepts and not give them enough time to understand.
• Many times a child’s base concept for a topic is not clear but still he is required to follow the school’s fixed schedule where he has to start learning further advanced topics. 
• Often children do not put up their questions in classrooms due to various reasons, for example, they may be shy, or afraid that they will drop out of the good books of the teacher since asking questions may create an impression that they are slow learners.
• These days, kids use calculators from an early age since most institutions allow their usage. While this helps the child get quick and accurate answers, but at the same time the child will be deprived of the practice and hard work that he must put in order to gain mastery and confidence in arithmetic calculations.

Remedies: How to Remove the Math Phobia in Kids

MathCruise brings you 10+ years of solid teaching and mentoring experience in the field of Mathematics. Let us look at various methodologies that can help to overcome the Math phobia.

Connecting with the child

As a teacher, in addition to providing the academic guidance it is equally important (if not more) to connect with the child in such a way that he feels comfortable to open up and engage with the teacher. This will ensure that the classes are interactive and the child enjoys every session while learning at the same time. The objective is that a child should proactively ask any doubts that he has in his mind. Eventually, this PULL model instead of PUSH leads to much more effective learning.

Use Supplementary Teaching Methods

Interestingly, in addition to the conventional teaching method followed in most schools, there are many other proven and age-old teaching methodologies for gaining efficiency in Mathematics. We should be open to explore, understand and try these additional methods depending on the need and interest area of the child since these are designed to help the child gain mastery in various aspects of learning like more focus and concentration, or ability to do super fast calculations. Let us explore some of these most useful and recommended methods below and you will be amazed to 

Abacus 

Abacus is one of the oldest and a very powerful teaching methodology to gain expertise in arithmetic operations. Abacus is a Brain Development Technique that enhances visualization ability (leading to right-brain activation), focus and self-confidence. Within a span of 1-2 years, if a child follows the Abacus programme thoroughly under professional guidance, he will be able to perform all arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) via Mental Maths. At this stage a child can be very well called a “Human Calculator”.

Refer to our detailed page on Abacus course to understand the advantages of Abacus, and also read our recently published blog “Step-by-Step: How does Abacus boost Mental Math Skills” for more insights into how does Abacus boost mental math skills.

Our Video Gallery section has amazing demo clips from our students that you would love watching. You have to actually see the amazing phenomenon of visualization in order to believe that students are actually able to do arithmetic calculations faster than a calculator.

At MathCruise, we provide online Abacus classes for kids across the globe. Our batch strength is kept limited to maximum 6 students to ensure quality focus on each child. We provide Abacus classes for beginners as well as advanced levels. So if you are looking for an online Abacus course for your child, or looking for Abacus Teacher Training for yourself, feel free to get in touch with us to get started on this amazing journey.

Vedic Math

In some cases, children have good hold on basic Maths concepts but they lack the speed while performing various calculations. This leads to loss of precious time in school as well as competitive exams and thus creates anxiety among them. Often due to this anxiety, they tend to make mistakes in the questions which otherwise they have a good handle on.

Vedic Maths (also called as Mental Maths) is a life saver in such situations. It is a methodology to train you in shortcut tricks. It comprises 16 Sutras and 13 sub-Sutras (and numerous formulas) to perform various calculations and solve the tricky questions in almost every field of Maths ranging from basic to advanced such as Geometry, Arithmetic operations, Algebra, Calculus, Trigonometry etc.

Do you know – You can calculate 10x faster using Vedic Maths tricks.

The benefits of Vedic Maths

• it helps to sharpen the memory
• Induce overall confidence since a child can cross-check the results of calculations in exams using this alternate method, and identify the mistakes
• Tremendously helps to save precious time in exams 
• Additionally, it removes the over dependence on calculators. There are numerous exams where calculators are not allowed and in those situations your child will have a clear edge over his peers

If you want to dig deeper into world of Vedic Maths, get started by visiting our Vedic maths course and also go through the detailed curriculum listed on the same page. We provide Vedic maths online classes generally for 5-15 age group, however, there is no cap on the age limit to learn Vedic Maths. For further details around Vedic Maths for kids or classes for advanced Vedic Maths, you can call us directly (details here) and we would be happy to assist you.

Conclusion

We hope the above discussion will give you valuable insights since as a parent it is absolutely crucial to understand the key reasons that might create the fear of Maths in your child. This article covers just some of the key methods to remove Math phobia from children. We would encourage you to discuss with us the specific challenges you may be facing as a parent in the field of Mathematics, and our chief trainer Meenu Gupta will be happy to work with you on the path of positive learning and defining a custom learning path for your child. She holds International Vedic Maths Advanced Certification from www.vedicmaths.org (only 48 in India, 125 across the globe) and has a passion for Maths. Come and join the Mathcruise family today!

Meenu Gupta