Door-2-Math Blog

Worried about losing academic momentum during the summer break, parents often ask me “How do I get my child motived to do more homework?” But without understanding the underpinnings of homework struggle, any ‘Band-Aid’ solution just backfires. This article focuses on different stages of homework struggle, how to identify where a child is at and suggests some solutions.

Frequently, poor report card grades and resistance to homework are the only indications for many parents that their child is having trouble with math at school. When a parent notices a child struggling with homework, typical assumptions are that either the child is “lazy” or they do not understand the material because the teacher didn’t teach it right or that the math class is too difficult. These are the conceptions that I started with when I began helping students to overcome the math barrier, but over time I have observed that instead there are 4 different levels of homework struggle that a student goes through. From the least to the most worrisome, the 4 stages of math homework struggle are:

1. Poor understanding on math topics alone;

2. Unresolved math ‘trauma’ from any past/current instructors (professional or otherwise);

3. Lack of sufficient work habits;

4. Ineffective parent-child communication where math become a medium for power struggle.

Stage 1: Poor understanding of math topics. This is the easiest to identify and typically happens in 2^nd to 4^th grades. A good indicator of this symptom is that the child is doing well in other topics. There are a few fundamental topics that can be difficult to grasp and often kids get stuck on one of these. The topics are subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions and word problems. Seek to identify or find some help to identify which topic it is, and at this early stage, many math resources are available to remedy the problem.

Stage 2: Unresolved math trauma. Kids are very impressionable. It can only take one negative experience with math in the 3^rd to 6^th grade to turn them off on math for the rest of the school career. This could be an insensitive teacher making derogatory comments, peers, or even family members. After this experience the child will think they are no good in math and will have a mental block with homework. To identify this problem think back if any memory stands out of your child being distraught with a teacher a peer or a family member and interview the child about this experience. Often times just talking about the experience will make the child feel better and improve their outlook on math. If this doesn’t work, professional help may be needed.

Stage 3: Lack of sufficient work habits. Statistics show that over 90% of what we do, we do out of habit. Anyone who had quit smoking will tell you that breaking down old habits, forming the new ones is time-consuming to say the least. Awareness, expertise, tenacity all has to come together to successfully deal with this 3^rd stage of homework struggle. If a child does not have a set time and set place for homework each night, this is a very good indication that work habits are to blame for math struggle. If your child simply does not know how to get homework done daily, you might have to sit through and help him establish the routine one day at a time. Until new habits forms, your shoulder is all your child can lean on.

Stage 4: Ineffective parent-child communication and power struggle. This is when math struggle stops being about math and a student tries to use math struggle to level the parent-child field. Symptoms include the child withholding information from the parent or repeated arguments and tears over math. In this case two problems have to be solved: repairing the math damage that has been done plus the concepts missed, and repairing the parent child relationship. A math expert can help with the first but the second will require more work and is beyond the scope of this article.

So what can you do to avoid reaching 4^th stages of homework struggle? Err on the side of over communicating, over reacting, over anxious, over protective. Sounds like an oncologist? You bet.

Happy Zen Math!

MathDoc@Door-2-Math