Our kids’ Betta fish died
Our kids’ Betta fish died today,after struggling for 2 days to get itself to stay near the water surface for air. Now it is laying at the bottom of the tank, motionless, eyes wide open. Dead.
For a kid struggling with math, the feeling is not much different than a fish out of water. You can prevent it.
- Don’t yell during a homework session no matter how frustrated you’re getting. Occupy yourself with your charts, a novel, newspapers or anything you can revive with.
- Do take your kid’s side no matter how sure you are about working on the same type of problem the night before. Just because you remember it, it doesn’t mean your kids do. Err on the side your explanation didn’t sink in.
- Don’t digress no matter how much you want to share your knowledge and joy of math. Unless you want to overpower your patient, you’d never tell them table salt is really NaCl, either of which elements by itself is poisonous.
Next time when you sit down and try to help, remember the dead betta fish. You don’t want your kids to relate to math as that dead betta fish – eyes wide open and totally disengaged.