5 Mistakes I Made Teaching My Kid Math (And How I Fixed Them)
Two years of helping my daughter with math taught me hard lessons. Here are the 5 common parenting mistakes that actually hurt children's math confidence, and practical fixes from a family therapist mom.
As a family therapist, I've counseled hundreds of parents struggling with homework battles. But when it came to my own daughter Emma's math struggles, I made every mistake in the book. For two years, I thought I was helping—but I was actually making things worse. The tension, the tears, the dreaded 'I hate math' declaration... all of it was partly my fault. Here are the 5 mistakes I made and how I finally learned to fix them.
Mistake #1: Comparing My Child to Others
'Your friend Sarah already knows her times tables.' 'Your cousin got straight A's in math at your age.' 'Other kids in your class can do this—why can't you?' I cringe remembering these words coming out of my mouth. I genuinely believed I was motivating Emma by showing her what was possible.
What I was actually communicating: 'You are inferior to others. You are disappointing me. Your worth is measured by comparison.' No wonder she started dreading math time.
The Psychology Behind This Mistake
Social comparison can motivate adults in certain contexts. But for children, especially around ages 5-10, it does the opposite. Their sense of self is still forming. Negative comparisons don't inspire them to try harder—they make children feel fundamentally deficient. They hear 'you're not good enough' regardless of how we phrase it.
How I Fixed It: Compare to Yesterday's Self
Now I only compare Emma to her past self. 'Last week this problem took 10 minutes, this week only 7—you're getting faster!' 'Remember when carrying was confusing? Look how automatic it is now!' This creates a growth mindset: progress is personal, not competitive. Emma started seeing herself as someone who improves, not someone who loses.
Mistake #2: Showing My Frustration
The sighs. The impatient tone. The 'I've explained this three times already.' The look on my face when she got the same problem wrong again. I didn't yell—I prided myself on staying 'calm.' But children read our micro-expressions with devastating accuracy.
One day Emma said quietly: 'Mom, you make that face when I'm wrong. The one where your eyes go like this.' She demonstrated my disappointed squint perfectly. I was horrified. I thought I was hiding my frustration. I wasn't.
Why This Matters
- •Children learn math anxiety from parents' emotional reactions
- •Visible frustration signals that mistakes are dangerous, not part of learning
- •Kids become afraid to try, which guarantees more mistakes
- •The stress response literally impairs cognitive function—they literally can't think as well when stressed
- •Long-term: children learn to hide struggle rather than ask for help
How I Fixed It: Mistakes as Information
I now genuinely view errors as useful data. When Emma gets something wrong, I say 'Interesting! Let's see what happened here' with genuine curiosity. If I feel frustration rising, I take a bathroom break. I also realized: if she's making the same mistake repeatedly, the problem is my explanation, not her brain. That reframe transformed my emotional response.
Mistake #3: Doing Too Much Talking (Not Enough Listening)
My 'help' sessions looked like this: Emma showed me a problem, I immediately jumped into explanation mode. I'd talk for 5 minutes about the concept, demonstrate the method, explain why it works. Emma would nod. Then she'd do it wrong. Repeat.
I was so busy teaching that I never understood what she actually thought. Her misconceptions were invisible to me because I never asked her to explain her thinking.
How I Fixed It: Ask Before Telling
Now I start every math conversation with questions: 'Walk me through what you're thinking.' 'Where does it start feeling confusing?' 'What have you tried so far?' Often, just explaining her thinking out loud helps Emma spot her own error. And when she doesn't, I now know exactly where the confusion is—so my explanation can be targeted instead of generic.
Mistake #4: Making Math Sessions Too Long
'We're not stopping until you get this.' 'Just 10 more problems.' 'We've been at this for an hour, you should understand by now.' I thought persistence was the answer. If something was hard, we just needed more time. Wrong.
Research shows that focused learning sessions should last 10-20 minutes for elementary schoolers. Beyond that, cognitive fatigue sets in, retention drops, and frustration rises. Those 60-minute marathon sessions? Counter-productive.
How I Fixed It: Short Sessions, Daily Consistency
We now do 15 minutes of focused math practice daily. That's it. If we hit a wall, we stop and try again tomorrow with fresh minds. This sounds like less—but it's actually more effective learning. Emma's retention improved dramatically, and the daily habit means concepts stay fresh instead of being forgotten between marathon sessions.
Mistake #5: Focusing on Answers, Not Process
'Is that the right answer?' 'What's 7 times 8?' 'Did you get it right?' All of my attention was on outcomes. Correct answers got praise. Wrong answers got 'let's try again.' The process—how Emma was thinking—was invisible to me.
This created answer-focused anxiety. Emma would guess randomly, hoping to land on the right number. She memorized without understanding. She'd get problems right one day and wrong the next because there was no conceptual foundation.
How I Fixed It: Praise the Process
Now I praise effort, strategy, and persistence—not correctness. 'I love how you broke that big number into smaller pieces.' 'You checked your work—that's what mathematicians do.' 'You tried three different approaches before you found one that worked.' Right answers still matter, but they're the byproduct of good process, not the main event.
Bonus Mistake: Not Having the Right Tools
I spent months trying to fix Emma's mental math with worksheets and verbal drilling. What finally worked was giving her a visual, tactile tool—the soroban. It externalized the math, making abstract numbers concrete. She could see what was happening instead of trying to hold everything in her head. The tool didn't replace thinking; it supported it.
The Transformation
After I fixed these five mistakes, everything changed. Math time stopped being a battle. Emma's confidence grew. She started volunteering answers in class. She even—I'm not making this up—asked to do extra practice on weekends. The problem was never Emma's ability. The problem was my approach.
Quick Self-Check for Parents
Ask yourself honestly:
- •Do I compare my child to siblings, classmates, or friends?
- •Can my child see when I'm frustrated, even if I don't say anything?
- •Do I talk more than I listen during math help?
- •Are our math sessions longer than 15-20 minutes?
- •Do I focus more on right answers than on thinking process?
If you answered yes to any of these, you're not a bad parent—you're a normal parent making normal mistakes. The good news: all of these are fixable.
Your child isn't 'bad at math.' They might just need a different approach, shorter sessions, more listening, and freedom from comparison. These changes don't cost anything—they just require awareness and intention.
Transform math time from battle to bonding. Sorokid provides structured, short daily practice sessions with positive feedback—helping you avoid the common parenting mistakes that damage math confidence. Let the app be the teacher while you become the cheerleader.
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