How I’m Helping My Daughter Succeed at Math, and Maybe Life Too
Speaking up can be challenging (Image courtesy of worldofmiri.com)
Plus the brutal truth about half-horses
Numbers used to fall through our daughter’s brain as if they drowned in a bottomless well, never to be seen again. Times tables were a mystery, numbers a random concept. Her confidence got lost somewhere in the maze of inexplicable patterns.
Still, math remained the most challenging subject for our daughter at school.
We had come a long way, previously thinking our daughter might have dyscalculia or a specific learning difficulty.
Healthline describes dyscalculia as follows:
Dyscalculia goes beyond having a hard time understanding math. It’s bigger than making mistakes when you add numbers or reversing digits when you write something down.
If you have dyscalculia, it’s difficult to understand the wider concepts that govern the rules of math, like whether one amount is greater than another or how algebra works.
(https://www.healthline.com/health/dyscalculia)
We worked on our daughter’s brain to booster her ability to process mathematical concepts.
When tested cognitively, she displayed an elevated level of intelligence, stunning us all. The brain work had shown tangible results.
Still, despite all this, math required extra effort. Tutoring once per week. Ten minutes of times tables and other math tasks every day, including weekends.
I suppose there is nothing wrong with putting in effort and harvesting the results. Except, she wasn’t harvesting the results. She returned the last math test with a D. It was a close call to an F.
I felt utterly frustrated. After all the effort we had put in, after all she had been through. How could this happen? Why was she not rewarded for all her hard work?
When I spoke to her tutor, she was concerned our daughter may not be able to keep up in school. She had just started Grade 7 and the pace was picking up. Expectations were rising and the amount of work duplicated.
We arranged for a call with our daughter’s math teacher. He was open and friendly. He even managed to explain some math concepts to me which I had never fully grasped.
If a sack of food lasts two horses for 4 days, how long will it last for four horses?
2 days, of course.
How long will it last for one horse?
Eight days.
His next question was: How long will it last for half a horse?
The answer was: forever. Half horses tend to stop eating.
The math teacher told us it wasn’t easy to support our daughter because she never voiced her need for help. She never admitted she hadn’t understood a concept. When he tried to explain something to her step by step, she couldn’t specify at what stage her understanding stopped.
Well, teachers are there to explain, support and answer questions. That is their job. But it makes it hard for them when they don’t know where there is a need for further explanations. After all, the math teacher couldn’t read our daughters mind, even though he was able to explain to me the half-horse mystery.
So why did our daughter not feel good about asking for help?
When we checked in with her, she couldn’t explain the issue.
I wondered if this was related to her tendency to become introverted in large groups and new situations.
Psychology Today lists ten signs of introverts, including:
4. You’re the last to raise your hand when someone asks for something from a group. As you might remember from your elementary school days, there were some fellow students whose hands shot straight up into the air when the teacher asked a question or needed someone to volunteer. Extraverts tend to be ready and eager to stand out in any academic or social situation. You are probably more of an introvert than an extravert if you are content to sit back and let others take center stage. It’s not that introverts know less than others; they just don’t feel a particular need to be in that limelight.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201403/nine-signs-you-re-really-introvert
Our daughter is a crazy chicken at home, with her friends, and whenever she feels comfortable and safe. She has been at this particular school for more than six years, feeling great. She should feel safe enough to speak up. However, most teachers label her as “too quiet”.
Her participation during class forms part of the final marks on her end-of-year report card. I am not sure if this is the same in all countries, but it surely matters at this school.
Our girl might not be a full introvert but she is quiet enough for the teachers to stress the point.
Did our daughter have a disadvantage at school because she showed up like this?
I couldn’t fully answer this question. However, looking at her marks and how she enjoyed school, she seemed to have found a way to manage the situation.
Regardless of this, one disadvantage was obvious. If she didn’t voice her thoughts, the math teacher wouldn’t be able to help her. We knew from experience she needed the additional explanations. How could we get her to speak up?
I booked a session for our daughter with our kinesiologist. Our kinesiologist works on releasing limiting belief systems by working through the emotional trauma attached to it.
A limiting belief is a thought you have accepted to be true for yourself. It puts “a filter” over you and how you show up in the world.
Read more about limiting beliefs here: https://www.habitsforwellbeing.com/what-are-your-biggest-limiting-beliefs/
A limiting belief can stem from many experiences including how your parents and teachers spoke to you or how your friends treated you. It can also have a cultural or gender-related background.
For our daughter, a good example of a limiting belief might be “I am not good at math” based on her personal experiences and how I used to react when still unaware of her learning difficulties. We had already worked on this belief system, though.
In this session, instead, we dealt with our daughter’s inability to speak up. Behind this sat a fear: she did not want to be seen or perceived as stupid which is why she chose not to say anything at all.
This pattern was a generational pattern, passed down the female line of our ancestors. It was related to women’s pain of not being seen and not feeling safe to speak up. This has been true for women, at least in the Western cultures, for hundreds of years. Our kinesiologist shifted the emotional trauma and thus created a new space for our daughter to step into.
The old belief system is gone and now it is up to her to practice showing up differently. This requires courage. After all, she is used to behaving in a certain way.
Creating a new habit requires courage and strength
She needs our support to keep going and she has to build up trust in her abilities.
On top of this, like always, the learning did not only concern our daughter. There were lessons in there for me as well, providing a real opportunity for developing my own resilience. Who felt frustrated that she didn’t reap her “just” rewards?
Me.
I have to learn to let go of those expectations.
I have to allow her to follow her own path and not to deprive her of her own learnings.
I have to develop patience as it takes time for deep patterns to shift, and allow her to follow the step-by-step-approach without skipping ahead.
Shifting patterns takes time… this is as true for me as it is for her.
