Ask HN: How to get your child interested in math?
2 pointsby gitowiec7 hours ago4 comments
  • pmpmpmpm3 hours ago
    I love math so I understand where you are coming from: everyone should love math. But we love it because we can see the magic in it, and a child needs to be shown that type of magic to see why we love it. If you treat math like a fun skill or game that you both enjoy, that love may develop organically. Your child may also be good at something they don’t like, which is also OK. They are 10, so being “right” is probably important and since they are right a lot in math they may be bored. Do you remember what math felt like for you at 10? If you can recall those feelings & put yourself in your son’s shoes you may find add’l insights to help you further. Good luck!!!
  • jr_isidore5 hours ago
    Maths is hard and taught as an abstract, seemingly useless series of rules with nothing to show for their correct application. The only kids who get excited about it are the 1% who naturally take to olympiad style problems. He's 10 years old. He's going to hate a lot of things (girls, vegetables, reading the newspaper, practicing an instrument) before nature takes its course.
  • wolfi17 hours ago
    make a little game at the cash register in the supermarket: if he can calculate the right sum of the price he gets a fiver, if he can tell how much change you have to prepare he gets a dollar. for the first thing he needs to memorize the prices and add them up, for the second one he needs some sort of modulo calculation. so there are several ways to incentivize the use of math in everyday situations
    • xyzzy1235 hours ago
      Right; most kids won't be very interested unless they're around other people who seem genuinely interested. They key their learning effort off perceived relevance. Perversely, bad school environments can kill interest instead of nurturing it.

      The very best environments will have other kids who are engaged. It is induction into a culture, with its own language, ways of thinking and values. If you can't find that directly, you have to do your best to create a mini version as a family.

      You can turn almost anything into a little maths games, card or dice games provide an opportunity for probability puzzles, the environment provides things to estimate and count, you can challenge them on car trips with rates and distances, etc etc etc. How many sides does a circle have?

  • pyuser3147 hours ago
    Kumon is often rewarding (from my past experience with it)