He's advanced in math but thinks he's bad at it

[JumpyTheFrog]

My son is in 4th grade and is about two years ahead in math. He is easily frustrated and often needs me to talk him off the edge. I've thought it was just his personality, but now I'm wondering if he actually thinks he's bad at math. Any advice?

[kiwik]

Bump

[Laura Corin]

Is he spending an age-appropriate time on maths each day?  The problem that we found as Calvin moved ahead was that the more advanced programmes assumed more time spent per day than was appropriate for his age.  We started to set a time per day to do maths, so we finished before he got tired or frustrated.

[Dmmetler]

Also, is he going through a growth spurt? I've found that when DD is growing and changing, math seems to be the thing that takes the brunt of her frustration. Suddenly, she can't do it, she's bad at it, she doesn't understand it, etc. LoF seems to be a good fit when she's struggling emotionally. 

[JumpyTheFrog]

We spend 15-30 minutes on it, so definitely not overdoing it.

[SierraNevada]

My Ds feels he is bad at everything he is good at as well. For him the problem is that he sees what a master of that subject is doing and figures that because he isn't at that level he must be terrible at it. It doesn't matter for him that he is six years ahead, or whatever, of age mates--to him it matters that he hasn't mastered the subject perfectly. It's a terrible case of perfectionism coupled with a very unrealistic viewpoint. I have no idea how to deal with it.

[Cosmos]

Eliminate talking about "good at math" or "bad at math" ever for any reason.

 

Work problems with him and model appropriate responses to frustration. "Whew, that's tough and it's making me feel frustrated. I'm going to take a breath and pet the cat for a minute. There, now I'm ready to try again."
 

Praise him for tenacity on hard problems rather than quick answers on easy ones. Make sure he understands that the easy problems are fine for practice but it's when he comes to the hard problems that the real learning happens. "Wow, this looks like a hard one. I bet we will learn so much doing this problem, don't you?" and "That was fantastic! Look how hard you worked on that problem. Thirty minutes on one problem -- you are really learning determination."

 

Encourage math exploration as much as possible. Say "I wonder what would happen if . . ." and encourage him to do the same. Don't just solve a problem and move on. Challenge each other to find as many ways to solve it as possible. Do fewer problems. One problem fully explored for 30 minutes is a great math lesson for the day.

[EKS]

My 13yo son thinks he's bad at math too--and he's 3 years ahead!  The reason he thinks he's bad is that he sometimes has to work a bit to get it.  Gasp!  The resulting histrionics drive me batty.

[JumpyTheFrog]

Eliminate talking about "good at math" or "bad at math" ever for any reason.

 

I'm already on the "praise hard work, not natural talent" bandwagon. I'm starting to wonder if I've taken that too far, though. The other thought is that all the drama could be an excuse to get out of the work, which definitely fits in with his difficult personality.

 

I asked him last night how he thought he could be two years ahead in math if he were bad at it. I don't think he had much of an answer for that. He seems to think he should instantly know how to do SM Challenging Word Problems and that if he doesn't, the work is "too hard" or "impossible." This week 've begun telling him that those two words are banned and that he has to change his self-talk from "It's impossible" to "It may be tricky, but I can do it if I don't give up."

 

Someday I'd like him to do the AOPS books (he likes Beast Academy), but I don't know that our relationship will survive that much math drama. I keep hoping that in another 2-3 years he might have enough maturity to try without making me want to run away and join the circus.

[JumpyTheFrog]

I should add that while he's academically ahead in most areas, emotionally and self-control wise, he's behind a couple years.

[bibiche]

When DS gets like that. I ask him to reread this.   It doesn't always work, and sometimes he still cries tears of frustration over math, and he is a year older that your DS!  But it is good to remind them that it takes work.  I'd rather he learn earlier than later that sometimes things are hard.  It's tough for kids to whom everything has always come easily to suddenly have to do some work!

 

eta We also don't emphasize the "working ahead" bit, but rather let him know that he is working at the level that is appropriate for him. This is two-fold: we don't want him getting big for his britches and we also don't want him to feel like a failure if for some reason in the future he has to work at a more typical level. 

 

 

Edited February 6, 2016 by bibiche

[AEC]

yup.  we're living this as well.  DS13 (8th grade) does daily well at math but is convinced he's horrible and everyone else is much better.

 

I signed him up for the AMC8, thinking that would provide some objective 'evidence'.  He scored in the top 2 percentile - I was thrilled.  He has somehow decided that it indicates nothing, and everyone is still better than he is.    :glare:

 

I'm not really sure what do about it, either.  I have to assume at this point that it's not REALLY about math.

 

For lack of a better idea, we've taken the attitude that wether you're world-class or horrible is irrelevant - you're capable of what you're capable of and working on this isn't optional...so sit you but down and get to it.  Which makes him grumpy sometimes but avoids hours of useless moping about wether he's 'good at it' or what someone else is doing.

 

I'm all ears for better approaches, too.

[chocolate-chip chooky]

My Ds feels he is bad at everything he is good at as well. For him the problem is that he sees what a master of that subject is doing and figures that because he isn't at that level he must be terrible at it. It doesn't matter for him that he is six years ahead, or whatever, of age mates--to him it matters that he hasn't mastered the subject perfectly. It's a terrible case of perfectionism coupled with a very unrealistic viewpoint. I have no idea how to deal with it.

 

Are you peeking in our window?? This is us, exactly :wacko:

It is so hard to achieve the balance of boosting their confidence and self-worth but not putting emphasis on their level in relation to others.

 

I also agree with dmmetler regarding growth spurts. Sometimes it seems it can be physical or mental spurts or even both at once. My daughter needs more food for mind and body at these times and I think that these times can exacerbate the perfectionism, frustration and emotional outbursts. I really wish I knew how to deal with it.

[kiwik]

I should add that while he's academically ahead in most areas, emotionally and self-control wise, he's behind a couple years.

I have one of those so I sympathise. It reminds me of a work situation where I would consistently rate myself at a level below everyone else because I felt to get the top level I should be an expert about the LCMS machine as well as the extraction process. My workmates graded themselves higher despite not even understanding the chemistry in the extraction.

[JumpyTheFrog]

I have one of those so I sympathise. It reminds me of a work situation where I would consistently rate myself at a level below everyone else because I felt to get the top level I should be an expert about the LCMS machine as well as the extraction process. My workmates graded themselves higher despite not even understanding the chemistry in the extraction.

Sounds like the Dunning-Kruger effect.

[bibiche]

Someday I'd like him to do the AOPS books (he likes Beast Academy), but I don't know that our relationship will survive that much math drama. I keep hoping that in another 2-3 years he might have enough maturity to try without making me want to run away and join the circus.

 

AoPS online classes have relieved much math drama and conflict in our house and I highly recommend them!   

[JumpyTheFrog]

AoPS online classes have relieved much math drama and conflict in our house and I highly recommend them!   

 

I haven't looked into these yet because we are still a few years away from needing them, but I was under the impression that the classes are very fast paced.

[bibiche]

I haven't looked into these yet because we are still a few years away from needing them, but I was under the impression that the classes are very fast paced.

 

I was worried about that too (and was counting on taking advantage of the drop period), but didn't find it to be the case. Well, for a kid who can't really type very fast, yes, that part is quick. We always typed for him at first but he has taken over some of it.  What I like about the class is that he has to answer to someone besides me and he has to take responsibility for his own work,  No whining to me that there is too much work because I am not the one who gave it to him. ;)   As a plus, the writing problems have really helped order his thinking and improve his writing. 

[wintermom]

My son is in 4th grade and is about two years ahead in math. He is easily frustrated and often needs me to talk him off the edge. I've thought it was just his personality, but now I'm wondering if he actually thinks he's bad at math. Any advice?

 

I think that around that age and as the work gets harder, it's normal to become a little scared, frustrated, tired and perhaps even angry that it's not all "easy" anymore. My ds went through this with the violin, and my ds has been going through this with math - both at this same age.  It's wonderful to see them perservere and come out the other side with renewed confidence and determination.

 

With the violin, it used to take my ds a few weeks to play a new song well enough to move onto the next one, but suddenly it was taking 4 - 5 months. He not happy about having to keep working on mastering the same thing for that long. He had to learn to re-set his own expectations. In addition, our excellent teacher focused on breaking down the difficult music into achieveable chunks. Math questions are obviously not on the same time frame as learning a Vivaldi concerto, but there is definitely a difference in regularyly completing fairly simple questions, to having much more challenging questions on a daily basis. It takes a certain level of maturity and self-confidence to appreciate the new, harder challenges.

[EndOfOrdinary]

Ds decided for some weird reason to resurrect Khan Academy. I only let him do about 15 minutes or so a day, but in just fourteen days he has completed 50 percent of prealgebra to mastery. Today, he thought it would be fun to try and master all of the math up through Algebra by the end of February, so he flew through 30 percent of 3rd grade and close to that in 4th grade. This has revitalized his self image.

 

Part of me wants to say, "Honey, if 3rd grade was an issue that would be a much bigger problem. Let's not get too excited at finding the perimeter of a square." But he does! He gets excited when it tells him 5x6 is in fact 30 - Ding! Correct. Somehow he needs that ding right now. I think without definitive classmates to compare to he was feeling bad at something he is very good at. It is as though watching the dial shift and hearing the happy beep of answering tells him over and over that he is okay.

 

All Ds has ever known was AoPS. Regardless of my seemingly constant affirmations telling him the curriculum is very complex, it is almost as though he has to hear it from another source. Initially I had thought outside classes would help with this. Now I am not so sure.

 

The idea of outside classes was to give him someone other than me and show him other kids who got geeked out about being smart. Now I am seeing that my brilliant idea of constantly keeping Ds in C to high B range of work means that he thinks of himself as a C to high B student regardless of whether he is working grade levels ahead. (Duh! That is so obvious when I write it!). What I am coming to see is that it needs to be a little bit of both. He needs to work at high school levels integrating his subjects, but he also needs to see what the average 5th grader is doing. He needs that affirmation of his hard work.

 

So math warmups for February are apparently going to be spent rattling off as much number crunching as his little fingers can fly through.