Insisting on solving math mentally

[blondeviolin]

My 6yo is insisting on solving her math mentally, which is fine, but she's consistently trying to hold way too much in her head and gets all jumbled and confused about what she is actually doing. If I walk her through the problem, she is fine. She can even tell ME how to do it step by step while I'm writing it down. But if I leave her to do it on her own, she falls apart.

 

It's mainly happening with subtracting 3+ digit numbers. If I take the marker and ask, "What first?" And "now what?" She can lead me through completing the problem mentally just fine.

 

It doesn't help that she's busy staring into space occasionally and then tries to pick back up her mental math not knowing what she's actually done.

[Dmmetler]

At 6, I needed to scribe for DD most of the time. She just plain struggled with the "getting it on paper" part. Even when she wrote it down, she really had trouble with alignment, spacing, and just plain reading her problems. I realized that one reason why she was doing everything mentally is that it was easier for her to keep it straight inside her head.

 

About age 7 1/2, that got a lot better, and I think it's because she's just plain gotten better at writing in general. Using graph paper helped, too.

[MinivanMom]

Are you talking about mental math problems or is she trying to do regular problems in her head?

 

I let my kids do regular problems in their head as long as they are consistently getting the right answers. If they are making errors then I make them write all of their work out. Sometimes they complain about this, but I tell them that it's part of getting the right answer. I need to see them write the correct problem down and solve it correctly. If there is just a wrong answer written on the page then I have no way of knowing where their error is. Did they write the problem down wrong? Did they borrow incorrectly? Is it a lack of understanding or just sloppiness? You need to see the work to figure that out.

 

I also think that bright kids sometimes don't learn how to logically write down the steps of their mathematical thinking or how to line up everything neatly, because they just do all the work in their head. At some point they need to learn how to put their thought process down on paper or it's going to come back to bite them when they need to show their work in higher math later on.

[SKL]

My elder dd does this as well (though math is not a strong subject for her). She has trouble with visual learning, so I think that is part of it. The visual stuff actually unsettles her. I'm going to ask her vision therapist if she has any strategies to attack this. ... My younger dd also does this, but for a different reason. She is impatient and doesn't want math to be tedious. As a result she doesn't do as well as she could. Getting her to be patient with her math progress is our challenge.

[kiana]

If she's getting the problems wrong, she needs to start writing them down.

 

Does she just strongly dislike writing? Would she rather do the problems at a whiteboard? Sometimes they don't want to write because they don't want to get anything wrong down on paper and the impermanence of a whiteboard will allow them to make the mistakes. Sometimes writing is difficult and the larger area and smoothly flowing marker of a whiteboard makes a difference.

 

If alignment is an issue, consider graph paper and/or turning the paper sideways so that the lines run up/down to keep columns straight.

[Uff Da!]

nm

[AK_Mom4]

Age 10 was the magic age at which DD finally stopped trying to work all problems in her head in order to avoid writing. At age 11, she is willing to "show her work" without fuss most days.

 

To be clear, she had to show her work before, there was just lots of fuss.

 

Honestly, I think it's a maturity think for her.

[blondeviolin]

I don't think it's necessarily a distaste for writing. She does most problems on the whiteboard. She copies sentences and writes from dictation just fine. I do think she believes she'll get done with it faster and get back to playing faster if she does it in her head. But doing so can make her prone to simple mistakes (not correctly regrouping tens, for example).

 

Couple that with being a perfectionist/shying away from a challenge, and it gets worse. If I tell her an answer is incorrect and give her the chance to rework it, she begins to flail and panic and complain that it's too hard. Then she throws up a wall about that certain problem, even though she's solved ten just like it with relative ease. (FWIW, she flails like that if she misspells a word too. I know that's age/maturity.).

[serendipitous journey]

I don't think it's necessarily a distaste for writing. She does most problems on the whiteboard. She copies sentences and writes from dictation just fine. I do think she believes she'll get done with it faster and get back to playing faster if she does it in her head. But doing so can make her prone to simple mistakes (not correctly regrouping tens, for example).

 

Couple that with being a perfectionist/shying away from a challenge, and it gets worse. If I tell her an answer is incorrect and give her the chance to rework it, she begins to flail and panic and complain that it's too hard. Then she throws up a wall about that certain problem, even though she's solved ten just like it with relative ease. (FWIW, she flails like that if she misspells a word too. I know that's age/maturity.).

 

 

In this case, character training/perfectionism work will probably be what works best.

 

I have had luck with, as a base, requiring a polite -- in Charlotte-Mason speak, a "sweet and even" -- temper during work. A. isn't always able to pull off sweet, but polite I teach & require; and also a calm correction of mistakes. I imagine the discipline around this will be different for different children; carrot & stick of time-outs for infractions, and (when we're in a very hard spot) a bit of chocolate for re-working errors have worked wonders. On average that is -- we still have Hard Days.

 

I've had great luck with A., starting when he was 6, by setting a time for him to finish correctly mentally; after that, he either has to talk me through his mental problem-solving efforts so I can help him, or do it on paper (usually graph paper), whichever is appropriate. This happened today -- I gave him one more minute to work mentally with a troublesome problem, then he had to write it out. In between there were two time-outs for his micro-fits (angrily erasing the whole problem, sighing obnoxiously).

 

This may sound draconian or repressive -- with A. it isn't. He is allowed to tell me what he is feeling, and to use angry, exasperated, frustrated tones of voice -- just not to be passive-aggressive. He's also allowed to take a few-minute break to regroup, and I encourage him a lot and give a great deal of positive feedback for his successes (and generally, just for being himself he gets a lot of positive feedback! :) ) I don't know if something along these lines seems useful for you.

 

Either way -- do look into the CM character threads/sites if it continues to be a problem, they have been so helpful to me in constructively managing this sort of behavior.

[LMD]

My DD still does it at nearly 8 and it's annoying! She'll make silly errors because she can't keep it all straight in her head.

 

I think it is just a maturity thing mainly, that and a touch of laziness. I have her rework the problems if she makes a mistake, and repeatedly show her how to write out each step neatly. Grid lines are good, she does it less often on graph paper.

 

Nice to hear that 10-11 year olds stop it!

[Dmmetler]

One thing to keep in mind-math requires different skills than text, especially when you're talking column addition/subtraction.You're usually not asked to align text. It might be that simply drawing a grid (or getting a laminated sheet of graph paper) to use on the whiteboard might make it easier for her, and it's a cheap fix.

[SnegurochkaL]

My 10 years old is still trying to solve everything she can in her head. She does it even when she works on Geometry problems. I told her that she should write her steps down to check her thinking process when she makes mistakes. She does it so unwillingly that it almost not worth the efforts.

My 6 years old does it all the time also. I was so funny when 6 years old was offering some help in calculation to a 10 years old who was solving a system of linear equations doing her geometry problem.

[Lizzie in Ma]

Both my girls prefer to do math in their head. I have always made them write it out. It is important that they can show their steps as well as see where they may have gone wrong in the process. I am thrilled they are able to do it in their head but it's my way or the highway on this particular issue.

She is 6, help her until she can do it on her own by all means, but stick with it. It helps a great deal when they are older and math is harder. Mental disciple to stay on task can take time to develop.

For an entire year, being allowed to use a whiteboard got my youngest to do it and by the following year she had stopped complaining about it.