STRUGGLES AND POSITIVE THINKING

My son is having a challenging this year with Math. In the past, he’s naturally excelled at math; this year his experience is different. Without going into too much detail, part of the issue is he’s now in Middle School and expectations are higher, part is the teaching style of the teacher not matching how he learns and part is his own attitude.

His grades have an up and down pattern that is associated with how easily or difficult it is for him to grasp a concept. Because there are times he does well, I don’t want to teach him the easy way out by changing to a teacher he as had before. This is not going to be the first teacher or boss that he’s going to be in conflict with their styles. The sooner he learns that he can come through this struggle and be okay; the next time it comes he hopefully won’t be fighting it so hard.

We’ve had a couple meetings with the teacher to try to understand the gap between her expectations and his productivity. After the last one, it seems that our heated “discussions” over his math have diminished; it’s almost as if he realizes that we are really on his side.

He often says “I hate math.” And I immediately remind him that he should bring this down a notch to “I am really frustrated with math” or “I strongly dislike math.” If you think about it, when you change your words from something as strong as “hate” to “strongly dislike” or “really frustrated”, it softens the strong negative feelings.

It seems to be making a difference when I remind him to lower the negativity; he seems to get through the negative feelings faster and thus getting his work done sooner.

What kind of struggles is your child having? How are you helping your child get through it? I’d love to hear about it.