Ask HN: How to get your child interested in math?

3 points by gitowiec 23 days ago | 7 comments

Hi I wanted to ask you, especially dads or dads-to-be, how to get your child interested in math? My child is 10 years old and complains that he doesn't like math. He's currently finishing third grade. In math classes, they're currently covering addition and subtraction with numbers up to 1,000,000, order of operations, and parentheses. My child's results are satisfactory and very good. He passes tests with a minimum of 90%. I once saw some posts on HN about math, including about math books, but I don't remember if they were intended for teaching children. I haven't achieved much in math myself; I'm proud of the fact that I could solve integrals and differentials at the blackboard by performing 2 or 3 mental steps. Please suggest something I could use to get my child interested in math. If you know of any books aimed at children, please share their titles. Ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance, and have a nice day.

gus_massa 22 days ago |

I know a few books in Spanish here in Argentina, but I don't think they are translated or shipped abroad. I participated in the Math Olympiads here, so my recommendation may be biased. I have a 9 y.o. daughter, so I hope it helps.

(I'm assuming your kid speaks English. All my links have official translations to other languages, that may be easy or hard to find.)

* There is an word wide math Olympiad for kids, we participate here. After looking for a while, they have some free material in https://mathkangaroo.org/mks/practice/free-question-samples/ (There are other sites in other countries/languages. I'm not sure if there is a better link.)

* Duolingo has a math course

* There are some nice videos in https://www.youtube.com/@Numberblocks (The firsts ones are very simple (aimed to younger kids), but the last ones explore more deep topics like factorization, squares numbers).

* Another set of nice videos in https://www.youtube.com/@SmileandLearnEnglish (My wife found it, they have videos of different topics, like math, biology, language, ... They have a many videos about math including basic operations and also long multiplication and divisibility rules.)

* My daughter is participating in https://www.matific.com/ at school. They have some online activities, she likes it but I don't see a free tier.

bentpe 22 days ago |

I'm in the same situation as you, my daughter is 9, good grades. I started to discuss this when she started saying she "hates math", which surprised me. At the time it turned out it was because the teacher would remove all breaks and replace them with math for weeks (that's the kind of thing they do in Taiwan where I live - lol)!

Lately we had the conversation again, and the same pattern arose, math is all exams and very few explanations, so it looks like a random, endless following of tests and numbers. I made my point again that the system may be more the problem than math itself.

At this age kids aren't really able to see the big picture yet, and they are facing sometimes a rather unnatural way to teach things, so I believe it makes a lot of sense to step in their shoes and give a listening ear, rather than push our own worries to them haha.

I'm currently learning linux and writing scripts/vibe coding, when I reach a milestone like an automation that works or a project that finishes, she can run the raycast confettis and I explain why this job was great and important

jr_isidore 23 days 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.

pmpmpmpm 23 days 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!!!

wolfi1 23 days 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

xyzzy123 23 days 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?

pyuser314 23 days ago |

Kumon is often rewarding (from my past experience with it)