I recently asked Dr. Kathy whether there were classes she would have preferred to avoid when she was growing up, and her answer was art. She enjoyed learning and naturally gravitated toward subjects like science, math, English, and music, but visual art wasn’t an area where she felt especially capable or interested. Most of us can probably name a subject like that from our own childhood, something we tolerated because it appeared on the schedule but would not have chosen on our own. That is different, though, from what researchers describe as math anxiety, where children may become physically tense or panicked when they are expected to work with numbers. In the report we discussed, about one in four elementary age children were described as experiencing this kind of anxiety around mathematics. That moves the conversation beyond preference because the child is not simply saying, “I don't like this”; their body may be responding as though the task itself is threatening.
The long term concern is that anxiety can teach avoidance. A child who repeatedly experiences panic when numbers appear may begin dodging situations involving math whenever possible, and that avoidance can follow them into middle school, high school, finances, work, and other places requiring quantitative thinking. Eventually the child may decide, “I'm not a math person,” and close a door that was never actually locked by ability. Anxiety told them it was safer not to try, and repeated avoidance turned that feeling into an identity. That is what makes math anxiety such an important parenting issue because the real lesson may become bigger than arithmetic. Kids are learning what to do when they feel stuck, uncertain, embarrassed, or unable to produce the right answer immediately.
Difficulty Can Become a Training Ground Rather Than a Verdict
Math is unusual because it requires children to stay with problems they do not yet know how to solve. That is part of why I have come to appreciate it even though it has never been the subject I naturally love most. A math problem does not care that we feel confused; it asks us to slow down, understand the information, test a process, notice mistakes, and try again. That is frustrating, but it is also remarkably similar to much of adult life. We solve relational problems, financial problems, work problems, parenting problems, and spiritual questions that rarely surrender their answers immediately. Learning to remain engaged while confused may be one of the most valuable things mathematics teaches.
Dr. Kathy agreed that math is different from a subject a child may simply choose not to pursue later. Most children will need mathematical thinking throughout school, and adults need some ability to understand money, numbers, and everyday problem solving. She encouraged parents to recognize the child's struggle without allowing the struggle to make the decision. “I see you. I hear you. I know this isn't your favorite. How can I help?” is very different from either “Quit complaining and do it” or “This makes you anxious, so you should never have to do it.” One response ignores the child, and the other lets anxiety determine what the child becomes capable of. Support gives us another option.
Avoiding Every Stressful Thing Is Not Preparing Kids for Life
Parents understandably want to reduce unnecessary stress. If a class is making a child miserable, it is natural to wonder whether we should shorten the assignment, lower expectations, change courses, or remove the subject entirely. Sometimes accommodations are appropriate, and real learning differences deserve real support. But Dr. Kathy made an important distinction: avoiding uncomfortable things altogether is not realistic because stress will remain part of life. Our goal is not to raise kids who never experience stress; it is to help them become people who can respond to stress without allowing it to define them or dictate every choice.
That means parents need discernment between harmful overload and difficult growth. A child who is truly overwhelmed may need a tutor, different pacing, more practice with foundational skills, or evaluation for a learning challenge. Another child may simply need someone beside them long enough to discover that what they feared can be understood. We do not have to pretend the task is easy. We can say, “This is hard for you, and I still believe you can learn more than you currently know.” That statement validates the difficulty while refusing to make difficulty permanent.
Make Numbers Part of Ordinary Life Before They Become Threatening
Dr. Kathy encouraged parents of younger children to make numbers as normal and playful as words. If Grandma is coming for dinner, how many forks do we need? How many different ways can we combine numbers to make eleven? These kinds of questions make mathematical thinking part of family life rather than something that exists only on a worksheet with a grade attached to it. The more naturally children encounter numbers, the less mysterious they can feel when formal schoolwork begins.
This is similar to the way we develop language. We do not wait until first grade to introduce children to words and then expect reading to feel natural. We talk, sing, rhyme, tell stories, name objects, and play with sounds long before a child reads independently. Numbers can develop in the same relational environment. Count stairs, compare prices, measure ingredients, notice patterns, estimate distance, and ask kids how they arrived at an answer. The goal isn't to turn every dinner into a math lesson. It is about letting numbers belong to life instead of only to anxiety.
A Child Can Struggle in Math Without Being a Struggling Child
One of the most important things parents can protect is the distinction between performance and identity. Dr. Kathy said some children genuinely have fewer natural strengths in Logic Smart thinking, and they may have to work much harder in math than another student does. That is not evidence that something has gone wrong. God creates children differently, and a student who earns a B after tremendous effort may have done something much more significant than another child who earned an A with almost no effort.
This is where we parents sometimes need to change our own dreams. If Dad is an accountant and imagined his son following him into the profession, the son's persistent struggle with numbers may require Dad to let go of that picture. That needs to become disappointing without becoming devastating. The child is not failing to become who they should be; they may simply be revealing more accurately who God designed them to become. We can help them grow in necessary skills without demanding that every skill become a defining strength.
“Yet” Is a Small Word That Keeps the Future Open
Dr. Kathy and I talked about one of the simplest language shifts parents can make: adding the word yet. A child says, “I can't do this,” and we respond, “You can't do it yet.” They say, “This is hard,” and we say, “It's hard now because you haven't learned it yet.” That is not a motivational trick because “yet” does not promise the child will become the best mathematician in the room. It simply refuses to treat today's ability as the final measurement of tomorrow's capacity.
The word gives effort somewhere to go. If I cannot do this yet, then practice, teaching, questions, and persistence may change something. If I simply “can't do math,” effort becomes almost irrational because the conclusion has already been reached. “Yet” creates hope while still respecting reality. A child may always find algebra difficult, but difficult and impossible are not the same word.
Teach Kids to Ask for Help Instead of Repeating Defeat
Dr. Kathy shared a strategy from Start With the Heart that I think is especially practical. When a child repeatedly says, “This is hard,” don't let that sentence become the soundtrack of the assignment; teach them to turn toward help. Instead of “I can't do this,” the child can begin saying, “Mom, do I have to do these problems in order?” or “I think I need a ruler. Can you help me find one?” Those questions move the child from self definition into problem solving.
That shift matters because our language teaches our hearts what to believe. A teenager who repeatedly says, “I'm terrible at math” is rehearsing an identity statement, not merely describing a problem. A child who says, “I don't understand this step” has named something specific enough to address. Parents can help kids replace global judgments with useful questions. “What part is confusing?” is almost always a better conversation than “Why are you so bad at this?”
Praise Needs to Include the Work, Not Only the Result
We also talked about how easy it is for parents to reserve praise for the ten out of ten score. A child earns six out of ten, and our attention goes immediately to the four wrong answers rather than recognizing that six problems were understood correctly. That does not mean we ignore the mistakes; they tell us what still needs to be learned. But when praise exists only after perfection, kids can begin believing that effort matters only if it produces flawless outcomes. That is a reliable way to increase anxiety.
Dr. Kathy emphasized the difference between perfection and excellence. Perfection says the score matters most, while excellence lets us notice ability and effort together. A parent can say, “I noticed that you stayed in your chair even when you got frustrated. You erased and tried again.” That praise is specific enough that the child understands what they actually did well. It also celebrates a quality they can carry into tomorrow's assignment, whether the problems look the same or not.
Progress Is More Formative Than Perfection
A student who earns eight out of ten may sometimes understand the material better than a student who earns ten out of ten effortlessly. Dr. Kathy pointed out that naturally high performing students may not always know how they arrived at an answer because the process came so easily, while a student who struggled and then learned may be able to explain each step clearly enough to help someone else. That should change the way we interpret scores. A grade tells us something about an outcome, but it cannot tell us everything about what happened in the child's mind.
Progress deserves attention because it reveals movement. Yesterday a child needed twenty minutes and today it took seventeen. Last week they could answer four problems and this week they understand six. They still have things to learn, but they are not standing still. When parents notice that movement, kids begin to learn that growth is worth celebrating before perfection arrives.
Moses Thought His Limitation Disqualified Him
The biblical passage that came to mind from our conversation was Exodus 4, where Moses tells God that he has never been eloquent and is slow of speech and tongue. Moses is not pretending; he genuinely believes he lacks a capacity required for the assignment in front of him. God does not respond by telling Moses that his self assessment is meaningless. Instead, He reminds Moses who made the human mouth and says, “Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”
That is such an important picture for kids who are convinced a limitation has already determined their future. Moses looked at himself and concluded that the weakness made him the wrong person. God saw the same man and knew the story was not finished. The child sitting at the table, unable to understand long division today, may be accurately describing today's difficulty without accurately describing tomorrow's capacity. Our kids are people in process, not finished products waiting for us to issue a final evaluation.
Stay in the Room With Difficulty
One of the greatest things a parent can do is help a child stay in the room with something difficult long enough to discover what might change. That does not mean leaving a panicked child alone with an impossible assignment. It may mean sitting beside them, finding a tutor, changing the explanation, taking a reasonable break, or returning to a foundational skill that was missed earlier. Support is not the opposite of resilience. Proper support creates the conditions where resilience can grow.
The deeper lesson is that difficulty does not have to become identity. A child can say, “Math makes me anxious,” without concluding, “I am an anxious person who cannot do hard things.” They can say, “I got four answers wrong,” without hearing, “I am stupid.” Parents help create those distinctions through the language we use, the expectations we set, and what we choose to praise. We are not merely helping them complete tonight's homework. We are helping them learn what to do when life eventually puts another problem in front of them that does not surrender its answer quickly.
Helping Kids Face Difficulty Through the 8 Great Smarts
Word Smart: Have kids explain a problem aloud, turn mathematical ideas into words, or ask specific questions instead of making broad statements like “I can't do this.”
Logic Smart: Let them work with patterns, puzzles, cause and effect, games, and real life numbers that strengthen mathematical thinking without making every experience feel like a test.
Picture Smart: Use diagrams, number lines, drawings, colors, visual models, and written steps to make abstract ideas easier to see.
Music Smart: Use rhythm, repetition, songs, or patterns to practice facts and make memorization feel less disconnected.
Body Smart: Use objects, movement, measuring, cooking, building, or hands-on examples to give mathematical ideas a physical form.
Nature Smart: Explore patterns, classifications, symmetry, measurement, and quantity through the natural world.
People Smart: Use tutoring, partner work, games, or conversation with someone patient enough to make confusion feel safe.
Self Smart: Help kids notice what anxiety feels like, what thoughts appear when they get stuck, and what strategies help them remain engaged instead of escaping.
Remember: However your child is smart, the goal is not to convince them that every difficult subject will eventually become a favorite. It is to teach them that difficulty does not get to tell them who they are. We can acknowledge anxiety, provide help, celebrate progress, and keep the future open with a simple word like “yet.” Sometimes the most important thing a child learns from the math problem is not the answer. It is that they can remain with something hard, receive help, keep growing, and discover that today's limitation was never the final word.