What if your child had no interest in math? - Page 7

[iamme]

Originally Posted by sapphire_chan

The parts of addition you end up memorizing you can count on your fingers. So for starting off to sit down and memorize math facts, multiplication is a better choice since multiplication can't be done on the fingers.

Not that I've ever really thought about that before.

Hmm. Interesting way of viewing the attack on facts. I'd not thought about it either, as I've just taken at face value(no pun intended) all the many "how to hs" books that say addition,then subraction (or combo) then multiplication/division (or combo).

More to think about...or be confused about.

[Lisa1970]

Honestly, I think unschooling is great, but not unparenting. To me, if your child says I am not interested in anything math related, I want to play video games and you give her the Wii or Playstation or whatever, you are unparenting. If she says I am not interested in learning math and you say fine, would you like to cook with me? Or, stuff like that, you are ok. All children should still have responsibilities. They should still clean up after themselves and should still have community chores. They should not be allowed to engage in "junk activities" any more than they should have "junk food." If your child says "I don't want to eat this lunch" do you just say fine and hand your child a Hershey bar, a bag of chips, and a coke? Probably not. Same goes with activities. Even when I was unschooling, and right now, I am basically unschooling my 6 yr old, junk activities were and still are kept a limit. They are free to run and play, do their science experiments, watch educational TV, play educational computer games, read books, etc, but they are not free to just watch Simpsons or video games or anything else during this time. They also still have to do their family contributions. Today, both kids have had to pick up in the living room and kitchen and sweep and vacumm. Tonight, after 6, they will both get 2 hrs of screen time of anything of their chosing, which one picks computer games and the other movies.

I have no clue what you do in your home, but if your child is allowed to play video games (not saying she is) or watch junk on TV all day long, then she will never ever chose to do anything math related.

With my older children, I do require math, English, and spelling, and handwriting. That is it though really. They all place way way above grade level before high school. I teach them the tools they need to pursue knowledge in areas of interest.

I hope that helps!

[Dar]

Originally Posted by Lisa1970

I have no clue what you do in your home, but if your child is allowed to play video games (not saying she is) or watch junk on TV all day long, then she will never ever chose to do anything math related.

I'm wondering what your basis is for that statement.

My experience contradicts it, just by the way. My kids has been "allowed" to play video games or watch whatever she wants on tv for her whole life, and she's been spending an awful lot of time lately doing math, as she prepares for the SAT.

I don't refer to activities or foods as junk, FWIW. Different activities are valuable at different times and in different ways. For example, I just ate a king-sized Reese's Peanut Butter cup pack and it was just exactly what I needed to get my through my shift at work. I know exactly what's in it, and I made my choice freely.

I am on the more radical end of unschooling, but it works well for us.

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by Lisa1970

... if your child is allowed to play video games (not saying she is) or watch junk on TV all day long, then she will never ever chose to do anything math related.

Uh, no, not true. My kids are allowed to play computer games or whatever all day long. They are offered other opportunities but are certainly free to decline. And they have all chosen to do math-related things. In fact, my 14-year-old ds recently stayed up all night working on a "mod" on a computer gaming platform, building himself a virtual calculator to simplify working out square roots. He has worked out complicated mathematical algorithms to approximate friction in dealing with virtual fluid dynamics, and has used sandbox mode in various other games to create virtual biomes to illustrate his understanding of ecology.

I could offer multiple similar stories about my other kids. What you say will never happen seems to be quite then norm in my unschooled kids.

Miranda

[rhiandmoi]

Well some children will want to choose non-video game activities, and if they are highly intelligent and self motivated, they will probably also ask their parents to help monitor their screen time.

Others, will mean not to spend so much time in front of the screen, but will be sucked in. Like many of us get sucked in here.

[pinky]

Originally Posted by rhiandmoi

Well some children will want to choose non-video game activities, and if they are highly intelligent and self motivated, they will probably also ask their parents to help monitor their screen time.

Others, will mean not to spend so much time in front of the screen, but will be sucked in. Like many of us get sucked in here.

I find this happens with my 9-year-old, who finds it hard to tear herself away from tv or the computer once she sits down. She will then notice at the end of the day that she didn't get x or y done that she'd planned to do. I would say that she's still at the beginning of working this out, but she does come to me to help her figure out how to use her time and get done the things that she wants to do. And this comes entirely from her, not from me.

Sorry, realizing we are straying a bit from the OPs original question....

[Piglet68]

Originally Posted by canuckgal

...I have a 10 yr old whom I have written about before who seems to have no interest in math, who clams up, who hates anything that looks like workbook math...

It's so hard to tell from such a discussion, but it almost sounds like it's not just a lack of interest but an active disinterest, if that makes sense. I'd wonder about that. There are just so many ways to bring math into the home that aren't "workbooky", I find it hard to believe there won't be something that appeals to her. This is assuming she doesn't have some underlying issue that is causing her to avoid/reject anything math-related. Here is an article from one of my local homeschooling sites, and if you look under September's articles you will see several more great math resources and ideas.

Originally Posted by 4evermom

I don't overthink or second guess myself about whether what I do is properly unschooling. It's more like what I do and how I do it seems to fit the definition of unschooling better than anything else, rather than unschooling is something we picked out and whose guidelines we are trying to follow. So I can't really relate to people who feel like they were mislead by the unschooling philosophy.

Originally Posted by Lisa1970

Honestly, I think unschooling is great, but not unparenting. To me, if your child says I am not interested in anything math related, I want to play video games and you give her the Wii or Playstation or whatever, you are unparenting.If she says I am not interested in learning math and you say fine, would you like to cook with me? Or, stuff like that, you are ok. All children should still have responsibilities. They should still clean up after themselves and should still have community chores. They should not be allowed to engage in "junk activities" any more than they should have "junk food."

That's pretty judgemental, don't you think? I find your tone really offputting. Instead of assuming that kids who are allowed unregulated video game play are being "unparented" why not ask people who do that what their reasons are behind it, and how they have found it to work in their family? Why not ask a parent who doesn't make their kid do chores how they came to that decision, rather than assume they are lazy and don't care about their kids?

I have no clue what you do in your home, but if your child is allowed to play video games (not saying she is) or watch junk on TV all day long, then she will never ever chose to do anything math related.

Again, a pretty arrogant and judgmental statement. Others have already pointed out this is not true in their experience and I can add my voice to that as well. We don't regulate screen time either, and both my kids are quite competent at math. In fact, video games have been a great source of motivation to learn certain math skills.

[canuckgal]

Originally Posted by Piglet68

It's so hard to tell from such a discussion, but it almost sounds like it's not just a lack of interest but an active disinterest, if that makes sense. I'd wonder about that. There are just so many ways to bring math into the home that aren't "workbooky", I find it hard to believe there won't be something that appeals to her. This is assuming she doesn't have some underlying issue that is causing her to avoid/reject anything math-related. Here is an article from one of my local homeschooling sites, and if you look under September's articles you will see several more great math resources and ideas.

Thanks Piglet, I actually have those pages bookmarked, and have just come across them this week. Many good ideas.

It's the "workbooky" math that does not appeal to her I think, and anything that she has come across (such as computer math sites that are drill like) that seems workbook-y she seems to panic about, as (as I mentioned before because of lack of exposure on my part) she has not the number sense to do those things well. She also has felt "quizzed" by me I think in the past and not liked it. Plus her perfectionistic tendency to expect to do things right the first time does not help, LOL

We are working on it though. I have really had to just RELEASE my hangups about if math can truly be unschooled and the guilt I feel that if I get something "mathy" I am doing forced teaching or something and the guilt I have for not doing much in this area. Since thinking about all this lately I have NOTICED her thinking about so many math concepts and I need to respond to that. She likes logic puzzles, would love the MathStart readers, so I have some of those on order now. Hey, she's 10, and if that is "grade one" math, so be it. She found an abacus today at the store and we picked it up, actually it is like the one that RightStart Math uses with opposing colors and grouping by 5's and 10's, so while I don't want to buy the whole curriculum, RightStart does have a tutorial book on using that type of Abacus so I have that on order too.

I love this thread though. It has given me so much to think about and that is great.

[Piglet68]

Glad to hear it, canuckgal.

I too am finding it really interesting to read this thread. It's not a bad thing to be challenged by people to think further about what we do.

[sapphire_chan]

Originally Posted by iamme

Hmm. Interesting way of viewing the attack on facts. I'd not thought about it either, as I've just taken at face value(no pun intended) all the many "how to hs" books that say addition,then subraction (or combo) then multiplication/division (or combo).

More to think about...or be confused about.

Ah, but we were talking about the order for memorizing facts, not the order for learning concepts. Slightly different ideas.

Really, I suspect the poster who mentioned memorizing the times table simply wasn't considering addition.

(Speaking of memorizing math facts and building speed, if anyone has a kid who is working on that right now, check out the thread over in Learning at Home--some links to some nifty online games.)