to never ever do maths homework with dd ever again?

[DisasterArea]

every single bloody time i attempt tohelp her we end up shouting at each other. she whines, moans, pretends she doesn't know what to do. i try and show her how to work stuff out. she shouts that it is the wrong way. show her a different way. it still isn't good enough.she moans and whinges some more. i get cross and tell her to bloody get on with it. she cries because i've got cross.i stomp out.
EVERY BLOODY TIME.
am not doing it any more.

Mabanana - my dh has the same attitude as you re 'new' methods.

I must admit that I can certainly see where you're coming from, but I have to say that its causing my poor dd a lot of confusion to be taught one thing at home and one thing at school - it really isn't helping her

She sounds a bit like mine at 10. It often ended up in a shouting situ. Fortunately they didn't get much homework until the Sats were looming, then we went through the book just a couple of weeks before.

I totally disagree. It is all about fads and fashions. WTF is the point of calculation you cannot do without writing the numbers 1-100 in a box or line? It's idiotic. It was fantastic to see my son's excitement to realise there was a simple, easy method to add any numbers together and get the right answer. He then started doing dozens of calculations just for fun - eg adding together the ages of people in our family to see how many cumulative years they had been on earth.
Also, number lines etc simply do NOT work for children with dyspraxia. THey are completely useless and invariably lead to the wrong answer as they require a huge amount of hand/eye coordination and fine motor movements - which are not connected with intelligence.
I don't really care what fashion the school is following. What matters to me is that my kids can read (I taught them) and do maths etc. I do think that schools let down so many kids, and I know my children. One size fits all methods cannot work for everyone.

It's her homework, leave her to get on with it.
I've just read your last post, OP, and your DD's teacher seems good about it. Tiny Clanger's teacher is OBSESSED with homework.
I'd like to be the counter-cultural revolutionary who gets homework banned. It doesn't aid learning, it just winds children up, takes up time with pointless busy-work and makes otherwise bright and co-operative students rebellious. I never did homework until I was an undergraduate, and then that was different.

to me just getting them to enjoy numbers is a good thing.who cares how they get there.

Yes, luckily my ds's teacher is sensible about homework. Sometimes we do it, and sometimes we don't. He has learned his 2, 10 and 5 times tables this half term though.

you say you have no time for courses - but how much time do you waste arguing about homework? an hour of your day once a week might help you understand what is expected of her and you might not get the point you're at now where you don't want to help her at all

I hate doing maths homework with my dd1 as well. Although the last few times she's brought it home she's managed it on her own with only a few little mistakes, so it must all be sinking in.
But it always came down to the same thing, she'd get stuck I'd explain how to do it, she'd complain that she has learnt it differently, tears all round and strops.

I've got it all to look forward to again next year when dd2 starts primary 1, oh joy.

We don't really do homework in this house, as I have confessed before . I told the school it led to too many fights and they let us off. I don't understand the way they do maths, anyway, despite my DS's teacher trying to explain it at length. They seem to do half of it in their heads and seem unable to check their working out, which makes no sense at all to me. So I have given up.

Maybe it's a confidence thing? Your post reminded me of my sister when we were young, I used to have to help her with her maths and it was a very similar situation, she would get frustrated and scream and shout. I could never understand it because I knew actually she was very intelligent... in the end I figured out she had convinced herself she "couldn't do" maths, so she would get so stressed about it she wouldn't be able to read or even see the questions properly, and would overlook the clues or bits that she DID know how to do really. I think she just got so worked up that when she looked at the page, it turned into a jumble of numbers that she then obviously couldn't understand! So the trick was to try and get her calm enough to look PROPERLY at it, and maybe just isolate one small part of the problem or whatever and get her to look at it calmly. Then, quite often she would go "oh, actually I CAN do that bit" in a very surprised voice.. and then would go on to do the rest of the question herself. I think she had just convinced herself she was "useless" at maths and because she was quite stubborn, was sort of making it true IYSWIM! Do you think your DD might be the same?

After posting last night about how dd1 has been managing her maths homework lately, she came home tonight with a dividing worksheet which ended in a huge strop/tantrum and floods of tears.

The thing is she got herself all worked up over nothing, I kept trying to show her by example of really simple division sums how to work them out but no that just caused more confusion and stress.

I hate homework I really do, I think it should be banned.

I'm totally convinced that the maths teachers are trying to wind up us parents

My advice if you are struggling with your primary school child's maths homework, especially the daft way of teaching calculations, is to pay for good private tution.
It is really necessary in my view to ensure your child starts secondary school, able to do basic maths calculations. The "new"
method unfortunately taught in schools since 2000 doesn't teach children how to do calculations quickly and correctly and with larger numbers.

My advice if you are struggling with your primary school child's maths homework, especially the daft way of teaching calculations, is to pay for good private tution.
It is really necessary in my view to ensure your child starts secondary school, able to do basic maths calculations. The "new"
method unfortunately taught in schools since 2000 doesn't teach children how to do calculations quickly and correctly and with larger numbers.

How often does she need your help with her homework?

If it's a regular thing, then maybe she needs extra tuition or you should have a chat with her teacher.

She should be able to do her homework herself most of the time.

I have awful truly horrendous memories of maths homework with my dad. As a family all these years later (I'm 45), for appearances sake, we've catergorised it under 'things we now find funny'.

But it wasn't. He used to yell and rant at me. I felt stupid beyond belief. He's pretty good at maths, and I really believe it gave me a mental block on the whole subject. He was taught a different way to me and couldn't understand mine.

So far my own dd seems to manage maths ok. Yet to see how the other dc pan out.

Dh helps with maths homework. He is quite good. But even in him I can hear a level of exasperation creeping in sometimes. I think people who have an aptitude for maths really don't understand why some people struggle with it. It seems to irritate the hell out of them for some reason.

This book looks useful. I'm thinking of getting it. The thought of repeating all that angst again makes me feel ill.

Just noticed this is quite an old thread.

This thread is a year and a half old.

"I totally disagree. It is all about fads and fashions. WTF is the point of calculation you cannot do without writing the numbers 1-100 in a box or line? It's idiotic. It was fantastic to see my son's excitement to realise there was a simple, easy method to add any numbers together and get the right answer. He then started doing dozens of calculations just for fun - eg adding together the ages of people in our family to see how many cumulative years they had been on earth.
Also, number lines etc simply do NOT work for children with dyspraxia. THey are completely useless and invariably lead to the wrong answer as they require a huge amount of hand/eye coordination and fine motor movements - which are not connected with intelligence.
I don't really care what fashion the school is following. What matters to me is that my kids can read (I taught them) and do maths etc. I do think that schools let down so many kids, and I know my children. One size fits all methods cannot work for everyone."

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Totally agree with this.

LOL - I wonder if the OP is still around - anyone know??

We were ordered invited to the school for a couple of 'Parents Maths' evenings - it had us all (both at the invite & the content of the 'course') the way they teach maths these days is, to me, confusing and I cannot see why it is being taught this way - not. at. all.

However, having moved countries as a child and having to learn a new method of doing maths (great at 9 years old!!) I know the only way to help a child is to learn the way they are being stupidly taught at school and do it that way. I have also taught them the old fashioned way of doing it (once they fulllllly understood the 'new' way) and even the kids see the benefit in the 'old' way - but accept they have to show their workings in the 'new' way.... tiresome, pointless - but unavoidable if you are sending them to a school that teaches the 'new' method.

One wonders how long it will be before they go back to the 'old' way....

agree with threetimemummy, very good point by the OP
"I totally disagree. It is all about fads and fashions. WTF is the point of calculation you cannot do without writing the numbers 1-100 in a box or line? It's idiotic. It was fantastic to see my son's excitement to realise there was a simple, easy method to add any numbers together and get the right answer. He then started doing dozens of calculations just for fun - eg adding together the ages of people in our family to see how many cumulative years they had been on earth.
Also, number lines etc simply do NOT work for children with dyspraxia. THey are completely useless and invariably lead to the wrong answer as they require a huge amount of hand/eye coordination and fine motor movements - which are not connected with intelligence.
I don't really care what fashion the school is following. What matters to me is that my kids can read (I taught them) and do maths etc. I do think that schools let down so many kids, and I know my children. One size fits all methods cannot work for everyone."

Throughout primary DD had maths homework and mostly managed but occasionally heeded help. Although she did "get it" really she had low confidence in the subject. This went even lower in Y5 when the teacher was c**p at Maths.

But in Y6 they had this wonderful bloke, approaching retirement, who seemed able to get it across brilliantly. In all of Y6 he never set any Maths homework (though they had it in other subjects) because he said he didn't need to they leart it well enough in class. Sure enough they nearly all got level 5 in SATS and DDs confidence in her maths has been pretty solid ever since

I think his methods were quite traditional but they seemed to work.