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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Accidental tiger parenting

28 replies

quip · 30/05/2013 21:52

Ds asked a reasonable question about decimals yesterday afternoon. So I explained how they worked in terms of tenths, hundredths, and thousandths etc and wanted to check his understanding so I asked him to convert some fractions to decimals.

He was ok with 0.1, 0.3, 0.9 etc but wrote 0.5 as 5/10 and 0.6 as 6/10. He didn't seem to have any grasp of simplifying fractions. So I explained, and wrote out a page of fractions for him to simplify and he understood it. So today I got him to change pairs of fractions to a common denominator, which he struggled with a bit. He got there in the end. I was a bit surprised school hadn't done that.

Then I got him adding fractions with different denominators. He found that hard too, which surprised me as maths is supposed to be one of his strong points and his teacher said he'd have no trouble with SATs.

When he went to bed he told me that he was glad I wasn't his teacher all the time as I made him work much harder than school. I was tutting to DH about school failing to teach him fractions when I decided to Google to see which year it's supposed to be taught.

Arggh. Adding fractions with different denominators is L6. I have put poor ds through fractions bootcamp over the last two days all for nothing. Poor lad is only in y2. . I did go into his room as he was still awake and apologise for being such a loon. Fortunately he found it quite funny and said he liked knowing hard stuff. ..

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noramum · 30/05/2013 21:58

DH can do this when it comes to simple science. Poor DD having an engineer as a daddy.

HumphreyCobbler · 30/05/2013 22:03

I am impressed he could do this in year two

youarewinning · 30/05/2013 22:04

I thought at SATS - he'd be year 6.

I think if your 6/7yo knows 0.1 is 1/10 etc - he'll be fine.

My DS (8yo, yr 4) is only doing 2 decimal places, adding simple fractions, improper and mixed fractions now! He's lightly above average in maths!

BabiesAreLikeBuses · 30/05/2013 23:33

Everything you've described is y5 and 6 syllabus!!! At y2 he should still be grasping that if you cut a pizza into halves or quarters this is how we write it! Now he's well ahead...

Lonecatwithkitten · 31/05/2013 07:49

I am the mother who spoke about Mitochondria and kerbs cycle when Y4 DD asked a simple question about respiration. To which she looked me up and down and said "oh Mummy we don't need to know about that stuff yet".

seeker · 31/05/2013 07:53

One of our family rules is "It's good to know stuff".......

Iamnotminterested · 31/05/2013 10:40

OP,I don't understand the purpose of your post.

VenusUprising · 31/05/2013 10:48

Iamnot, she has been a loon, a crazed tigermom!
Her kid probably won't suffer damage by knowing a few things before he learns them officially in school.

Her point is that she's embarrassed by drilling her son on fractions when they're not on the curriculum for his year!

ReadytoOrderSir · 31/05/2013 12:47

If he 'got' it, then that's fine! :-)

Equivalent fractions and tenths as decimals is year 4. I set adding different denominators as the extension task for my higher abilities. My lower abilities are still struggling with the idea that a shape with 3/4 shaded is not showing thirds.

Iluvportobay · 31/05/2013 13:05

There seems to be a huge variation in when this is taught. I am no accidental tiger mum but I have been going through work with DS that the school provided this morning for Y3. He has been finding equivalent fractions, simplifying fractions and adding fractions by finding lowest common denominator. He is beginning to have some idea of decimals but would not be able to relate a fraction to a decimal. In Yr2 DS had no idea of decimals, on a good day may have been able to write a quarter and half and shade shapes.

teacherwith2kids · 31/05/2013 14:32

Don't worry, I am the loon who taught my reception-age son about what happens when you add, subtract and multiply negative numbers together (in my defence, he had already worked out what a negative number was and how to add and subtract positive numbers from them ... and only needed a small nudge to understand adding and subtracting a negative number. The mutliplying, though - that WAS loony)

DeWe · 31/05/2013 16:37

I do that.
To be completely fair, my df would do this (ask him a simple question and you ended up doing physics half the night) and I loved it.

Having discussed positive and negative multiplication with my three (12, 9 and 5) we continued to imaginary numbers . Ds (5yo) came home saying his teacher didn't think imaginary numbers existed, could I explain them to her because she didn't understand his explanation.

I didn't think adding fractions with different denominator is that far on. Dd2 definitely did it some point this year or last year-she's year 4. She was teaching ds fractions a few days ago.

Wallace · 31/05/2013 19:28

stealthsquiggle · 31/05/2013 19:33

LOL at DC trying to explain imaginary numbers to his teacher

Original poster

quip · 31/05/2013 20:05

Good to find I'm not alone in this. :) one day the kids might even be grateful...

OP posts:

stealthsquiggle · 31/05/2013 22:24

When we first met DS's maths teacher, she opened with "so which one of you is the mathematician?" neither of us, we said. 2 minutes later we were talking about how DS wasn't keen on geometry, and I caught myself saying "well we were talking about Pi, and he was interested in using Pi to work out the mass of the moon at dinner the other day"

HarumScarum · 31/05/2013 23:21

I do this too. But I don't think it counts as tigering if the child is genuinely interested. DD is in Y1 and we have talked about decimals and percentages quite a lot. I am not as bad as my maths teacher mother who randomly taught my brother calculus when he was about 9 just to see if he could understand it, which he did. He did go on to study Maths at Oxford, though, so it obviously didn't put him off.

pointythings · 01/06/2013 19:41

I taught both my DDs about simplifying fractions when they were in Yr2, they wanted to know and liked the idea of 'tidying them up'. And I am so not a tiger parent, more a slummy mummy.

Saracen · 01/06/2013 21:44

It seems to me that being a tiger mum is about forcing a child to do something he isn't interested in. It has nothing to do with whether you are teaching something which is usually taught later on in school. That isn't relevant to your own individual child. All that matters is whether he wants to do it.

I would be a tiger mum if I tried to get my Y2 dd to learn what six minus four is. She doesn't yet understand the concept of subtraction and has no interest in learning about it: she is just getting to grips with the idea of what addition means. The fact that most children her age could be expected to know subtraction facts has no bearing on what is right for her. By contrast, her sister was curious about algebra when she was three years younger, so I told her something about it, and I was certainly not being a pushy mum in doing so!

crazeelaydee · 01/06/2013 22:31

quip Respect to your Ds for understanding it (I'm knocking on a bit and still don't have a clue!), and respect to you for helping him to understand (god help my Ds in a few years time!)

I think it's great to have inquisitive children! I also think it's great when you can answer the questions by an inquisitive child . So many times in the past I have had to quickly disappear and "Google it" to find the answers. Sadly I am a fountain of knowledge when it comes to things which nobody really needs/wants to know about, so no chance of me being a tiger mum

stealthsquiggle · 01/06/2013 22:48

We had 10yo DS on tears tonight because one rubbish teacher gives him the brush off when he asks challenging questions (can you do factorials of non integers). .

BabiesAreLikeBuses · 01/06/2013 23:03

Sounds like he went beyond teacher's comfort zone!! I agree if the child is interested it's not tigering, we have discussed possible reasons for business closures and alternatives to custodial sentences in the last couple of weeks, all ds's questions and interests - but I'm not going to leave him unanswered while he's so enthusiastic (and while I actually can answer all his questions have a feeling I'll be outstripped soon enough!)

Original poster

quip · 02/06/2013 09:13

stealth I do feel a teeny bit sorry for your ds' teacher with that question. No doubt he/she had no clue where to start with an answer. :) Your ds will go far.

OP posts:

stealthsquiggle · 02/06/2013 09:50

Agreed, Quip. However, what this teacher fails to realise is that DS would have been OK with "I don't know" - it's the brush-off which wound him up.

It's all DH's fault for teaching him about factorials (in the pub) in the first place .

RueDeWakening · 02/06/2013 15:22

:o DH does this with DD (year 1). She's been doing fractions (with different denominators, and improper ones too), inequalities, series, negative numbers, 2 and 3 part word problems, mixed units of measurement etc all this half term. He's also got her started on algebra - she calls it letter sums!

She really enjoys it .

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