Helping your own child at home

[Nuffaluff]

I wonder what your experience of this is.
My DS, aged 8, really needs to work on his maths. He is working ‘at greater depth’ in Reading, writing and science, but only at ‘lower within expected’ for maths. I’m not surprised - he doesn’t see relationships between numbers easily, eg the concept of inverse calculations, and his understanding of fractions isn’t great. Also, he’s a summer born, so that makes it more difficult for him in terms of his development. However, he’s good with written methods, place value, times tables and his reasoning with word problems, when he is confident with the maths involved, is good.
He has a keen interest in nature and is like a miniature Chris Packham - his knowledge is astounding. So, at the moment he wants to study zoology. We’ve looked it up - he needs maths A level for that.
I’ve borrowed a textbook and lots of practical resources for the summer , such as cuisenaire, fraction circles, etc. I’m a really good teacher of maths (and same year group at the moment)
But!
He does not want to learn with me! We do half an hour at 9am, then fun stuff for the rest of the day. We have a reward chart for it. He messes about, squirms in his chair, complains, makes silly jokes. Anything to avoid doing maths. Sometimes he’s ok, but as soon as he can’t get an answer correct straight away, he gets cross and switches off. He doesn’t want me to explain to him.
Any tips? We really can’t afford a tutor and it really galls me to think of having to employ someone to do something that I could do myself.

I use doodle maths app (just the free bit) and that is really really good for reinforcing the curriculum- I use it with the sound off though as it is quite annoying.

Khan Academy online? You make an account as a parent, make your child an account through that. There are videos that work through the steps and problems, he can go at his own pace with few hassles, and you can monitor his progress by accessing the app data on your own time rather than hovering over him.

He probably wants his teachers to be teachers and his parents to be parents and keep the line clear. I was a bit like that.

I think this is the same rule as why you should never teach your own to drive! DH is a maths teacher so of course we didn't want to pay a tutor but - oh good Lord! - the arguing, fighting and tantrums and that was DH

If you want my hippie instinct, 8 is too young for tutoring....maths A Level is a long way off ! And you run the risk of putting him off learning and science specifically if you keep pushing the 'you need to get better at maths' angle.

I realise tutoring is so much more common these days but neither of mine have or have had it (apart fro the glorious insights of me and DH) aside froma brief bout in year 8 for DS1 to support a very specific difficulty. With tutoring, he may have done half a grade to a grade better at GCSE in core subjects I suppose but I certainly think you have got a few years ahead before this needs to be a concern.

I might, however, buy a few study guides as mine did actaully like them at that age. Am not a fan of screen based learning for maths but some online maths games are fun and support numeracy.

I'm having to do a lot with DD2 at the moment (there's no way I could with DD1 - we're such similar personalities a small explosion would occur in seconds) because she's got reinforcement stuff to do from speech therapy, from occupational therapy, stuff I generally need to do to keep her on track academically anyway like reinforcing phonics from the year and some letter formation work as the habits she's getting into are, to use the technical term, shit.

Would not be able to do it if she wasn't keen to do it and very very compliant but it's literally 10 minutes a couple of times a day level work. Couldn't do the same with DD1 - we'd kill each other in seconds if I tried!

I used to do it with dd or ds plus a friend - went down much better. Did the same for 11 plus too (I used to tutor back then). There was a bit of competition and the reward of going off to play/going out later. Much better for my sanity!

Sounds like he's actually do quite well. DD was a little behind with her maths at this point but considering her recent STAS results has more then cought up with No additional tutoring from us. She was the same and even a bit reluctant to help with homework yet having both parents with physics degrees we where both capable of helping.

So I wouldn't stress to much about it at 8 and encourage all the fun stuff he does love. Then hopefully the maths will come to with time.