Source: NPR.org
A spike in blood pressure. A racing heart rate. Sweaty palms.
For many adults, this is what they feel when faced with difficult math.
But for kids, math anxiety isn’t just a feeling, it can affect their ability to do well in school. This fear tends to creep up on students when performance matters the most, like during exams or while speaking in class.
One reason for a kid’s math anxiety? How their parents feel about the subject.
“A parent might say, ‘oh I’m not a math person, it’s okay if you’re not good at math either,’ ” Sian Beilock, cognitive scientist and President of Barnard College, says. “It can send a signal to kids about whether they can succeed.”
But new research from Beilock and her team shows that parents don’t have to overcome their fear of math to help their child succeed, as long they changed their attitudes about the subject.
The researchers gave families in the Chicago area math-related bedtime stories to read at night, through an iPad app called Bedtime Math. The stories featured fun facts…
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