I spend a lot of time researching ways to combat math anxiety, and the list ranges from helping students harness the strengths of their own learning styles, to encouraging active learning through games and hands-on activities, to modeling coping skills for anxious episodes. Reading a random article tonight, I realized that research informs a lot more than how to teach math. There are research-based strategies that parents can use at home to help their students, and that makes a more useful blog post, I think. This is not in order of importance; it is late at night and I am on a stream of consciousness soapbox.

1. Well, I know this comes from Captain Obvious, but… don’t tell your children that you are bad at math (no, not even if the next words out of your mouth is to say how good they are at it). This is modeling math anxious behavior, people. Cut it out.
2. Use math in front of your children. On a daily basis, and in a positive context. Not when you’re stressed out paying the bills – “This is math, kids!! Aren’t I having FUN????” – but in more benign (dare I say pleasant?) ways. Build a birdhouse (or whatever, I don’t care). Plan a home repair. Do a number puzzle. Start a pot for a dream vacation. Show them (and perhaps yourselves) that math does not need to be painful.
3. Take an interest in your child’s math learning. Ask the teacher for a syllabus and give yourself a little math refresher course ahead of time so that you can help with homework if needed (um, and come and see me if you need some strategies to combat math anxiety in yourself – 93% of the US is math anxious, after all; Jackson and Leffingwell, 1999). Be interested.
4. Praise carefully. The research on this is soooo clear (Dweck, Dweck, and more Dweck). Don’t tell your child s/he is smart and yay. This type of praise discourages intellectual risk and is associated with increased anxiety. Praise effort. Your child works hard, on a daily basis. Recognize hard work and praise the heck out of it. When hard work results in success? PRAISE THAT WORK.
5. Believe in your kid, and let them know it. They may be struggling with long multiplication right now, and you might be very worried about the degree to which they are struggling, but think about it. You know, in your heart of hearts, that they will not be struggling with multiplication forever. They will learn it. If they know that you are 100% sure that they will get it, and their teacher is 100% sure that they will get it, well then, it’s just a matter of hard work, isn’t it? See #4. Kids need us to have faith in their abilities. Leave your fears at the door. (Furner and Berman, 2004)