5 things to do when your child says “I can’t do it”
Have you experienced that moment when your child gives up? The tantrum when they say ‘I can’t do it’. I’ve experienced it as a teacher when they just decide that it is too hard for them. As a result I developed strategies which would encourage my students to keep trying and learn it is okay to get things wrong.
These five tips will help you move your child from “I can’t do it” to “I WILL do it”
1. Use Educated Guesses:
Give them a mix of questions, with the rule that they can’t leave any blank. They get 5 points for a correct answer, 2 points for a wrong answer and -5 points for no answer! Tell them to use an ‘educated guess’ and highlight the ones that are guessed.
The reason that they don’t want to use information they already know to make a guess is often that they are frightened of getting things wrong. Therefore you need to get your child used to guessing. They will then see that some of those guesses are correct and they know more than they think they know!
2. Rub it out:
Get them to work with a pencil and a rubber (eraser) or a mini whiteboard and rub workings out.
This encourages them to make mistakes or use trial and error, without messing up their page (another reason why they might not write something down).
3. Fail first:
Use a game or a puzzle where they get it wrong over and over again, and they learn something each time. For example, a guessing game such as ‘higher and lower’. Emphasise that each time they got it wrong they were one step closer to getting it right.
4. Get themselves Unstuck:
Give them a reward if they can get themselves ‘unstuck’ by themselves. They might decide to look it up on the internet or in a book. Encourage them to keep trying different things until they get it right. I have used the phrase ‘if I gave you a million pounds what would you do to get yourself unstuck’.
5. Demonstrate it yourself:
There will be times at home when you will learn from your mistakes. Use these as a chance to link this to learning. When you’ve burned the dinner explain how you will learn from this, and what you will do differently next time. Then next time tell them how pleased you are you’ve learnt and improved. Find every opportunity to link this back to their learning.
We provide education support for parents for FREE through our facebook group Education Support 4 Parents. There we are joined by Sarah and Lou for English and languages support.
Liz Taylor, founder of Skills4Parents was a Maths teacher for 16 years, which included 11 years as Head of Maths. She also has an MA in education. Since leaving teaching in 2018 she has tutored girls with a low confidence in maths, which is an area that she absolutely loves, alongside being a charity manager.
Her caring and compassionate nature makes her the perfect person to empower you to support your child with their maths education.