Are Your Limiting Beliefs Sabotaging Your Maths?
I am really good at Maths. That isn’t a brag. It’s just true. I did my degree in Maths, and I love Maths, spreadsheets, calculations, formulae… it’s so incredible. However, it did not happen overnight – nor was I top of my class. I have overcome some limiting beliefs around this, and so imagine how heartbroken I felt for her, when I was discussing maths on Anna Knight’s podcast Navigating the Storm, and she told me she was never able to do maths! Anna, Women’s Coach and Speech and Language Therapist, told me that she felt she was always ‘better at words, but bad at maths”.
It turned out she had a number of limiting beliefs, actually.
“I don’t understand percentages”
“Numbers sometimes come out different to the answer and I am not clever enough to work out why”
“My teacher failed me and I’m stuck this way”
Meanwhile, Stephanie Ward, my PA, has had her mind blown a number of times while working on things for me. Stephanie, unbeknownst to me and despite getting an A in her Maths GCSE, found some of the work we had done incredibly challenging because, as she said
Other limiting beliefs I’ve heard from both parents and children are:
“I won’t do maths with my child because I’ll teach them wrong.”
“I worry that I’ll get the wrong answer and make myself look stupid.”
Having dug a little deeper with both ladies, it became apparent that their limiting beliefs were exactly that: Beliefs that were holding them back from their potential. Steph revealed that, when we were discussing some concepts in the run up to my Save Your Maths with a Calculator Workshop, it all came flooding back to her. She had everything she needed – it was just packed away in a box in her brain.
At my suggestion, Steph and Anna went and explored the National Numeracy Challenge. The National Numeracy Challenge is a 20 question quiz. You can use a calculator, and it covers all the basic mathematical concepts such as percentages, graphs, fractions and operations (add, divide, subtract, multiply).
The one common factor is that the only thing holding them back was their own mind. Upon receiving their scores, Anna told me she couldn’t believe the result.
Why are limiting beliefs dangerous?
Fear resulting from limiting beliefs can create a terrible barrier, especially for parents.
Stephanie has a son in year 5. While he is in specialist provision and studying material that is not necessarily at the same level as other children his age, Stephanie says that her limiting belief made home educating in isolation quite tough.
“When we were expected to teach division for the first time with him at home, I struggled, because I had forgotten the very basic stuff. Or I thought I had. Turns out it was just a matter of creativity. We used a coaster to represent the number we were dividing by, and Cheerios to represent the number of items we were dividing. But I remember procrastinating on this massively because I just didn’t know where to start. Except I did!”
Who would have though – teaching maths with CHEERIOS?!
On top of this, if your relationship with maths is a negative one, it will rub off on your child as they will pick up on the negativity you feel when you talk about maths. It is imperative that parents feel empowered to support their children. That’s why part of my mission at Skill4Parents is focused on skills for parents, not just their children. Parents, guardians, carers, aunts, uncles, grandparents and indeed any adult who has a relationship with a child, has an impact on how a child perceives their world. This includes subjects such as maths!
Take the National Numeracy Challenge for yourself – I bet you are pleasantly surprised.
