Math Anxiety – Is Fear of Failure Affecting Your Child’s Math Work? The First Article of Three
Conditioning through experience is a very real condition. If your child has begun his school experience with an initial poor grade or response to math tests, his perception by his teachers will be negative and his belief about his own capability will be severely restricted.
All of our mental experiences are controlled through our brain’s neurotransmitters and the balance of chemicals in our brain. A shocking experience like a failing grade sends a message to your child’s brain that could imprint itself as an automatic fear response.
After all, how do we learn about fear. Is a baby initially afraid of a rat? That learning comes about through experience. That same kind of learned response occurs with a failing grade in math. The situation is made even worse by the teacher’s handling of a failing grade.
In some classrooms, the teacher thinks that telling the entire class what grade each student gets will motivate those students who get lower grades to work harder. Sometimes, there might be other factors besides working harder to improve your child’s grade. Learning disabilities are real and the amount of work your child puts into his studies will have little influence in his success in math.
The reality of the matter is that if your child has had an initial failing grade in math, your first reaction to the problem can influence if his failure is worked off by future success or if the failure imprints as anxiety or a nagging fear of failure. Sometimes, just the fear of failure can make a child under perform. Each child is different and you should not over react to an initial failing grade unless your child shows signs of psychological stress or his personality shows change in behavior.
