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Healing Math and Reading Wounds with Neily Boyd @countingwithkids
1.1k Plays1 year ago
Let's talk about math! Neily Boyd, who reminds us in this episode that she and Albert Einstein are very different, but can both do fraction conversions without a calculator. Neily is a former math director and founder of Counting with Kids and she and Beth talk about... healing math and reading wounds? You'll hear their stories of how they both ended up in these fields- spoiler alert: it wasn't by being good at either of these subjects!
We'll talk about how to help your kids in the early years but also a reminder that if you feel a certain way, it doesn’t have to be this way for our kids and it doesn’t have to be this way for us either.
You'll feel empowered as a parent and maybe meet an inner child to heal too... or maybe just us :)
Podcast notes and resources: Bigcityreaders.com/podcast
Follow Neily: Instagram.com/countingwithkids
Follow Beth: Instagram.com/bigcityreaders
Email us your questions! Hello@bigcityreaders.com
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Transcript
00:00:10
Speaker
Yay!
Welcome and Introduction
00:00:11
Speaker
Okay. Welcome back to the Play On Words podcast. It's me, Ms. Seth, and I'm here with one of my favorite accounts and friend of mine, Neely Boyd, who is the woman behind Counting With Kids.
Practical Math at Home
00:00:25
Speaker
She is a, well, she has been a math director for many elementary and middle schools. She shares really practical advice and games and activities for families to do at home, and she works
00:00:39
Speaker
with lots of schools to train administrators and build understanding around math. And I like this because she likes to bring the focus that math is about understanding, not just memorization, which is something that we overlap with about reading and a common misconception. So Mili, welcome to the pod. Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to talk with you, Beth. Me too. Did you, did I leave anything out that you want to share about you?
00:01:06
Speaker
No, I think now, like with counting with kids, you know, a big shift of, or a part of my work now is also helping parents kind of bridge that gap between what their kids are doing at school and the things they're already doing at home. So a lot of my work is with schools, but now part of it is with parents too and helping parents support math. And you do such a good job of that.
Early Math Foundations
00:01:30
Speaker
I like that you focus a lot on like the
00:01:32
Speaker
Well, not pre math skills because it's still math skills, but like those early things that you can do at home like counting and sorting your money in the piggy bank. Yeah, exactly. Like I think so often we think of math as a skill that starts when you go to school.
00:01:47
Speaker
And there's so much research that shows that actually the years before kids ever step foot in a classroom are the most formative for how their long-term math experience is going to go. And so, you know, that's where a parent's work is so important and so foundational because before kindergarten, you have five or so years to help your child like build their understanding of math in the world and math around them. Yeah. And I think.
00:02:17
Speaker
I think that you do a good job of this, that I feel like parents listening are like, oh great, another thing that I have to do. But like both of us on our accounts are trying to be like, look at how easy it is. Like the thing you're already doing, making dinner, this is how you make a reading lesson. This is how you make it a math lesson.
00:02:34
Speaker
And I think like, so if you're listening, you're like, great, that's not what you're gonna hear here. Yeah, I think that's such an important point for families to hear because you're exactly right. It's like the number of things on our to-do list is already massive. Like I've never met a parent who's like, you know, I just can't really figure out what to do with all of my free time.
00:02:55
Speaker
It's like, maybe somebody out there has said that and I wanna meet them and figure out how they've organized their lives so efficiently. But the majority of us are like, what are the things on my list that I'm just not gonna get to today and how am I gonna be okay
Math in Daily Life
00:03:09
Speaker
with that, right? So it's like, how are we fitting math into days that are already more full than we would prefer them to be? And it's exactly what you've said. Like all of these moments we already are doing and experiencing with our kids,
00:03:23
Speaker
are full of math opportunities and it's not just that like okay we don't have enough time for other math activities so we'll fit it in here it's actually those are the most purposeful ones for kids for kids to see that math is happening in their daily lives is
00:03:42
Speaker
the most important thing that can happen in these early years because when they go into a classroom and they read a word problem about the number of birds sitting on a tree or how many cups of water you need for this soup recipe, there is meaning that they're able to take from those problems that is not just words on a worksheet, but they can connect it to these lived experiences that they've already had with math. Yes, I love that. Talking about
00:04:12
Speaker
talking about math, not doing math is what I know you always, you're always talking about this. It's not like, okay, come sit down right next to me. We're going to do some math problems. Like, no, math is all around us. Just like reading is all around us. All of the things that we want to teach kids are actually in a great moment of the day. So that's the good news.
00:04:32
Speaker
It is and it's even you know it's it's in the books that kids are reading like they want to build your audience obviously is invested in building these early literacy skills and there's so many math skills in the children's picture books that you're opening up and reading with your kids like how many animals are in this picture on this page.
00:04:53
Speaker
which shapes do you see in the drawings of the buildings? Like are there more trees on this page or on this page? Like you can just weave those conversations in to so many things and the message that we're sending our children is math isn't separate from our lives, math is part of our lives. That's so good. And I think all of those questions you just named are so meaningful because why do we like make everything harder for ourselves? Like I feel like
00:05:23
Speaker
I wouldn't even like I'm thinking someone's listening to the saying, wait, I could have them notice the shapes in a picture like a stop sign being an octagon or like circle of the sun or like
00:05:35
Speaker
the rectangle of the tree or like the house has a triangle, like that's
Positive Math Associations
00:05:39
Speaker
math. Oh, oh, I'm doing a great job. Like I'm hoping someone is listening and stuff like that. Yeah, and I think that part of it too is just noticing the math we're already doing with our kids and naming for our children that it's math. Because then they start to build those positive associations too. Like when I'm playing with blocks and I build a 3D structure by figuring out how to make all the blocks fit together in the way that I want them to,
00:06:04
Speaker
That's geometry. And for a kid to know that this block structure I just built is math, then they go into math classes later on and they're like, I'm good at math. I like math. Math is something that I feel confident in.
00:06:19
Speaker
Yes so okay so something as simple as like when they're building something like whoa you just use some math skills that's awesome yes helping them. Absolutely because they're not only building the math skills you're pointing out the math that they're doing and they're building a positive association with math because if you think about how often we hear middle schoolers say oh I don't like math or adults say oh I'm just not a math person right to
00:06:43
Speaker
frame math as an enjoyable and positive experience for our kids from a young age is going to have compounding effects as they grow because they start off right at the beginning believing that math is enjoyable and that they are capable of being successful. And then that's how they feel. So they're willing to persevere through harder problems. And it just they keep seeing the success of
00:07:09
Speaker
I kept trying, I kept working at this. I got it right, because I knew I was good at math. And then it just has a positive spiral over time. That reminds me of two things. One, that being a math problem solver is also going to transfer to being a life problem solver. If they're giving themselves that feedback, it's like, oh, I can solve that problem. Hopefully, over time, that's going to make them in tricky situations, be like, I know how to solve problems. I can figure this out.
00:07:36
Speaker
maybe it's like a conflict, but do you see that? Yes, absolutely. And I think that's why starting these math conversations with kids when they're so young with the toys that they're already interested in playing with, like a kid is going to be more invested in persevering through a challenge with a toy or a game that they're already excited to play with, right? So if you go back to the example of the block tower that they're building or the block structure, it falls down.
00:08:03
Speaker
I want to put it back together. And I'm going to be more invested in persevering and problem solving through that because this is an activity that I decided I wanted to do, that I'm engaged in figuring out. But then as I build that skill, it starts to apply to things in the future. I've built this resilience and perseverance through challenging tasks.
00:08:25
Speaker
And just like you're saying in life. That's a habit that we want our students and our kids to have as they move through school and then also in life. Life.
Real-World Math Applications
00:08:35
Speaker
Yeah. And also that makes me think of I whenever I'm talking about teaching kids how to write
00:08:40
Speaker
Um, people are, you know, we'll be like, Oh, I'm trying to get my three year old to trace these letters. And I always like to remind them, well, first of all, the writing skills don't necessarily need to be in writing, just like you were saying, like math doesn't need to be come sit with a pencil and paper. But we want to show them what's happening in real, in the real world and take their interests. But whenever we do do something like, um,
00:09:03
Speaker
you know, make them trace something before maybe their hands are developmentally ready. What we're doing is we're taking the new neurons that are able to start narrating and naming for kids. Oh, you actually are doing writing skills by building a tower or you're actually really good at math because you just figured out how to make your tower the second time even taller by giving it a bigger base.
00:09:28
Speaker
then we're wiring those neurons of their creativity, their math skills, their associations with reading and writing and being like, oh, I am good, that is. So in those very early years, we connected them with, I can do this. Yes, I think that's exactly, it translates exactly to the experiences we want kids to have with math. And as you were saying that it made me think of too, another association we want kids to have is
00:09:53
Speaker
these positive interactions with their parents, right? Like I was cooking with my parent or my grandmother or my neighbor down the street, like whoever the adult is in their life who they had this positive experience with, who pointed out the math they were doing, you're also forming this association of like, I felt really special and important as I was doing this activity with this adult. And that was math.
00:10:19
Speaker
And so now also every time I think about math in the future, I think of this like connectedness that I felt with this adult who was really important to me. So there's just like, I think there's a very powerful and also like not very often talked about connection between the skills we're teaching kids when they're young and like the associations that they're making in the moments that they're forming those skills.
00:10:46
Speaker
That just made me want to cry because I'm like imagining and I hope that nobody ever, I don't think anyone will listen to this podcast and feel like, Oh man, I did everything wrong. Like the goal is to be like, look, here's how, here's how you're doing it right. But like thinking about like helping kids with their homework is actually becoming core memories for them and like how they think about some sort of concept in geometry. And then they're in high school and like their brain gives them like a boost because they're remembering sitting next to their parent.
00:11:14
Speaker
working on this when they were five or like even I think about that with reading with babies like it's not really about
00:11:21
Speaker
look at the book it's about like building that attachment and connection and then like anytime that they're reading their brain is like reminding them of their secure attachment to their parent or caregiver whoever read
Changing Math Perceptions
00:11:32
Speaker
to them. That's exactly it and I think with math it's exceptionally challenging because so many adults didn't have positive experiences with math as a kid and so
00:11:44
Speaker
like often our instinct is not to make it this like warm fuzzy like positive like let's snuggle up and do some math together you know it's not it's not like that's not how adults think about math we think of it as like these timed tests that we were like
00:12:03
Speaker
For you know that we felt anxiety during or we think about like standardized tests that caused anxiety or we think about like being confused in class and being afraid to ask for help like there's a lot of negative associations that I think adults are bringing into their interactions with kids about math.
00:12:23
Speaker
I think it is very important for parents to realize how much these early moments about math are forming our children's perceptions, and then also to have awareness of what language are we using around math. How often do they hear us working on some calculation when we're
00:12:41
Speaker
doing something with our finances or we're figuring something out with a recipe and we grumble like, oh, I hate math, right? Like those moments too, kids are paying attention and they're listening. And so how are we use like reframing our own experiences to help kids start off with a different experience than what we often had?
00:13:03
Speaker
yeah our narrations become kids in her voice and that is like the most beautiful and terrifying thing. One of my friends said that they're like I hear you say that every day and I cry. Like you're not messing it up though but but it is like
00:13:23
Speaker
Or even if you like ever are frustrated and then you see like, you know, I saw it with my friend the other day. She was like, Oh, like frustrated about something. And then her toddler threw his cup. It wasn't even her toddler that she was upset. They're just copying us. We're forming their brain. So like, just think about the things. And maybe this is an exercise of writing it down. Like as the parent or teacher, like what, what is your dream world of what you want your kids to say?
00:13:47
Speaker
Mom, I had the best day. I love math. I worked so hard. I'm such a problem solver. Mom, I had the best day. I tried reading a new book and it was really tricky for me, but I tried it. Then start saying those things to yourself in front of your kids.
00:14:05
Speaker
The best advice I think we could give to parents about how to narrate things when it's something you personally struggle with, but you don't want your child to take on those same struggles in the way that they interact with that content.
00:14:19
Speaker
Like I always tell parents if you're struggling with math, name it out loud for your child and also name that you're gonna keep trying and that you're gonna persevere through it and that you know you're capable of doing it. Because back to the earlier part of our conversation where we were saying like persevering through challenging things is a life skill we want kids to build. So it's totally fine that as adults, we're not always excited to do math.
00:14:46
Speaker
Yeah, we don't want to take away the problems. We want to show them that they're capable of handling them. Exactly. And so like I think this becomes especially applicable as parents are helping older kids with homework. Like so often I hear from parents like I don't know the math the way that they're teaching it in school now or like I don't understand what my kids homework is asking them to do. I don't know how to help them with this.
00:15:08
Speaker
and to name to our children like, oh, I actually am not sure that I know how to do this either. Let's go figure this out together. Like you're showing kids that even as an adult, it's okay to not have the answer. What are we going to do to figure it out? And again, it's like all of these ways that we can put positive narration on the problem solving, even though it's
00:15:31
Speaker
not always something that we're just like, Hey, yes, more math, like the best thing you can do. Well, two things. One is make mistakes on purpose in front of your kids, like make mistakes on purpose and show them it's not the end of the world. Like they're getting that from somewhere, unfortunately. And also let them know you don't know, like, because the way, you know,
00:15:51
Speaker
I talk a lot about the science of reading and that, that was not the way I was taught even to be a teacher in school. And whenever I'm talking to doing like a one-on-one with kids, I say to them, I'm like, your parents, you're learning tricks that your parents do not know. And they're like, no, that's not true. And they like think that everyone knows something besides them. And I'm like, this is the best thing you can do for your kids to say, Hey, I'm learning this rule right there with you. I'm learning that.
00:16:16
Speaker
C and K like have a pattern of how to know when to use them. I didn't know that and like that is so empowering for a child or even I think I was talking to maybe Deandra about bilingual kids and like
00:16:32
Speaker
If you're in a classroom, letting them know, I don't know how to say that word in another language. That's so cool that you know how to read and write in two different languages, empowering them. I can't do that, but you can. That's really cool. Yes. Yeah, I think the exact same thing for math. To name for our kids, I actually didn't love math when I was a kid, and I'm learning how to love it now. And so we get to do this together.
00:16:56
Speaker
you're going to love it from the start or you're going to feel confident in it from the start. And I'm learning to feel confident in it now, like just showing them that you are going through this process with them and, and empowering them, I think can take something that could otherwise feel like a challenge for a kid and, and it shows them how to marry through it. Yeah, I love that.
00:17:23
Speaker
So were you, you talk about, I know we don't like the phrase, I'm using air quotes, math person, but did you like math growing up? No, I didn't, which is why I feel so passionate about helping parents develop a positive relationship with math later in life. I was an English major in college. There was actually a moment, like, I will never forget this because it has turned out to be so very wrong.
00:17:48
Speaker
It's a moment in college where I finished my last required math class, you know, because like liberal arts, you still have to take some math classes. So I took like the bare minimum and then was like, yes, I'm focused on my English major now. And I said out loud, I never have to take math again.
Healing Math Struggles
00:18:04
Speaker
And I was like, just convinced that math for my life was over. Oh my gosh. I know, I know. And then a strange turn of events, I got hired to teach high school English and there was a shortage of math teachers in our district. And so like a month before the school year started, my principal was like, hey, I bet you could teach math.
00:18:29
Speaker
Go take that. Please, no. And I was like, what? No. Trust me. You don't want me teaching math. But I was. And so in order to help my students with math, I had to relearn all of the math myself. And as I was relearning it to teach it well to them,
00:18:50
Speaker
I was like, wait a minute, this is not how I learned math. Like this makes so much sense to me. This is so cool. Like why didn't I learn it this way when I was in school? And so to have all of these light bulb moments that like, this isn't just memorization, there are patterns here. And the more I understand the patterns, the easier it is for me to make sense of these other things that I haven't fully wrapped my head around yet. Like seeing that was so empowering for me because I realized like there wasn't something wrong with me. I wasn't a not math person.
00:19:20
Speaker
And I think that that like then after having kids, the way that that kind of mindset shift about myself impacted my parenting made me realize like parents need to be hearing these messages of like it's not your fault that math was a challenge.
00:19:40
Speaker
Yes. You just weren't always, like most of us weren't taught math well. Yeah, the same. This is, we talked about the same. Most of us weren't taught reading the right way. Yeah. Yeah. And so like, it's not our fault that we had bad experiences with it or challenging or just like hated it or didn't feel good at it. Whatever the like tough emotion that comes up when we think about math is like, that's just the reality for a lot of us. And it doesn't have to be that way for our kids. And it doesn't that way for us anymore either.
00:20:10
Speaker
I love that you're probably healing so many like inner child wounds. I mean I do feel it's like kind of a funny thing because we just don't really think about math and like things we needed to heal from childhood, but, but I feel that way and then like so often when I talk with parents like I got a message from a parent the other day who said.
00:20:29
Speaker
Like I was doing conversions in a recipe that I only wanted to make half of. And she was like, and for the first time in my adult life, I didn't feel like I needed to check myself in a calculator. And she was like, and I started crying and I just wanted to say thank you for the work you're helping us do with our kids. And I was like, this is it. Like, this is the stuff. Like we don't trust ourselves with math. Like we're afraid that we can't figure it out or that we can't do it. And it's just like all of us.
00:20:58
Speaker
are fully capable of, I mean, like, Albert Einstein and I are not the same person. Like, I'm just like never, you know, like, no matter how much I study, that's probably not going to be right. Like my life trajectory, but like, all of us can do fraction conversions in our heads, calculator, it's just like a skill most of us haven't had time to develop or had the opportunity to develop. Yeah, I that's
00:21:31
Speaker
I also hated reading. I saw a reading specialist in second grade. And I remember going home and asking my parents if I could transfer schools, because I felt so much shame and embarrassment. And I hated going to school. And I hated going to school every single day. I cried. I mean, not every day, but I cried a lot going to school. I was fine when I was there, but I had the hardest transition. I mean, like, I just
00:21:56
Speaker
did not like school because I was not a good reader. Ironically, we have the opposite. I was great at math. Like my mom, my mom loves to remind me that in sixth grade, you know, like the standardized test, I won an award for being one of me and five other boys had the highest standardized test score for math and I got an award. I'm like,
00:22:19
Speaker
But that is the thing is that I'm like, I was not good at reading, I wanted to make this better. Like you were like, I hate maps, I'm going to make this better. So no one else feels the same way that I felt like I think that is like such a driving force. I'm like, no child will feel how I felt ever again. Yeah, I think that's exactly
00:22:36
Speaker
The way that it feels it's like, I don't really know how to help someone love reading because I just kind of always did like I'm not sure I can go back far enough in my memory to figure out what formative experiences I had to make me love reading, but the math transition that one is a lot clearer to me because it happened to me as an adult so I have.
00:22:57
Speaker
clearer understanding of what it took for me to get over a lot of the mental hurdles that I had around math and it sounds like that's kind of a similar experience with reading. Exactly what you were saying like when I was like learning it was after I became a teacher and I was doing I was like learning about the science of reading and I was I was teaching it then I'd gone through the training and I was like it was like bulbs but then when I was teaching it I was like
00:23:24
Speaker
Oh my gosh. I felt like I was like teaching my inner child. Like this is what you actually needed. Yes. And like, this is what kids need. It's not wild. Like I do. I feel like there are all these conversations I'm having with like childhood nearly about like, okay, you know what? It's okay that like I have, I have very clear memories of really struggling in high school geometry. Um, and I have,
00:23:48
Speaker
a lot of clarity now on why I struggled so much with that. And it's like, it is very healing to realize that it wasn't my fault. I looked around the room and I was like, other people are getting this math in a way that I just don't. Something else is happening in their brains that is not happening in mine. And now as an adult, I don't take it personally anymore.
00:24:09
Speaker
That's good. You just reminded me of something that I've never, I haven't uncovered yet, but I'm like, I haven't done high school. I haven't done high school inner child work. Yeah. Well, you know, yeah.
00:24:20
Speaker
I'm like, oh yeah, geometry with Ms. Mondragon, I remember that. Yeah, yeah. And I was thinking as we were just talking about all these things too, I think it's so important for parents to also know that you can do everything right. You can have the right conversations with kids about building resilience and it's okay to make mistakes and you can message mistakes and you can talk about the relearning that you're doing and your kids are still going to have big moments of struggle.
00:24:48
Speaker
like big shutdowns and big challenges and and I think normalizing that like that's just part of being a kid and we help them walk through it as opposed to like thinking that we
00:25:06
Speaker
I did it all perfectly. I said all the right things. Why are you struggling? My daughter is in kindergarten. And the other day, she decided to make herself some addition problems. And she was making herself problems with two-digit numbers, which is a first grade skill. So already,
00:25:27
Speaker
huge win that she decided to take this on for herself and that she was excited to do this and she got like several of them right. But she came and she brought it to me and she asked me to check it for her. And so like, I'm not doing her a favor if I say like, yay, good, they're all right when
00:25:45
Speaker
several of them are wrong. And so like, I pointed out where she had done them correctly. Like, this one looks great. I'm so proud of this. Look at the work you did here. And then here are the ones that we need to go back and try again. And she shut down. Like, I'm terrible at math. I'm so bad at math. I hate math. You know, and it just
00:26:07
Speaker
I think those kind of moments are important for parents to know that that happens to everybody. Like, I'm the one posting all this stuff on the internet about like how to help message the right things to your kid. And we still have plenty of moments in our house where I hate math, I'm bad at math, I don't want to do any math.
00:26:28
Speaker
It takes so much, so many people will be like, I tried it, it didn't work. But I always like to use like the metaphor of, you know, there's six feet of snow, and you walk outside of your house and nothing is plowed. And so you just like walk through it. And then you walk back to your house, you know, you go to the grocery store, you get some milk, and then you walk back to your house. And then so then the next time you open your door,
00:26:49
Speaker
you're going to go through the path that's already been made. So maybe you do that for three years, the snow is like that, and that's the only path you go down. So then some new store comes up and it's like, oh, it's to the right instead of straight this time. But it's so hard to walk through that snow because no one has walked through it before. You haven't walked through it.
00:27:10
Speaker
It's like, it's so painful to like walk through it. It's so much easier to just go to the, I hate math. Like you get there so fast. You get to go through that path so fast, but you have to make that new pathway. And like the more practice you do with your kids, even though it feels silly, the more saying like, it's okay to
Confidence in Math
00:27:26
Speaker
be bad at this. Like you are walking, you might be like pulling them through that path, but you're making that new path.
00:27:34
Speaker
like easy as easy but it's going to take like think about how many times you walk that path of I hate math or I'm bad at this or I can't read it's going to take like twice as much to be like this path is equal
00:27:47
Speaker
And then to go actually this out is better. It's gonna take a lot of reminders. That's so true. And I think when they have those moments, when they shut down, so often I feel like what our kids are looking for from us is, do you still think I'm good at math? I just struggled with this. I feel this way about myself. I'm saying it out loud because I'm checking with you to see if that's true about me.
00:28:16
Speaker
You know, and it's like, we say all of these things all the time about it's okay to make mistakes. And I say it's okay about myself, but now when they're in the thick of it, like, is it actually okay for me to make this mistake? And I think just narrating to them the reality of what they're feeling and saying like, gosh, yeah, it is really frustrating when you work really hard on something and you don't get it all right.
00:28:42
Speaker
And that's how you feel right now. And you know what? You might feel that way for the rest of the day. You don't have to go fix these right now if you don't want to. It's okay to just be frustrated that you worked this hard on this and it didn't go the way you expected it to.
00:28:54
Speaker
And then just like letting them have that moment in their feelings and then continuing as the parent to hold that truth for them of, but you are capable of this. And when you decide to go figure it out, like you will figure it out and it's okay if it's not right now, but you are capable, you know? And I think it's just like being able to,
00:29:22
Speaker
hold space for them to have frustration. Going back to the part about how many of us have felt those challenging feelings with math, I think it's really hard to hold space for our kids' frustration when it triggers our own frustration. And it's like, oh, no, my kid can't feel this way about math. I'm trying to undo this. I'm watching them start down the path that I started on. Nothing's working. So I think it's
00:29:49
Speaker
It's just important, I think, for parents to know what you were saying, too. It's going to take lots and lots of times of the same messaging and working through the frustration. And it doesn't have to just be one example. Yeah. And I think it's such a good reminder. You don't have to solve it right now. Saying it's OK. It is OK that you feel this way.
00:30:15
Speaker
And there's so many of us want to be like, no, no, no, even like babies. Oh no, no, no crying. Like I heard my sister say the other day to her, one of her older kids, like babies cry. It's okay. Like, you know, like, cause they're like, Oh no, they're just crying in the car. Like, Oh no. Oh no. No. It's like, that's okay. Like.
00:30:31
Speaker
you're like, you're allowed to have a fit. Like you're allowed to feel down on yourself. It's not true. But I understand that you feel that way is like, so healing. I feel like so many of us just want to fix it. But like, sometimes you just need to feel it before you can heal it.
00:30:46
Speaker
And I think it makes it exceptionally hard when we know our kids are capable of doing the thing that they're saying they can't do because we want them to see the truth about themselves. And it's like, they're like, I can't do this. I hate this. I don't want to. It's hard to let them sit in something that isn't true about them. Yes. Oh, that's hard.
00:31:13
Speaker
So it'll be a good practice, maybe a challenge for everybody. Yeah, I mean, my favorite line is like, when you decide you're ready to keep working on this, you will be able to figure it out.
00:31:24
Speaker
I love that. And I like to have, I like to have like a couple of kind of like back pocket phrases. Cause like when I'm feeling frustrated. Yeah. It's like, well, when I'm feeling frustrated, it's like, I don't know what to, you know, it's like, I can feel myself getting like, oh, this moment is really challenging. And so I need to have some like go-to phrases. I mean, one of them is always like, I just start by like echoing back how they feel.
00:31:48
Speaker
Because it like buys me time to think through it. So like, yeah, you are feeling really frustrated that you didn't get these problems, right? I can see that that's how you're feeling right now. And so like, I'm engaging in the conversation while still giving my brain some time to think. Yeah. But yeah, I think like just being being prepared with like, this is what I'm gonna say when my kids are frustrated. Yeah, let's like, navigate through the challenges ourselves.
00:32:18
Speaker
I love that. Wow, you have so many good tips. Is there any last thing that you want to tell parents listening to this or teachers about math journey and how to create supportive, the right mindset or the right environment or like how to ask for help? Like what is your biggest like here? Everyone needs to know this.
00:32:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think just the power of the conversations that we have with our kids. And that has been kind of like the theme of what we've talked about today, whether it's about their math mindset or their problem-solving skills or the actual math skills that kind of come up in the day-to-day conversations or the day-to-day activities we're doing. Like the more often we can connect our lives to math, whether it's while you're cooking and you're counting things, playing with the toys,
00:33:08
Speaker
reading stories, like just all of those conversations. Like it might seem like a tiny little moment here. What shape is the stop sign? How many animals are on the picture in this book? Like it seems tiny, but those things really add up in a child's mind and in their experience as we keep doing them day after day after day after day.
00:33:31
Speaker
Yeah. And also those things are reading skills too. What shape is this? How many animals? Like that leads to like the letters that they write to tracking print. So these tiny things that seem meaningless are like all of the life skills and academic skills that your kids need. And it's so many language skills, you know, like even before, like when our kids are babies and toddlers, like think about how often, you know, you're on a walk with your 10 month old.
00:33:57
Speaker
And you're pointing out a dog, and you're saying, that's a dog. Dogs say, woof. That's language. But you can also say, I see two dogs. That's two dogs, one, two. So there's just so many of these moments that are their language development, their early literacy skills. And then you can add a little math into. I love it. Or that dog is smaller than our dog. Yes. Or that dog is smaller than that dog. Yes, exactly.
00:34:26
Speaker
Oh my gosh, Neely Boyd counting with kids. Make sure you're following her. She shares so many tips. And if you're like, I can't remember all these things, she's going to tell you on her Instagram. So thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me on Beth. It's always fun to talk with you.