Maths doesn't have to make parents panic

For many years, I have had parents approaching me about their children's maths homework and the difficulties they face when trying to help - so many, in fact, that I ended up doing a PhD on their problems.

"I couldn't make sense of his homework, and neither could my husband," said Sara, as she drew me a diagram of what she could remember about her son's maths homework. Why are these parents trying to help? The answer might seem obvious, but, in fact, there are many different reasons why parents get involved.

It turned out that the caricature of "pushy parents", intent on trying to improve their children's chances of getting on in life, is not always the reality: many parents are much more concerned about their children's welfare than their results. Some parents had a humiliating experience of maths when they were at school, and want to save their children from the same trauma. Some get involved because (much to the wrath of some members of the teaching establishment) they regard education as a natural responsibility of a parent; others are dragged into it unwillingly when their children ask them for help. Within all these groups, many feel powerless to help.

Some have poor numeracy skills themselves: "I said cheerio to maths at long division," is how one mother put it. Faced with their children's difficulties, they can't help; some feel close to panic. However, many parents who are competent at maths still feel lost when faced with their children's homework. Today's methods all seem different.

Put on the spot, parents try to help as best they can, using whatever knowledge they can muster from their own schooling. However, they can easily forget how long it actually took to master certain skills, or at what age they were introduced to a topic. This can lead to them expecting too much from the child, and cause frustration and friction, driving wedges between parent and child, and between parents and schools.

This is not a new phenomenon. In the early 1980s, I had parents ringing up, asking for help with their children's "New Maths" (how dated that seems now). They could not understand the terms being used, or what their children were doing. I decided that the best thing to do was to run a course. However, when I rang the local adult education service for advice and support, I was told that they had never heard of such a thing. So I designed my own course, and ran Maths for Mums and Dads at my kitchen table. The attendees found it very helpful, and this started my interest in the whole area of parents helping their children with maths.

I took a career break from teaching when my children were young. When I came back into teaching in the mid 1990s, while researching for my PhD, I still found parents being put on the spot by their children asking for help with maths, and the parents not understanding what was going on in maths lessons.

They talked of their feelings about school, how they felt in the dark about what was going on in lessons, and about schools not keeping them informed. Many parents told me that they wanted to know how maths was taught, and the thinking behind the methods used, so that they could help their children; today's methods seemed strange and convoluted to them.

Many schools are trying to involve parents, but it is not easy. Adult education offers parents help with maths, but often in the context of the parents' own poor skills - very off-putting to able parents. Nearly 30 years on from Maths for Mums and Dads, many parents still feel that there is very little help for them.

The Every Parent Matters initiative, announced by Alan Johnson in March, aims to help parents to help their children with numeracy and literacy. For maths at least, it is a laudable step in the right direction. There are good outcomes reported when parents, understanding how maths is taught, get involved and work alongside their children. Moreover, as well as helping to improve the children's maths, it also has the positive effect of bringing children and parents closer together.

However, parts of the report suggest that, once again, this help might only be available to parents with their own numeracy needs. It would be better if the support were relevant and available to all parents. As my research has shown, it is not only those weak in numeracy that have difficulty supporting their children. Every parent matters.

The writer is the author of Help your Child with Numeracy (Continuum, £6.99)