We know why parents try to tutor their children in math themselves: they want to help their child succeed, they want to save cost, and they want to feel connected to their child’s learning.
For some parents, providing quality math tutoring on their own might be a challenge due to busy schedules and exhaustion. If you’ve had a tough day at work, or you’ve been awake since 5 am, understanding (never mind teaching!) a complicated math problem might not be as straightforward as you’d hoped.
For other parents, the barrier to a quality evening math lesson might be greater. In many cases, parents struggle with their child’s math homework themselves, so teaching it can be stressful and frustrating. How do you know when it’s time to hire an online math tutor to help your child instead of helping them yourself?
You just can’t seem to explain a concept to your child – no matter how hard you try
This doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t wrap your head around a problem yourself – even mathematicians can have this problem. It’s hard to reduce complex problems to simple, digestible chunks of information for children – especially when math isn’t their forte. Or, it could be that you both have very different learning styles, so while it seems simple enough in your mind, your child just can’t seem to grasp it.
Math tutoring is becoming your part-time job
Are you beginning to feel like you’ve just acquired an after-work part-time job as a tutor? Do you find that all of your evening time is spent trying to help your child understand their math homework, and you no longer have any time to do other activities with them?
Helping your child with homework is negatively impacting your relationship
Maybe the two of you have been working together for some time and your child isn’t seeing any improvement in their grades and doesn’t understand their math problems any more clearly. Maybe it’s also increasing your stress levels and frustration, which in turn is being injected into your relationship with your child. Or it could be that you’ve tried and tried, and your child isn’t picking up what you’re putting down, and now is so frustrated he or she seems to be cutting back on the one-on-one time you two have together.
If you’ve spent or continue to spend hours of your time trying to help your child understand their math homework but it just isn’t helping, spending more time generally isn’t the answer.
If any of these scenarios sound familiar, it might be time to look for alternative methods of study for your child, and alternative tutors. Browse qualified online math tutors on Skooli now to find a tutor to help your child make the most of their tutoring time and improve their math grades.