Malone imparts some maths wisdom
“Tell me another one!” My child demands as we snuggle up after reading a bedtime story. She doesn’t want another story. She actually means ‘ask’ me another one (she gets muddled with words). She wants me to ask her another hard math question.
“What is 100 plus 97?” I ask the five year old. She beams proudly back: “197!” Hardly containing her glee at how incredibly clever she is being. I have managed to teach her that if you add a number onto 00s then the answer will always include the number you are adding on. I have finally managed to teach my child something. I deserve an award. She actually listened to me for once – this is amazing.
If she would just listen to me again, perhaps even regularly, I could teach her many, many useful things – how to change a loo roll, all sorts. Ideally I’d like her to listen to my teachings on how to use a knife and fork and how to get what you want in life without crying.
“Mummy, what is 100 and 49?” That’s the answer, not a sum, I tell her. Okay, so it seems she hasn’t quite got the hang of it yet. “Oh I got muggled, what’s 100 plus 49?” Even though I’ve told her the formula for the sum, she’s still delighted to ask me these incredibly tricky sums, and is still impressed when I can add up 100 plus 49. She came home from school saying “only really clever people can add up in the one hundreds”.
“She actually listened to me for once – this is amazing”
I wanted to show her that maths is mainly brilliant patterns and that you just have to learn the patterns. So here we are now, unable to go to sleep because my child is barking out sums excitedly. “Ask me another!” I’m running out of sums, “Um, what’s 500 plus 83?” With her eyes almost coming out of their sockets, she exclaims, “583?!” You might think this is incredibly simple, as some kids may have been playing piano with one foot while working on Pi since the age of three, but I am so proud of my little one. Mainly just for listening to me for once. Secondly, for being interested in maths and thirdly, for understanding the pattern. It might be a simple breakthrough but simple things can make solid foundations. I am so happy; she is so happy. If I can just build her confidence up, one day she could fulfil the dream…of my daughter becoming an accountant.
She asks my boyfriend to ask her one. He replies: “Okay, what’s 117 plus 56?” Oh, reality bites, the adding up in my head was that my child was a genius who read equations at bedtime instead of stories. But no, the reality is that my child just understands about adding onto zeros.
