I see my role as supporting DD10’s passions and pushing her to reach her potential in areas she isn’t as passionate about. My DD loves reading so we frequent the library and bookstores; we have tons of paper, notebooks, and art supplies because she loves writing and art; we trek to dance classes three times a week because she’s passionate about becoming a better dancer. She will dedicate tons of time to what she loves to do with no prompting from me, but I have to prod her to do math.
DeHe is right this is “the age where girls seem to just drop math, good at it or not.” I teach women’s studies, and I use my daughter’s school district to illustrate the math gap and how it begins to dramatically widen from 5th grade on. I don’t want her to be one of those statistics. It’s a careful balancing act. I don’t want her to hate math so we alternate between areas of math she finds more interesting and those she just wants to plow through to get it over with. Although she’s not enthusiastic about math, she knows it’s something she has to do for half an hour. She still has plenty of time to pursue what she is passionate about, so she doesn’t see math as infringing on something she really loves. There are even times over the past couple of years where she has just sat down to work on some math on her, but these periods come in spurts.
