My DD joined mathcounts this year and qualified for state, which was a big surprise for both her and us, because she was just sort of in the club for fun and wasn't studying outside of club meets. But after qualifying for the state competition, I have never seen her so motivated to study math on her own before.

I watched their chapter countdown round, and it was so cool to see a huge crowd of people cheering kids when they answered impressive math questions. So nice to see brain power celebrated like this. I would highly recommend this contest for math-oriented kids. It's a great way to meet friends too. I was so thrilled to see her find her people.

We don’t participate in Mathcounts over here, but APSMO is a similar sort of event. It certainly is delightful to watch one’s child discover the joy of maths.

DH, my two older kids and I have all been good at maths from a young age, but my youngest used to believe she was terrible at maths and the odd one out. When she started high school, DS (who is two years above her in grades and was in an accelerated maths program) would tell her about how he solved IMO level questions and I thought he was being ridiculous, but somehow, she was able to follow his reasoning and realised that she also had the potential to do well at maths. She is now top of her year at maths, has taken on the highest available level of maths studies and is planning on becoming a maths teacher.