Fourth grade was a terrible, awful, no-good year!

Okay, I’m being hyperbolic—but, it was the year that I was asked to stand in front of the class, pick up a piece of chalk and solve a mathematical problem. It was some sort of multiplication or long division or, as far as I was concerned, the most difficult mathematical problem ever created!

To this day working with numbers sends a heart-stopping fear through me that I can’t explain, other than just sheer panic. And needless to say, I try to avoid mathematics at all cost, which is not ideal…my husband is forever bewildered that I never check if I’ve received the proper change after paying for something.

It’s also the reason I’ve embraced weChat and other electronic forms of payments (Why wouldn’t I? It does the math for me!).

I know that soon enough the day will come that the Wild One will ask for help with her maths homework (Cue: The Imperial March.)…and she’ll realise that Mathematics is my kryptonite.

This poses the following problems:

1. I won’t have the confidence to help her or, more likely, still try to help her and fail and ultimately, let her down—which is my actual biggest fear.

2. I’ll eventually have to admit that I never bothered to “face my fear” and avoided it instead of actually trying harder to learn mathematical concepts (because let’s be honest, your annoying math teacher was right, we use mathematics everyday!).

3. All the times I encourage her to persevere telling her to “keep going” and to “try again” and all the occasions I try to promote resilience and foster positive learning dispositions…they will all be lies.

It would be hypocritical to call myself a role model.

How can I urge her to persevere when trying to solve a difficult math problem and when I never did?

I can’t, unless I can honestly model it.

This is the one major mathematical problem I am solving in my life.

Because I am resilient.

(And the Internet will teach me…privately, and in the comfort of my own bed where nobody ever has to know how many times I panicked, cried and hit the reset button!)