| Many homeschool parents struggle with children | | | | days!) |
| who understand math concepts but are careless | | | | Mastery is different than perfection. Your child |
| in doing their schoolwork. The result is math | | | | may demonstrate mastery by scoring 90% on an |
| problems that are frequently incorrect, not | | | | assignment (they may even have mastery with |
| because they don't understand, but because they | | | | less than that, I suppose!) Kids shouldn't be |
| rushed through and made silly errors (adding | | | | required to be "perfect" though. Now, to be |
| wrong, wrong decimal placement, etc.) Parents | | | | honest, when homeschooling I did have my |
| can be driven to distraction because they want | | | | children correct all their math errors in their daily |
| their children to be careful when doing their work, | | | | work. When they got it wrong, they corrected it. |
| rather than rushing through and making mistakes. | | | | I hoped that the tediousness of correcting would |
| So how should a homeschool parent deal with | | | | encourage them to be more careful in their daily |
| chronic carelessness? | | | | work. Being careful is a good thing, right? Just |
| Carelessness, especially with math, is a | | | | don't go from "careful" into "perfection." Striving |
| complicated subject. Homeschool parents want | | | | for perfection can cause strife, and possibly |
| their kids to do well, understand a subject and | | | | rebellion. Because we all know, intuitively, that we |
| achieve mastery. Parents want their children to | | | | simply can't be perfect. |
| learn about hard work, and the benefits of doing | | | | - If you are in this situation, here are some ideas |
| the job well. But there is another side to | | | | you can try in your family. Hold your kids to a |
| carelessness that you have to consider. | | | | high standard (perhaps 90% correct.) |
| I know this might shock some of you, but When | | | | - Have them do half the problems in the math |
| I subtract a purchase in my checkbook, I don't | | | | book to give them more time to work carefully. |
| always get the answer perfectly right. Sometimes | | | | - Have them redo the problems they miss so |
| I slip up, get the answer wrong, and have to | | | | they can understand their errors. |
| search until I find the arithmetic error so that it | | | | In general, steer clear of perfection, and strive |
| balances again. And yet, I really do believe I have | | | | instead for mastery. Tell your kids that 90% is |
| achieved mastery over subtraction (on most | | | | what you consider mastery. |