Well… you probably shouldn’t.
This is my one rule: if my son ever says he doesn’t want to do math, we simply stop. No arguing, no bribing, no pushing. We do something else instead.
Why? Because math is not a chore—it’s a way of experiencing the world. Just like tasting new food, enjoying music, or feeling amazed by nature, math should always feel like play, never like work.
Kids are born explorers. They naturally want to discover new things, including math. My main goal is simply to keep that natural curiosity alive and growing.
Before my son could even talk—as every parenting book suggests—I talked to him constantly. Counting stairs, naming colors, explaining everything around us. I emphasized numbers because I genuinely enjoy them. And that’s perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned: children sense your true passions and naturally want to join in.
Just play. A simple wooden game with numbers and colored bars was our playground. At first, it was sorting by colors or matching bars to numbers. Attention spans started short, a few moments here and there. But gradually, these moments grew into twenty or even thirty delightful minutes.
