Reply to AAP 3rd grade Math : do you teach/help your DC?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I barely did school math homework or took any of the math books home. It was a pure waste. I never used any school textbooks. I simply did problems and also enjoyed making up and creating my own problems. Math was a contact sport. It meant getting in the game. Not with stupid math picture books by Pearson or worksheets. The teacher gave up asking for my math homework when she realized I had the top marks on every math test and always could always get him/her out of a jam in classroom explaining a difficult problem. [/quote]
[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] [quote]You clearly enjoyed math and would have done well in it with or without outside help. The OP's child is struggling with the math at school and needs a different kind of help than a child who loves math and naturally takes to it.
[b]Think of something in your life that you struggle with and don't enjoy very much. What if you needed to get better at that skill? What if it is a skill that is not a strength for your parents either? How would you approach learning a skill that didn't play to abilities that you enjoy using?[/b][/quote]
My parents laid the foundation for my enjoyment and success in early life.  Neither I nor the other 4 of my siblings were born with this.  It was nurtured like fine wine.  It was not entrusted or outsourced to random tutors and school teachers.
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But, the above bolded text is the question. How would you learn a skill that you did not enjoy, maybe because you had experienced a distinct lack of success with it in the past? What if you needed to learn this skill? What would be your approach if you worked at it and worked at it but continued to fail, and you had no one in your family with a background in this skill?
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I'm still curious about this. You say you were not born with skill in math and yet were able to ace every test while not completing homework or looking at the text book, which is great. Were you successful in the same way in all your other academic subjects, in that you had no need to do the homework or study the textbooks? What about music and sports? Were you similarly successful in those pursuits? If not, was there some area that you just did not like when you were in school? Think about that subject or skill and think about how you would learn something in which you were just not interested and weren't all that great at when you did give it a try.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you are not an ice hockey player. And in my hypothetical, you don't particularly care for ice skating.  What if, for whatever reason, you needed to learn how to play ice hockey so that you could earn a living? How would you go about that? Do you think you could overcome your lack of interest in ice skating and hockey to learn it well enough to earn a living doing it? Do you think you might wish and yearn for some good math problems instead, because that is what you really like doing? Or would you just cease enjoying math if there was no practical reason for it?

Sorry, a lot of questions, I know. But I do believe it is always useful to turn an idea around in our minds to see how we would feel in changed circumstances.

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[quote]My experience has taught me that attitude, frame of mind and preserverance, are the real keys to success and overcoming adversity ... at least in my circumstances. If you trick or deceive yourself into believing you are inadequate chances are you will be proved right.[/quote]

Is the last quote in answer to the questions above? If so, I was hoping the answer would address some of the specifics of the questions.

Attitude, frame of mind, and perseverance are great things, and can do wonders under the right conditions. But they can only go so far. Do you think it possible that attitude, frame of mind, and perseverance can turn a non-athlete into someone who can earn a living playing ice hockey? Or that enjoyment of and inclination for a subject or skill have nothing to do with success in learning that subject or skill?

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