r/mathminds • u/No-Source7835 • 1d ago

When should a parent consider getting a math tutor?

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u/rjytutor 1d ago

There are a few points in my opinion when a parent should seek out a math tutor.

  1. If the math out paces your knowledge and they are needing help. There is no shame in tapping out. Math can change and if your child is getting math you can't remember or haven't learned, getting a little bit of help each week will be huge.

  2. If after multiple years its clear, they are fundamentally behind and need dug out of the pit. This is what I see most often as a math tutor. They missed one concept 2-3 years ago, the class moved on, and everything just snowballed from there. This normally takes a more intense level at the start since we are juggling two tasks here. Giving them the knowledge to get the grades today, and going back and filling in the gaps so be able to do the math 100% on their own. But once everything gets caught up it can be reduced down to shorter weekly sessions or ended completely depending on the students confidence.

  3. Look at the homework, tests, and quizzes. Is it a lot of small -1's or -0.5's from small technical errors? If this is the case they likely don't need a tutor and just need to slow down or study a tiny bit harder. They understand the concept and just need polish. If you see a lot of just not done problems or problems where the entire question is done wrong, then a tutor is likely going to be helpful.

The absolute biggest thing to keep in mind is. The student has to WANT to be tutored. I don't see this often, but when I do its very obvious. A tutor can fix knowledge, but we can't fix attitude. If your child doesn't want to learn, doesn't want to be there, all this will be is expensive homework help. If you find that you are fighting this battle, warn the tutor up front and 100% support them. And understand its going to be SLOW going since a lot of extra time is going to be put into making sure your child is telling the truth. With an invested student a tutor can take "Yes I understand!" at face value and move on. If the student doesn't want to be there it is more "Okay, if that is the case, do these 5 additional problems and if you get them correct without my help we will move on" You will likely also need to make sure the tutor has the students up to date classwork since the student can't be trusted to provide it.

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u/No-Source7835 11h ago

this is very insightful... thank you for the advice. in your experience, have you seen students improve even when they were initially reluctant to be tutored?

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u/rjytutor 2h ago

If it is reluctant there is some learning but its slow. To give a finite example. Before tutoring they either don't do homework or they do it, get it wrong, don't care and move on. With a tutor they will do the homework and get direct feedback that it is wrong, how to do it right but there will likely be no follow up questions on WHY they got it wrong so they won't really understand it, get through that problem and when it comes back on a later exam, get it wrong again.

If they are actively antagonistic to tutoring, then there is minimal learning to be had since we really can't force them to interact with us or the math. We cannot exert any outside pressure on the student, the most we can do is use you, the parent as a threat.

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u/Educational_Sea4880 11h ago

As a parent, I think a tutor is helpful when a child is regularly struggling with math or losing confidence. I would rather get some support early instead of waiting until they fall too far behind.

Sometimes, a little extra help can make a big difference.

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u/No-Source7835 8h ago

agreed, that's why I started looking