Parents have told us consistently that helping their children is the main reason for wanting to improve their numeracy level.

It makes sense. There have been more and more reports about the numeracy and literacy crisis in this country, with stark warnings from the OECD about the UK ‘lagging behind’ other countries. So wanting to help your kids to be in the best possible position for their future is no surprise.

Also teaching methods are often different from one generation to the next, so parents and carers can worry that they will end up confusing their child rather than helping them, and homework becomes a source of arguments and unnecessary stress.

But maths is important not just for your child’s success at school, but so that they get on in life. A good understanding of everyday maths will help them develop essential lifelong skills, such as understanding numerical information, solving problems and making good decisions.

What can you do?

Even if you’re short on time, or don’t feel all that confident about maths, there are things you can do which can really make a difference to how your child’s numeracy confidence and ability develop.

If you don’t do anything else, remember our three top tips:

1. Be positive about maths. Don't say things like "I can’t do maths" or "I hated maths at school"; your child might start to think like that themselves.
2. Point out the maths in everyday life. Include your child in activities involving maths, such as using money, cooking and travelling.
3. Praise your child for effort rather than talent - this shows them that by working hard they can always improve.

Even if these are all you do, it will really help. Encourage others to take them on board too, tell colleagues and friends, and try to challenge people who say ‘I hate maths’ in front of their children… it’s damaging!

You can also get help from the Family Maths Toolkit: http://www.familymathstoolkit.org.uk/, a website created by National Numeracy to get families enjoying maths together. It’s brimming with resources, activities and ideas for kids from ages 0 to 13. For example, ‘activities around the house’ are already a firm favourite amongst families, as is the information on the national curriculum and current teaching methods.

Weekly activities

This year, some schools are working with us on a weekly family maths challenge, where children complete a maths activity with their family and record their ideas and findings in a scrapbook. One Dad recently said: “These scrapbooks are perfect - the children understand that it’s homework so they don’t question why we’re doing this work, and having gotten over that initial hurdle they tend to enjoy doing the maths with me”.

If your child or grandchild's school is interested in taking part in the scrapbook challenge, tell them to get in touch or try out the sample activities here: http://www.familymathstoolkit.org.uk/purchase-scrapbooks

How to improve your own maths

Doing maths – or even talking about maths – with your children might make you think about brushing up your own maths. If you want to, then you can ­– and will – improve your skills. We’ve helped thousands of people to do this with the National Numeracy Challenge. It’s an interactive website which anyone can use to confidentially assess and improve their everyday maths skills. You can work through at your own pace when you have a spare moment, log out and come back and pick up where you left off at any time.

Get involved at home or at work

You may already be involved with what we’re doing, but if not then why not consider a numeracy campaign for Learning at Work Week this month? We can send you posters and materials and set up a dedicated webpage which means you can monitor how well everyone is doing (without breaking confidentiality – everyone’s data and results remain confidential)

Four out of five people who re-take The Challenge Check-up improve their numeracy level. So even if you’ve already given it a go, then why not see if you can improve your score? That’s the challenge!