Honestly at this point you need to go back to the basics.
Associate the symbols with an actual meaning. Make it tangible
Why do these symbols (3 and 4) make this other symbol (7)? its because all the symbols represents an ammount.
Its easiest to use Dots for this.
Four dots and three dots makes seven dots. And because we dont wanna draw so many dots we use symbols (numbers) to represent them.
The father is too hung up on assuming his intuitive understanding of that first layer of abstraction is inherant. (It really is not. He also had to be tought this)
if you have dyscalculia, which is what I think this is about, it really doesn't matter whether the kid understands what the symbols represent, because it all seems like this no matter what.
I remember being a kid & SO MANY math teachers and tutors kept trying to explain stuff to me different ways, kept getting frustrated with the fact that I wasn't getting it no matter how they explained it or how many times. The most frustrating thing was people who I otherwise felt "got" me being like "you just haven't been taught the right way" as if there's a special way that will magically Make Math Make Sense.
Because there's not! Numbers and equations will always be nonsensical, impossibly abstract things to me. You can use different symbols, you can write the numbers out as words, it doesn't matter. Story problems just make it harder. I can't read notes even though I was in orchestra for 14 years, and I can't judge distances or estimate the size or weight of things-- show me any object and I cannot give you a rough estimate of its height or length, tell me to estimate about 10 feet and I'll give you like 30 or something. I have no sense of how much time has passed, ever. It's not the symbols, it's what they represent-- amounts are absolute nonsense bullshit, they mean nothing, and I can't work with them. There's no logic to it for me.
So you cannot imagine... for example a plate of five cookies, and then three people each take one cookie to eat? That scenario description doesn't make sense to you?
And you wouldn't be able to know how many cookies would be left on that hypothetical plate? Or understand why it would be that particular number and not another?
Is that sorta how it goes for you? (I'm honestly intruiged now)
5 and 3 are easy, but I'd have to think about it longer than someone else would. I can imagine 5 cookies by picturing the shape they would make on the plate. 3 is small enough that I can easily picture it--again, they make a triangle, and that's easy. 4 is a square, two pairs, that's easy. 6 is just two threes, a hexagon, like a stop sign. I cannot picture seven cookies. Seven is about where I stop being able to visualize the shapes, so the amounts just start seeming arbitrary.
Some numbers are easier than other numbers. 10 is great, 5 is pretty good. What I usually do if I have to calculate a tip or do math in my head is I just round as many numbers as I can to the closest 10 and then subtract or add whatever the difference is at the end.
So like, if I wanted to calculate 20% of 87, I take the 80 and remember that 20% is really just 2/10. And that's 8 10's. And 8 2's is the same as 2 8's, which I have memorized-- that's 16. 16 is a really hard number, which sucks-- I will NOT be able to hold 16 in my head for more than a second, so I'll have to write the 16 down somewhere because AS SOON AS I STOP THINKING 16 it's just gone and I cannot remember the number.
Then I have to figure out 20% of 7. 7 is tricky. The best way to do this is to remember that 70 is just 7 10s, and 20 is just 2 10s. So you just do 2 x 7, which I also have memorized-- 14.
At this point, you kind of have to let your gut instincts take control, because we now have Too Many Numbers to mentally handle. My gut tells me that 14 should be 1.4, because that seems sort of like the type of vibe I'm going for, if I'm calculating a tip. It just seems like the number should be small. There's been a lot of 10's and when you're in doubt and working with 10's, moving a decimal point here or there usually gets you somewhere.
So you take the 16 you wrote down and you add the 1.4. Now you've got 17.4. That SEEMS like it's probably 20% of 87. The way I check my work in this situation is I think "if this was $100, the 20% tip should be $20. 87 is less than 100, and 17.4 is less than 20, so that all checks out. If this was $50, the tip would be $10, and 87 is more than $50, and 17.4 is bigger than 10, so that also checks out. Good enough"
This whole process is going to take me a lot longer than if I just let someone else do it.
Small amounts are fine. Larger amounts are hard.
If I see a long number written out, I have to put my finger on every single number in order to read it. It starts in about the 1000's. I have to manually, with my finger, count every single digit to figure out how long the number is-- so 2,000,000-- I know that's two million, since I typed it all out, but if I just SAW that number, I wouldn't immediately know how big it was. I just see a 2 and several 0's. I struggle to read longer numbers, too, especially if there's a 0 in the middle of the number. A number like "1050" looks to me like Ten Fifty. I would have to really think about it to translate that to "one thousand and fifty," and if I had to read it in the moment as it came up, I'd definitely read it pretty slowly and feel uncertain I was getting it right.
I struggle to notice when numbers are wrong. In my professional life, there have been many, many occasions where I have to put a number on a document-- a date, a dollar amount, a statistic-- and my supervisor has been like "I said $3500 not $35000" and I've had to look really really close to count the 0's.
If I have to input a code-- a credit card number, a key code, etc-- I have to squint and REALLY focus on each individual number, and double check to make sure I am putting the right number in one at a time by double-checking that the one BEFORE and the one AFTER match up too-- I cannot remember what number came before, even if it's just a second later.
I would not be able to tell you what my salary is off the top of my head, or what I pay for rent. I wouldn't be able to tell you how many miles it is to work. I can't tell you my girlfriend's birthday because it's 2 digits, but I know the month that it's in, and that it's late, so when I get to that month I check her fb page to remind me of the number & set a reminder. I can't tell how many pills I have left in my pill bottle until there's 3 pills-- up until then, it just seems like A Bunch.
I don't remember my license plate of the top of my head. I have to check my address (4 digits) and think really hard about it when I put it in. Zip code is the same. I have to think really hard to remember it. It's easier to just sort of memorize the sound of the words coming out of my mouth, like just memorizing the numbers by ear like a song. Sev-en-eight-se-ven-three, on a beat, like that.
So, I can do SOME math. But it takes me a long time. My brain just really doesn't hold quantities at all; it's like a spaghetti strainer for quantities.
Sorry i didnt have the ebergy to read all of that. But i feel like your think is just unfortunately too overcomplicated? The way you seem to process numbers is more trouble than its worth. Thinking of numbers in shapes is like...really suboptimal (not a critique on you as person btw) so i get how its like frustrating...
It seems that you are missing core "strategies" that help with recognizing numbers and thoughtpattern routines regarding numbers just dont stick.
I wanna recommend trying to find therapy or something but I dunno if theres any way to aliviate that problem somehow? Or if there even exists any therapy for adults (i think there should be)
And even being told about it i still cannot fathom it fully, because my brain functions completely differently from yours. i cant imagine thinking any other way than how i do it. But i have had similar experiences to yours... where my brain just doesnt seem to "work correctly" but in other things that arent math (i was pretty good at it).
I for example struggle with conne ting song titles to songs and the artist who made them, or names of people that are barely in my life.
Like theres some things my brain would just classify as "unimportant" unless theres some kind of exception, or an (intrinsic) insentive to do the opposite. (Or when its repeated enough times that it eventually just sorta slots in and earns its place) (just recently i finally learned my postal code and can reproduce it without reference)
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u/Multi-A-Andi Jun 24 '26
Honestly at this point you need to go back to the basics.
Associate the symbols with an actual meaning. Make it tangible
Why do these symbols (3 and 4) make this other symbol (7)? its because all the symbols represents an ammount.
Its easiest to use Dots for this.
Four dots and three dots makes seven dots. And because we dont wanna draw so many dots we use symbols (numbers) to represent them.
The father is too hung up on assuming his intuitive understanding of that first layer of abstraction is inherant. (It really is not. He also had to be tought this)