Know when to call for back up!

If I were to write a list of homeschooling commandments, this would be one of them, "Know when to call for back up."

Skittles has been struggling with Math for the past 2 weeks. By now my followers should know that I am not confident when it comes to Math. In fact, I am really bad at it! Whoever coined the phrase, "Those who can't do; teach." would not want me to teach their child Math! I think my insecurities are spilling over now that we have moved past 1+1=2. I have spent a lot of time in prayer over Math! I worry that I am going to pass on my terrible Math skills (if you can call them skills) and my insecurities to my children.

We have been working on place value for a month. We are adding and subtracting 2 digit numbers. This week we used them in word problems. Everyday was a struggle. I have been ready to rip my hair out and I know Skittles was ready to rip his hair out too! I am obviously not doing a good job teaching the method. Skittles is clearly not getting it! I used every trick in the book but he would still make mistakes like 31+31=44. He added 3+1 and 3+1 instead of 1+1 and 3+3. No, he was not writing it in sentence form but I guess he was used to that set up. By Friday he had 2 pages of Math incomplete and another 2 incorrect! We were both at our wits end.

Today my husband took over for me. He was in their 20 minutes when I heard Skittle's little voice joyously cry out, "Hey this is easy!" Then it occurred to me... I had forgotten one of the most important rules of homeschooling and parenting in general, know when to call for back up!