Mathematics

How to Help With Maths Homework You Cannot Do Yourself

Four things a parent who cannot do the maths can still do, and the well-meant one that reliably backfires: teaching the method you were taught at school.

Short answer

How do I help with maths homework when I cannot do it myself?

Protect the time, have them read the question aloud, ask what the first step is rather than what the answer is, and write down where they stopped for the teacher. Do not teach your own method.

The short answer
You do not need the mathematics to be useful. Protect the time and the place, have your child read the question aloud, ask what the first step would be rather than what the answer is, and write on the sheet where they stopped so the teacher can see it. Avoid teaching the method you were taught.

What changes the answer

With a child under about nine, simply being in the room matters more than anything you say; with a fifteen-year-old, being in the room is often itself the problem.
If a whole sheet is impossible rather than one question, the task was set at the wrong level, and the useful action is telling the teacher rather than getting it finished.
If you can do the mathematics but learned a different method, the warning below applies more strongly, not less, because your version will be delivered with confidence.
Where the family language differs from the language of instruction, reading the question aloud together is not a small intervention — it is frequently the entire difficulty.

The thing parents are told to do, and what it is worth

The Education Endowment Foundation's review of homework notes something uncomfortable and useful: interventions specifically designed to get parents involved in homework are not generally linked to increased attainment. That is not an argument for indifference. It is an argument that the valuable parental contribution is not tutoring, which is a relief, because tutoring is the thing most parents cannot supply and feel guilty about.

What survives is duller and entirely within reach: the time, the place, the reading of the question, and the information that gets back to the teacher. None of it requires you to know how to divide a fraction.

The four things that work

Two of these are logistical and two are conversational, and the conversational ones are deliberately phrased so that you never have to know whether the answer is right.

The fourth is the one families skip, and it is the one with the largest effect, because it is the only part of the evening that reaches the person who can actually teach your child.

Fix the time and the place, and be the person who enforces them rather than the person who explains the maths. Same table, same hour, phone elsewhere.
Make them read the question out loud, including the numbers and the units. A large share of 'I'm stuck' is misreading, and it dissolves on the second sentence.
Ask what the first step would be — never what the answer is. If they can name a first step they can usually continue; if they cannot, you have located the exact point of failure without knowing any mathematics.
Write the failure point on the sheet. 'Stuck at Q4, could not start' or 'Q4 attempted twice, two different answers'. A teacher can act on that in Monday's lesson. A blank question with no note tells them nothing at all.

The intervention that reliably makes it worse

Teaching the method you were taught. Short division versus chunking, borrowing versus decomposition, the grid method versus the column method, the way you were shown to handle percentages in 1994. Each of these works on its own terms. That is not the problem.

The problem is that a child in the middle of learning one method now holds two half-methods and no way to judge which the mark scheme wants. Under pressure in an examination they blend them, and a blended method produces working that cannot earn method marks even when the final number is right. We meet this constantly: a student who is confidently doing something no teacher in the building recognises, learned at home, defended fiercely.

The same applies to producing the answer yourself. A correct answer written into the book removes the only signal the teacher had that anything was wrong, and buys your child another week of the same work.

What to say when you genuinely cannot help

The sentence that works: 'I can't do this one either. Write down exactly where you got stuck and we'll ask tomorrow.' Modelling not knowing, in front of a child, and then modelling what you do about it, is worth considerably more than a wrong explanation delivered confidently.

The sentence to retire is 'I was hopeless at maths too, that's where you get it from'. It is offered as comfort and received as a diagnosis, and it hands a child a reason to stop trying that they can produce for the next five years.

If you want one more thing to do, send the teacher an email of two sentences: which question, and what happened. 'Ayesha spent 25 minutes on Q4 and couldn't start — she was fine with Q1 to Q3.' That gets a useful reply, and it turns a bad evening into information.

Common questions

Should I let my child use an app that shows the steps?

As a checker after a genuine attempt, yes. As the first move, no — it reliably becomes a copying machine, and the tell is that the working in the book is laid out in the app's format rather than the teacher's. Our rule with students is that the app is allowed only on a question they have already written something on.

Is it ever right to just give the answer?

Yes — at the end of a long evening when the alternative is a scene, and only with a note to the teacher saying you did it. The note is what keeps it honest and keeps it useful. What is never right is giving the answer silently, repeatedly, because that produces a child whose book says one thing and whose test says another.

How long should I let them struggle before stepping in?

A few minutes of stuck-with-the-pencil-moving is where the learning is, and it should be protected rather than interrupted. Five minutes of stuck-and-still is not productive; it is a child rehearsing helplessness. The distinction is visible from across the room, and it is the only timer you need.

My child refuses to let me sit with them. What now?

Take the negotiation to the structure and leave the content alone. Agree the time and the room; do not ask to see the working. Then read the exercise book once a week rather than every night. An older child who will not accept supervision will usually accept a deadline, and the deadline is the part that actually matters.

Should I email the teacher, or does that look bad?

Email, and keep it to two sentences with a question number in it. Teachers act on specifics and cannot act on 'she's struggling with maths'. The email that gets a real reply names the homework, names the question, and says what your child did before stopping. It reads as involvement, not complaint.

Sources

Homework — Teaching and Learning Toolkit — Education Endowment Foundation

Last updated August 21, 2026