E 242 How to Help Your Child Overcome Math Anxiety and Build Confidence

 Is your child struggling with math anxiety? Avoiding homework, saying “I’m not a math person,” or feeling frustrated by numbers?

In this episode, I talk with Mina Neuberg, CEO of Wonder Math, the only math program designed to build confidence and reduce anxiety through storytelling, adventure, and a growth mindset.

You’ll learn:
✅ Why math anxiety affects nearly 60% of students
✅ How Wonder Math makes math fun, engaging, and stress-free
✅ The link between math confidence and future success
✅ How to support your child emotionally and academically

🎁 Get 80% off Wonder Math!
Use code Podcast19 

Let’s change the way your child sees math—and themselves.

🔔 Don’t forget to subscribe for more tips on helping your child navigate anxiety with confidence!

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Email me: ccoufal@cynthiacoufalcoaching.com
Text me: 785-380-2064
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Transcript

 Did you know that up to 59% of students report that they have math anxiety? 67% of teachers report that anxiety is impacting classroom teaching. Does your child avoid math homework, feel frustrated with numbers, or believe they're just not a math person? What if math could be fun, engaging, and confidence building Instead?

Join me today as I chat with Mina Newberg, CEO of Wonder Math, the only math program that develops mathematical thinkers through active learning and storytelling. We'll discuss how to protect your child's wellbeing, turn anxiety into confidence, and help kids see math as an exciting adventure rather than a source of stress.

If math struggles have been a battle in your home, you do not wanna [00:01:00] miss this conversation. So Mina, welcome to the Teen Anxiety Maze. Thank you. Thanks for having me today. Sure. Well, I would say I. That as soon as I found out about the Wonder Math and you know, helping kids with math anxiety, I was like, thank goodness I have had math anxiety my whole life.

And I. Unfortunately, I probably passed it on to my kids, but I just have always felt like, I don't know how to do math. It's hard. Even in my adult life, if anyone brings up math stuff where you have to like do math in front of people, I just, I get so terrified. And as a parent, when my kids were growing up, there would be these fundraisers and they would be like, oh, we're gonna sell cookies at this place and somebody has to set with the money.

And I'm like, I'm not doing. The money. I'll do anything else. I will do whatever you tell me, but I'm not doing the money. [00:02:00] So tell us all about Wonder Math and how you're helping kids and of course that helps their families with this math anxiety. 

Mina Neuberg: Yeah. Thank you so much. Great question Cynthia. And I have to tell you that I also suffered from math anxiety.

I think for me growing up and that's why Wonder Math resonated so much with me first as a parent and, and kind of now being more involved. But I was definitely a kid and it maybe, you know, my generation that, you know, my parents kind of said, you don't need to worry about math. You're good at other things.

You know, kind of gave me a path on math and I took that path and I ran with it for a long time. Yes. And then I decided to make a career change. I wanted to go back to business school and I was totally unprepared for math and it really was a source of stress and anxiety. And I think for me, what ended up happening, I had gone to UCLA as an undergrad, and before I started business school, I actually went back to community college and I took classes in economics and in statistics and in math to try to shore up my math [00:03:00] skills to be.

You know, to, to enter business school. But really what I needed to focus on, and it was my math confidence, like what you're saying, I was kind of scared. I didn't even wanna engage. Mm-hmm. That was the biggest hurdle I had to overcome, kind of as an adult. And it's interesting because I actually got involved with Wonder Math as a parent.

My, I have four children. My daughter was in third grade and she told me she just wasn't a math kid. She didn't like it. It was boring. She didn't wanna do it. And something kind, you know, triggered me where I said, I can't repeat this pattern, and I could see how young it started. I found Wonder Math and I ended up enrolling her, and I really thought it transformed the way that she thought about herself rather than being like, eh, math is boring.

It's just these worksheets I just want to get done with it. Wonder Math really transformed the way that she saw herself in terms of her skills, but more importantly transformed her confidence and her enthusiasm for math. And she's actually, college freshman right [00:04:00] now is an applied math major. So I really felt that it transformed the way she saw herself and the way she saw kind of math and problem solving rather than something that she was supposed to kind of immediately get and know.

Wonder Math is really built on having a growth mindset, so that means really focusing on the process of how do you. Answer a question, how do you start with a problem that seems like it's really complicated? How do you kind of dive in and persevere for it? Versus, Hey, did you get the right answer or not?

Mm-hmm. And so that really shifted her mindset. And I, I think what resonated for me with Wonder Math is I saw that that was really what helped me transition as an adult, frankly, from being afraid of math to being willing to kind of engage in. You know, being in charge of the money at the, at the PTA bake sale.

So I, I saw that with her kind of search resonate. I put my other kids in into Wonder Math and then had an opportunity to get more involved, which I, which I really embraced. And I think what wonder does really well is it helps kids really. Transition the way they see [00:05:00] themselves as being more enthusiastic about math and having a growth mindset towards math.

But more than math, it's really about problem solving. You know, what we want for our kids is to be able to put them in tough situations, those kids and then adults, and for them to have the confidence to feel that they can take that on and they can be successful. And that only happens with practice, right?

With putting them in situations that are hard and being supportive and being collaborative and sometimes being silent and letting them kind of work through it. And that's what wonder really. Work fun with kids. So the way the program works is it's one or two hours a week. You can choose once or twice a week, and it's a live credentialed, elementary, middle school teacher, and it's up to four other kids on a Zoom platform.

And math is really made fun because it's gamified, it's story based. Kids are going on a math adventure there, you know, building a bridge. They're rescuing a princess and they need to do math collaboratively. In order to, to reach that goal. And when they reach the goal, it's gamified and they earn gems, which they can turn in for real world [00:06:00] prizes.

So parents are really liking wonder Math because it's helping, you know, they're getting better at math and they're not complaining about it, which, you know, for us as parents mm-hmm. It's like if you're not complaining about it, I'm winning. And kids like it because it's gamified and they're earning points and it's fun with their friends and, and teachers and with a really small, student to teacher ratio. As I said, we have about one kid to 4 1 4 students, to one teacher. Kids are getting a lot of personalized attention and parents are getting weekly emails home of kind of what kids are working on, where their strengths are, where here's some resources if they need some opportunities to get stronger.

But the real thing that I think. Kids are learning from is how do I do something that's really hard, kind of fit in it, persevere through it, and then, you know, through that guided struggle, really build resistance, resilience, grit, to kind of be stronger when the next problem comes along. 

Cynthia: I love that. Well, some of the things that you were saying is exactly what I teach on this podcast, so people, if they've been listening, [00:07:00] that those things are gonna make sense to them.

But growth mindset is so important in every area of our life. I feel like I talk about this with my clients. Every day, and I talk about it a lot on this podcast because if we believe that there is a way for us to solve our problems, whether it's math problems or any of the problems that we have, if we believe there is some way for me to figure it out.

We're gonna try to figure it out. Our brain is gonna go to work, to do something to, to make that outcome happen. But if we have a fixed mindset where we think, well, I just can't do it, and I see that with kids. Mm-hmm. And I'm sure kids that start with you probably are in that mindset of, well, I can't do math, or I'm not a math person, or I don't, I don't like math.

Then their brain is shutting down and not trying to find a solution to that problem. And so I love that this. Teaching growth mindset for math is just going to help transfer that skill into all the other areas. And [00:08:00] you were mentioning their confidence being built up. Again, that confidence that they get because they now understand math and they can deal with that challenge, they'll take that confidence onto other things.

And, who knows what they can create or what they can learn or do because they have that. And the other thing that you had mentioned about the ages, I wanted to make sure the audience knew that seventh grade is your, your top age. Because some of the people, you know, since this is about teenagers, a lot of times some of the parents have teenagers.

But I'm guessing that either, you know, some younger kids, you have younger kids in your family too. If you're an educator, you know, this is to let families know, you know, the families that you're working with or, you know, I, when I talked to Erin, I said as a grandparent if I heard about this, and I think there's, I'm sure there's grandparents who listen to this too, that I would wanna.

I would wanna purchase this for my grandchild, you know, to help my [00:09:00] kids who maybe don't have the extra money to do some of these things, I would be like, oh, I'd be glad to do this as a gift to help my grandchild to like math or to help them with their math anxiety. So really whoever's listening to this can find someone or know someone that this would be good for.

Mina Neuberg: Thank you. And you know, price point, I'm glad you bring it up because we really work on having a price point that's affordable. So the program is $99 a month, and so it really makes it so, you know, session's about $25, which for such a small group tutoring is really a value. And we also have a social mission, so we've never turned away anyone due to an inability to pay.

So anyone who reaches out and needs, needs support, we will be there to support them. I think our feeling is that. This is a, the, is there's a big opportunity for building competence in math and the transition that has to so many other things. And I think this really overlaps with the work that you're doing, Cynthia, you know, when we think about what builds strength and resilience [00:10:00] and helps us feel less anxious in the future, it's the a DF kind of the power of yet.

I don't know how to do this yet. I am scared of doing this right now, but it's something that if I work at, I will be able to achieve. And I think that's the foundation that I'm so glad to be here. 'cause it's so hard to describe that on a website or in a marketing brochure to really be able to communicate that it's not about the math skills.

It's not about the skill and drill. It's not about how quick you can do your multiplication tables. Two things. It's one, it's building. If we think about math, math is really like a brick wall. And you're right that our, our program is for kids in grades two through seven. So age is about seven to 13 and.

If we think about it, if those, that skillset isn't really kind of solidified in these early years. It's like you're building a brick wall that has a bunch of holes in its foundation. And so we really see this as a foundational time to address. Anxiety math, anxiety, and kind of development of perseverance and grit?

[00:11:00] I think, you know, a statistic that we really look at is, is kind of feelings on math for kids as they get older. We see that in third grade you have 70% of kids say they love math and by the time they're in 11th grade, that number dropped about 40%. Mm-hmm. So. When we think about that drop, some of it is that math just gets hard.

Absolutely. But a big part of it is that feeling of anxiety that comes from something being hard and the discomfort that comes from something being hard and the practice that it's really important to get to be okay with that discomfort. Be okay with that feeling in your stomach that you don't know what you're going to do, and that you really have the but, but you have the skills and the wherewithal to figure it out.

Cynthia: Oh, I love that too, because one of the mindsets that I teach about that creates anxiety is intolerance to uncertainty. Mm-hmm. And so if you are intolerant to something that you don't know, and we don't know the future ever, we don't know what the next day's gonna be like, we don't know what that classroom's gonna be like.

We don't know what the next math test is [00:12:00] gonna be like. We don't. We don't know for sure. We can't know for sure. And if you have an intolerance to that, you are intolerant of a lot of things in the world. It's, it's can be very paralyzing. And so I love that you would be teaching that. But it, but about math and like, again, again, it would transfer other things in people's lives and I love that because we do have to do things when we're uncomfortable.

And I think I have. I don't know how many episodes on, you know, doing things even when we're uncomfortable because that is what we have to do. You know, there's all the cliches about, you know, life happens outside the comfort zone or whatever. But it's true, like if we just stay where everything feels good, we're not really gonna go anywhere.

And so I love that. This makes me hopeful for myself that I can still feel good about math and I can do it. I've often thought about just taking a math class just to prove to myself now that I do have a growth [00:13:00] mindset. 'cause I think, you know, I was more fixed back in the day that I. I think I could get a confidence about it that I'd be like, oh, well of course I can do this.

Like, why would I think that I couldn't? I've been able to figure out everything else that I've wanted to figure out why not this one thing? So I, I love that that you're doing that, and I love that. I didn't know that this existed, but I so glad that it's, it's around for people to do. 

Okay. Well, I love this Wonder Math program, and you have a gift for my audience today. 

Mina Neuberg: I do, Cynthia. Yeah. I would love for everybody in the audience to try Wonder Mask you can just go to wonder mask.com and put in the coupon cone 

and what we found is that people who try Wonder Mask really love it and we, you will start to see results in your kids and even just doing four weeks. And so we'd love to offer that to all your listeners and families. Oh 

Cynthia: my gosh. I wish my kids were old. My grandkids were old enough to get started on this because this sounds so [00:14:00] amazing.

But I know I would've loved to have had this for my own children. Especially my son, but my daughter too. She made it through math. Okay. But she never liked it. He was like, failing. And I would say to the teacher, what are we gonna do about this? And they were like, well, he is not failing enough. You know, like.

You know, as if failing. I'm like, what is enough? Like, it's, it's a bad grade. Like we need to get this fixed. So and I didn't have in my town I didn't have any opportunities and of course there wasn't online things then, so I couldn't even have done this. But I wish there would've been a thing like this that could have helped him to, to just think differently about math and to understand math better.

I mean, it is such an important skill and I don't want anyone to go through. Their adult life, like being worried that the PTA is gonna ask them to look at the money because it's like, oh my gosh, I don't wanna, you know, I just hate that so much because I am a smart person and I think it just makes me look like I'm not smart when, when I, you know, shy [00:15:00] away from the math stuff.

And so I'm glad that you're remedying that for young people so that they don't have to grow up and experience that and just do better in school. Like, math is so important and, you know, STEM careers are so important and they all in involve math and we want kids to go into those careers and so they need to feel confident in math.

I. 

Mina Neuberg: Yeah, I, I have to add like my little secret that's kind of part of this, I think for me also having three daughters and is that I feel really strongly about women's financial independence. Yes. And I feel like, you know, when we, and I think definitely less now than when I was younger, but when we say particularly to girls, you know, don't worry about it.

You don't need to worry about the math. It makes it. Too easy for us to rely on other people to kind of figure out our finances for us or to be in charge of our finances, and I just have seen too many cases of women being. [00:16:00] Stuck in situations that they want to make a change from. But you have to have a, a comfort with math, a comfort with numbers, a comfort with finances to be able to do that.

And so I feel really strongly that by laying the foundation for, of course, the discomfort, but also just feeling like, yeah, I'm a math person. I can figure out my finances, my taxes, what, what is my burn rate? You know, what are, what is a good investment opportunity for me? It's math. Confidence as a kid leads to financial independence.

I think as adults, and I think for women who have maybe had, you know, more flexibility in that, in certain circumstances in the past, it is too easy to give us a pass. That in the end bites us in the butt. And so my mm-hmm. Feeling is that by strengthening that confidence and that know-how as children, it puts us in better positions as we get older and our life circumstances change.

Cynthia: Oh, that is so [00:17:00] good. Yeah. Let that Actually, we didn't put it together with my math, an anxiety, but my first husband totally controlled the money. I just got an allowance and I was making more money than he was, but I was just handing my paycheck over to him and having him do all the stuff 'cause I didn't like it or he didn't wanna do it and it wasn't a good situation.

And luckily because I made more, I was able to get out of that situation. But yeah, I could see where that could be really detrimental if I, wasn't the one making more money. 'cause that's actually not what happens usually. So I'm just, yeah, I, that is so interesting. I never put that together, but I think there was some because I wasn't comfortable, I just let someone else take over.

So thank you for that. I had a, I had an epiphany about my life. 

Mina Neuberg: Yeah. I feel like, you know, I, I feel. That, that's actually really motivating to me. Mm-hmm. And I'm [00:18:00] surprised by how much. Kind of those choices or those things that we see really early on, they just have that butterfly ripple effect. And 

Cynthia: yeah, 

Mina Neuberg: I've realized in, in speaking to different women who are kind of looking for financial dependence or put, put themselves in situations where they have fewer choices, a lot of it has to do with earlier decisions that were based on a math anxiety or based on the desire to just like let somebody else handle it.

But mm-hmm. I think you're right that the buildup that happens around that can ultimately. Be debilitating. Yeah. For kind of our life choices. And so for me also really having that strength to say, yeah, this is something I'm in charge of. This is something I'm comfortable with, even at a really young age.

I think it builds on itself and helps to take, take us in different paths. 

Cynthia: Hmm. Well, my audience, wouldn't that be amazing If you could at least, you know, give them some confidence and, just get them out of this math anxiety. 'cause it really does have a ripple effect into adulthood and we don't need to have that. So, Mina, [00:19:00] thank you so much for being here. This is so fun to find out about this program and I hope everyone takes advantage. 

Mina Neuberg: Thanks Cynthia. Thank you so much for having me today.

Cynthia: Sure.