![The Boy](https://communityreporter.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/story-images/rueey2.jpg)
It can feel scary trusting your child to learn all the stuff life requires. Its very tempting to meddle, and Im not beyond an educational game or even obnoxious cheerful quizzing.
But today the boy went into the garden and gathered some berries. We have black currants, raspberries and strawberries ripening daily.
He came in.with 16 black currants and 17 raspberries and two strawberries.
He wanted to know how much he had in total, so we added up. Then did some subtraction as we ate them together.
This kind of basic math confuses me. Probably caused by my dyslexia, but aggravated by being taught maths too quickly. Not given the chance to really understand before moving on to something else I will again never truly grasp.
Maths later became one of my stronger subjects, in high school I was one of a few students who could work algebraic equations, in till it became a matter of basic math at the end.
I don’t care if my boy knows how to add and subtract, or id he learns his times tables. I never did and my dad who teaches math told me not to bother. In fact he can’t do it either.
But if allowing him a chance to play with numbers offers him deeper understanding then great.