It's not painless and not easy, but there are a few tips which can help. Schwab Learning's newsletter - the source of many good tips for working with kids - recently came up with a short list of things to remember when we're help with Math. It was done by Brian Inglesby, M.A., a school psychologist.

It's no surprise that he asks us to start with our own feelings about math. He reminds us we can set a positive tone or set the stage for anxiety. It's important to remember that we measure things and perform routine calculations just to get through an average day. He then suggests we begin our time together by asking the child to explain what needs to be done: that's how we can support the assurance that she CAN figure this out, and we're just there to do a little hand-holding.

Once we've helped the student get started on the assignment, we can often simply move away with an assurance that we'll be available to check it out once it's done. Where we find errors we can avoid statements and ask questions instead.

Some of the very best suggestions here are the ones we can use to help build habits. We can encourage the child to ask a classmate if he can contact him when he doesn't understand something or when he misses the assignment. We can point out numbers continuously: how many cups of rice we're measuring out, how many miles we're driving, how much gasoline that's using.

Most of us would like to think our kids can tell time and can understand money. That's often wishful thinking. We can ask how much time is left from now until nine o'clock. We can schedule half-hour tasks and ask that a chart be made. We can use a digital clock and then ask that an analog clock be set to match it.

We can verbalize simple percentage to fraction ratios whenever they come up. Even middle school students often cannot make easy conversions of one-fifth, one-fourth, one-third, one-half to 20, 25, 33.3 and 50 percent. Parents tend to assume they can understand money because they like to spend it, when often they cannot even make change for $1 and $5 bills. A bank account is a good idea for even an elementary-school child.

We can maintain a positive relationship with the math teacher and be sure we have a solid understanding of the homework to be done.

We can check the website of the California State Department of Education math standards for the child's grade level. Then we'll know what has to be covered in class during the school year. Being better informed, we can help the child get comfortable with the work load.

Brian Inglesby also refers us to the federal website. The U.S. Department of Education has a web page called Helping Your Child Learn Math.