Nice Moments in Parenting

The boy comes over to me with his homework paper and hands it to me. It’s math homework. At the top is a picture of a train with 11 cars and the boy has numbered them accordingly. Underneath the train is written “5+5=10”; presumably as an example for how to use the cars in the train to help with the addition. The boy has crossed this out and drawn an arrow to another spot where he wrote “5+6=11”.

He then says “Dad, this is wrong. There are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 cars here and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 cars here and that makes 11, not 10. Also, I don’t get the question at the bottom.”

So the boy thinks the equation is supposed to match the cars in the train, but it doesn’t- so he’s right. But he’s wrong because “5+5” does, in fact, equal 10. I know math is different nowadays, but it can’t be that different. So I take some time to explain that the train is just there to help with adding and I demonstrate it like someone would use there fingers to help with addition. After initially sticking to his guns, he finally agrees and asks, “So I don’t have to cross that out?” I shake my head and he takes the paper away and erases his “correction.”.

He then returns and asks me about the question at the bottom. The question is “What pattern do you see in the sums above?” The “sums above” are all answers to math problems where a number is added to itself, e.g. “1+1”, “4+4”, “7+7”. The answer is obvious to me, but I can’t just tell it to him.

I begin by saying “Well, what do all the numbers have in common?”

“They’re all less than 14?” he asks hopefully.

I point to one of the problems that reads “9+9” (he got the right answer) and say “Nope.”

“Oh yeah, there’s 16 too” he points to “8+8” and corrects himself. He thinks for a couple more seconds and then says “Uhhh, they’re all doubles?”

Pretty sure that he means all the problems involve adding a number to itself, I answer “Yes, but that’s not it. The question is about your answers. What else?”

Now he gets a little frustrated and furrows his brow. Then he gets distracted by his sister. I give him a moment, figuring he’s puzzling it out. Finally, his attention returns to the homework, but he doesn’t have any other ideas.

“What numbers are missing in the answers?” I ask.

Then the light bulb goes on and he gets a smile on his face. “OH! They’re all EVEN numbers.”

I returned his smile, tousled his hair and handed him the paper. He wrote his answer down:

“Ther an all even numbers.”

A parent’s work is never done.