Teaching Our Kids Real-Life Math

By Shelly Bokman

First it’s addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Then we move on to algebra, geometry, calculus, and trigonometry. All great stuff. But most of our kids are not being taught how they will actually use all this in their everyday lives: It’s called consumer math. It’s practical, day-to-day math that every child will need as an adult. Since the mathematical processes used for consumer math are taught in elementary school, most high schools don’t offer a separate course in consumer math. So as parents, it falls to us to be sure that our children have these skills.

Take the opportunity to spend some time with your pre-teens and teens and talk about how you use math in your everyday life. You don’t need a textbook; just involve your child in all the mathematical processes that you use each day and probably don’t even think about.

• Grocery shopping. Reading, adding and comparing prices. Expiration dates, coupons and prices per unit.

• Clothes shopping. Calculating sales prices in your head, figuring discounts, buying from a catalog or online, using a charge card or a layaway plan.

• Managing a household. Budgeting, paying bills. How a mortgage works, reading utility bills and calculating consumption. Homeowners insurance, mortgage insurance or renters insurance.

• Buying and maintaining a car. Used cars vs. new cars. How a car is financed. Reading an odometer, computing gas mileage, average speed and travel time. Computing costs of repairs. Auto insurance.

• Working with food. Counting calories, fat grams or carbohydrates. Using nutrition information. Changing recipe yields, timing food preparation.

• Home improvement. Comparing prices for furniture or appliances. Calculating perimeter and area to determine materials needed (paint, wallpaper, carpet, grass seed, etc.). Comparing costs of materials and calculating total costs of a project.

• Traveling. Reading a map, estimating distances. Renting a car, parking expenses, time zones and exchanging currency.

• Budgeting money. Finding average income. Preparing, adjusting and balancing a budget.

• Banking and investing. Calculating simple interest and compound interest. Reconciling a checking account. Stock market mathematics, earning dividends and evaluating profits and losses.

• Paying taxes. Reading a tax table, calculating sales tax. Property taxes.

• Earning money. Wages, overtime, tips, piecework, salary, commission. Net pay and payroll taxes.

I bet you didn’t realize how many ways you use math every single day. Your child doesn’t either. Take the extra time to show them how they, too, will use math as they grow up. Help them make a budget for their allowance. Let them actually write out the checks for your bills one month (with your signature, of course) so they see where all the money goes. Even if you already know the answer, go through the process with your child of calculating whether new carpet or tile would be more cost effective for your family room. With gas prices at record highs, you can figure out if it is cheaper to drive or fly to Grandma’s house in southern California this summer. There are several online stock simulation programs where your child can pretend to buy real stocks and watch their progress daily.

Make it fun, make it real. Not only will your child acquire the consumer math skills that they will need in life, but you may see a new interest in math once it becomes relevant to real life.