Maths and Me: What a Positive Relationship Really Means

Most of us will remember the feeling of sitting in a maths lesson with either quiet confidence or a creeping sense of unease. If you ask people how they feel about Maths, they will rarely be ambivalent. For some, numbers and patterns bring calm and satisfaction. For others, they stir tension or the desire to run and hide. Whether we realise it or not, each of us carries a relationship with maths, one that has been shaped by experiences, people, and emotions over time. In many ways, maths is like a language. We can become fluent, hesitant, or fearful depending on how it has been taught and how we have been made to feel.

Developing a positive relationship with maths is not about simply being good at it, though. A positive relationship with maths is not about constant enjoyment or effortless success, either. It is about feeling capable and curious, even when faced with challenge.

Understanding Our Relationship with Maths

A relationship with maths is built from the earliest moments of school and often reinforced at home. It is influenced by how teachers respond to mistakes, how parents talk about their own confidence, and even by cultural attitudes towards being 'a maths person'. Over time, these experiences create and solidify beliefs, not just about maths itself but about the learner’s own identity.

When these early experiences are positive, children tend to see maths as something they can make sense of. They feel supported when mistakes happen and recognise that effort leads to progress. However, when feedback is overly critical, or when adults express their own discomfort with maths, children can begin to internalise those emotions. Gradually, confidence is replaced by caution, and curiosity by fear.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge found that maths anxiety, for example, can emerge as early as age six, with various reasons behind its development. They found that children may experience maths anxiety because of classroom pressures or fear of embarrassment, while others may develop it in relation to their parents, who are themselves uncomfortable with maths (Carey et al., 2018). The emotional association with maths is powerful. Once the idea that maths is difficult or frightening takes root, it can influence every future interaction with the subject.

In fact, a UK-wide survey of over 1,000 teachers, 59 per cent said that maths anxiety was the single greatest obstacle to learning mathematics (GL Assessment, 2024). This reflects how common negative relationships with maths can be, and how important it is to address them early and empathetically.

Frustration, shame, boredom, and even anger are also noteworthy emotions a person can experience within their relationship with maths, and these feelings can be just as influential. While anxiety often receives the most attention, it is rarely the only emotion that shapes how someone approaches maths.

Frustration can build when a learner repeatedly feels stuck or misunderstood. Shame may surface after public mistakes or comparisons with others. Some learners feel boredom when tasks seem disconnected from real life, while others experience anger when they believe the subject is unfairly difficult or that they have been labelled as someone who finds maths challenging. Each of these emotions affects motivation, self-belief, and willingness to persist.

Recent research has shown that emotional responses to maths are multidimensional. In a large-scale European study, researchers found that learners who experienced high levels of frustration and low levels of enjoyment performed significantly worse in mathematics, regardless of their cognitive ability (OECD, 2021). Similarly, studies from the Centre for Neuroscience in Education at Cambridge suggest that emotions like embarrassment or shame activate similar areas of the brain as anxiety, influencing memory and concentration during maths tasks (Carey et al., 2018).

Understanding these emotional layers is crucial. If we only focus on reducing anxiety, we risk overlooking the quiet disengagement caused by boredom or the defensive behaviour that comes from shame. Building a positive relationship with maths means creating space for all emotions, recognising them as signals rather than barriers. When learners are encouraged to talk about how they feel, whether nervous, annoyed, or proud, they begin to see that emotion is a part of learning, not separate from it.

Why Some Relationships Become Negative

Negative relationships with maths usually have emotional roots rather than intellectual ones.

Common causes include:

• Early negative experiences: Repeated failure or embarrassment in class can create lasting avoidance.

• Performance pressure: High-stakes testing or timed conditions can heighten stress and block reasoning.

• Fixed beliefs: The myth that mathematical ability is innate leads to learned helplessness.

• Stereotypes: Girls and disadvantaged pupils often face social messages that may undermine confidence (GL Assessment, 2024).

• Lack of relevance: When maths feels abstract or disconnected from real life, motivation drops.

What a Positive Relationship Looks Like

A positive relationship with maths is centered upon emotional steadiness, belief in personal growth, and comfort with uncertainty.

Learners with a healthy relationship with maths tend to:

• Approach challenges with curiosity rather than fear.

• See mistakes as natural and useful.

• Believe that effort and strategy matter more than innate talent.

• Feel calm and capable, even when unsure.

In classrooms, this often shows up as persistence, willingness to explain thinking, and joy in spotting patterns. At home, it might appear as a child who excitedly measures ingredients for a recipe, estimates time on a journey with eagerness, or talks openly about a tricky homework problem.

Positive maths relationships are supported by both mindset and emotion. Carol Dweck’s research on growth mindset has shown that when learners believe intelligence can develop, they tend to be more resilient, better able to cope with challenges and setbacks, and under many (though not all) conditions, perform better in maths (Dweck, 2006). Yeager et al. (2019) demonstrate that growth mindset interventions can improve academic performance as well, while further studies have found that growth mindset is also associated with reductions in anxiety and greater enjoyment of subjects (Kirkland, 2020).

Confidence and curiosity grow when learners are given safe spaces to explore without judgment. In fact, in one National Numeracy report, many adult learners describe gaining confidence and seeing how mathematics relates to real-life situations as key to their progress, rather than simply mastering exam-style tasks (National Numeracy, 2022).

Developing Positive Relationships at Home

Home is often the first place where a child learns how to feel about maths. Small comments and reactions from parents or carers can carry surprising weight. When adults say 'I was never good at maths,' children can hear, 'Some people just aren’t good at it,' reinforcing fixed mindsets.

A longitudinal study by Loughborough University found that parents’ maths anxiety is linked to lower numeracy scores in their children by the age of eight, even after accounting for parental education and income (Loughborough University, 2025). What matters is not whether parents are skilled mathematicians but whether they project calm curiosity when maths appears.

Families can help by:

• Talking positively about everyday maths, such as shopping, cooking, sports statistics, and budgeting.

• Praising effort and strategies instead of correct answers.

• Sharing their own learning experiences, especially when they find something difficult.

• Playing games that involve numbers, logic, or problem-solving.

It is not about extra worksheets or timed drills. It is about shaping the emotional climate around maths. When children see adults approach mathematical problems without panic, they learn that it is safe to explore.

Developing Positive Relationships in School

Schools have an equally strong influence. Teachers shape learners’ mathematical identities through feedback, expectations, and classroom atmosphere. Effective teaching of mathematics is not only about the curriculum but also about emotional safety. Learners must feel that mistakes are part of the process. Jo Boaler’s work on mathematical mindsets has shown that classrooms encouraging exploration, discussion, and collaboration can lead to deeper understanding and higher confidence (Boaler, 2016).

Teachers can nurture positive relationships by:

• Using open-ended questions that invite reasoning rather than memorisation.

• Celebrating multiple methods of solving problems.

• Giving time for reflection and self-explanation.

• Normalising uncertainty and temporary confusion.

• Encouraging peer talk, where learners explain thinking to each other.

When teachers model vulnerability, such as admitting when something is tricky or showing how they think through errors, pupils begin to see that uncertainty is a natural part of learning.

Many schools now embed emotional check-ins in maths lessons, which is a small step that can be taken which can have a huge impact. Even simple reflections like “How did this activity make you feel?” help pupils develop awareness of their emotions and regulate them more effectively.

Reframing Negative Experiences

Reframing a negative maths relationship is possible at any age. It begins with recognising the emotional element and rebuilding a sense of control.

1. Acknowledge the emotion: Avoid pretending anxiety does not exist. Simply naming it helps reduce its power. Teachers and parents can talk openly about feeling nervous and demonstrate calm responses.

2. Replace avoidance with small exposure: Gradual, low-stakes encounters with maths rebuild familiarity. This could be solving a daily puzzle, reading a graph, or watching a video that explains a concept in an accessible way.

3. Focus on process, not speed: Praising quickness can fuel anxiety. Instead, value the quality of thinking. When learners believe effort matters more than instant success, performance improves and anxiety drops.

4. Connect maths to real life: When maths is experienced through meaningful contexts, such as cooking, sports, art, or environmental projects, it becomes tangible and enjoyable. Real-world relevance helps learners re-engage.

5. Encourage metacognition: Invite learners to reflect. What helped you solve that? What could you try next time? Such reflection builds awareness of strategies and increases confidence in problem-solving.

6. Create supportive environments: In schools, teachers can use warm-ups that promote discussion, such as number talks or estimation tasks. At home, families can replace “Have you finished your maths homework?” with “What did you discover today?” Subtle language shifts reshape beliefs.

7. Foster emotional regulation: Simple mindfulness exercises can reduce stress before maths tasks. Breathing slowly, visualising success, or reframing mistakes as temporary helps learners calm their physiological response to anxiety.

Towards a Healthier Future with Maths

A positive relationship with maths does not emerge overnight. It grows through repeated experiences of calm success and supportive challenge. It involves teachers who see learners as thinkers, parents who model patience, and individuals who believe change is possible. When schools and families work together, attitudes shift. Children who once whispered, 'I can’t do maths,' can begin to say, 'This is hard, but I can figure it out.' That change in language signals the beginning of confidence.

Ultimately, building a healthy relationship with maths is not just about learning arithmetic or algebra. It is about developing agency, persistence, and curiosity. These qualities reach beyond the classroom into how learners approach the world.

At Mindful Maths, we believe that everyone can move towards curiosity rather than fear, compassion rather than judgment, and growth rather than perfection, so that every learner can begin to rebuild a calmer, more confident, and more joyful relationship with maths.

Together, let’s change the way maths feels - for good.

- Mindful Maths