[charlieflowers]

I'd love to pick your brain on something. My 5th grade daughter has math anxiety, picked up believe it or not in 2nd grade. As far as I can tell, her actual ability is average or slightly above. But her self-esteem is on the line for every problem, so she won't relax long enough to actually think ... she grasps for the fastest "formula" from rote memory, and if that isn't right, she is distressed.

I need some insightful advice on how to help her out of this mindset. I've googled and looked at books, but there's a lot of regurgitated crap out there blocking me from finding the good insights.

[tokenadult]

That's a good question. Did you see the other links from the bottom of the link I posted above? I usually suggest to parents that they read those in numerical order,

1) http://www.epsiloncamp.org/ProblemsversusExercises.php

2) http://www.epsiloncamp.org/RepetitionPractice.php

and

3) http://www.epsiloncamp.org/LearningMathematics.php

to lay a foundation for their own thinking in communicating with their children. Please allow me to ponder this question overnight in my time zone and maybe I'll come up with more specifics that can arise in a future HN thread or by personal email. (I'm really tired this evening, after cloudy and stormy weather all day, so I'm not sure I can do your question justice at the moment.) Thanks for asking.