You can still absolutely support your child's algebra without ever once finding a common denominator! You can support your teen's calculus learning even if you don't know what a derivative is.
Repeat after me: provided your child has a teacher, it IS NOT A PARENT'S JOB to do the math homework.
Not your job.
Not your job.
Not your job.
Your attitude can facilitate learning even if your own knowledge of the math is rusty or altogether absent.
What to do when your child comes to you for help?
Is your child sobbing or shouting with frustration?
If yes, you direct a break. Perhaps the kid is hangry, exhausted, pent-up! Food, sleep, and movement have to come before math. Time outside is magic. Go outside with your kid and move your bodies together. If you're math phobic, you're going to need this exercise to access your zen and allow your own anxieties to exist without giving up the ship to your fear.
Meditate! Let your feelings come up. Watch them like waves in the ocean or clouds in the sky. Feel for the physical sensations they bring to your body. Make some space for your own fears and anxiety to live. Extend them love and welcome. Ask them to take a step to the side so that you can help your child for a minute.
Once all is calm in you and your child, sit down again.
Be curious. Ask your child to explain what she DOES understand. What's the last thing on the page that she knows how to do. Nothing? Go back some pages to the last thing she learned that makes sense. Back it all the way up to something simple. Open up her notes, and greet them with curiosity. What makes sense in the notes? Can we work through an example problem together from class? Go through steps that already exist and build from there.
If you both still don't understand, keep that curious attitude! Seek resources. Is there a textbook? A friend who would help? An online worked example somewhere? Can you check it out together?
Lower the stakes. Maybe you won't get to the answer right now. Maybe it's going to take some more steps and some more days and some more support to unfold this understanding. Your child might say, "but it's due TODAY or THE TEST IS TOMORROW and I'm going to FAIL!" You, mom, dad, grandma -- YOU are the one who can lower the stakes here. Swallow your own fear about your child's future and your own attachment to your child's A+ report card and remind your child: failing one assignment is not failing at life. Your love is unflappable. You know your child is intelligent, and you respect the process of bumps in the road it takes to learn and grow.
Coach communication.
"Would you like me to email your teacher to let her know you couldn't finish, or would you like to send that email yourself?"
"When are you going to go to your teacher for help tomorrow" (In times that aren't housebound) or "When are your teacher's online office hours?" (Where that is available).
Teach your child that it's ok to get stuck and that teachers don't expect immediate perfection. That we'd be out of our jobs if this were easy and instantaneous stuff. That we WANT to know when kids are struggling, and it's absolutely wonderful when kids show us the cracks.
If your child has a math teacher, you don't need to teach your child math. The best support you can give is strategies for self-advocacy (how to ask for help).
Empathize thoughtfully. It's absolutely great to say, "I don't understand this yet either, but I'm glad we're learning it together!" And it's absolutely ok to tell stories of your own failure, of your own feelings, and of your own journey.
What isn't ok is to reinforce the "good-at-math" vs. "bad-at-math" dichotomy -- no matter which side you feel you fall on. What isn't ok is to freak out and let fear and inadequacy or frustration and pride guide the conversation with your child.
When I empathize with my students, I talk a lot about EASE vs. EFFORT. I tell them, everyone experiences ease in some places and effort in others, and while we may find ease more pleasant than challenge, one is not inherently better than the other. I grew up with ease in math and effort in reading. Despite lifelong effort in reading, I am literate! I read books! And despite ease in math, I had this habit of failing my first test of each year spectacularly, then learning how to learn from each new teacher and building better skills from there. Some kids need to hear the story about how I failed a class in college during my year abroad. "But it wasn't your fault!" they say, when they hear the full story. No, it wasn't -- but who cares? I still failed! Big fat F! Had to take it again when I got home. DID take it again! Understood it even better for the re-take. Hurt like heck for a little while, but was absolutely fine in the end.
Refrain from comparison. It's so freaking hard. I compare my kids to each other all the time. It's such a natural impulse. So letting each child be herself is a practice. Practice, practice, practice.
One of the most harmful parental behaviors I see is greeting a child's test scores with, "What did [so and so] get?" Or reinforcing the idea that one sibling is good-at-math and the other is bad-at-math. Let your child know that you're with her exactly where she is right now. That you love her as she is. That you're proud of her for learning.
Your child is enough.
You are enough.
It's ok to be learning together.
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