We all want our children to do well in school, but in many cases, they do need help, particularly in mathematics. The natural recourse would be to hire a math tutor for your kid, but this option, while offering a lot of advantages, is not without its disadvantages. Here is a list pros and cons of hiring a math tutor for your kid that comes to mind.
Advantages of getting a math tutor
1. Your child can focus better. The problem with a classroom setting is that there are distractions all around. One teacher cannot really control everything inside a classroom of, say 25 to 30 children. Hiring a math tutor for your kid, on the other hand, provides a one-on-one teaching environment that is far more controllable and therefore makes your child less prone to distractions or disturbances.
2. Math tutors can focus on problem areas. Time constraints, among other things, limits the kind of attention math teachers in school can give your child. A private tutor, on the other hand, can focus on specific areas that your child may be having problems with and help your kid get over that hill.
3. That extra mile. In case your child is already good at math, imagine what he or she could achieve with the added stimulation and motivation that hiring a math tutor for your kid can provide.
4. Enthusiasm can be infectious. Presumably, the math tutor you have hired for your child is passionate about the subject. By spending a lot of time with your child, the tutor’s enthusiasm for math could rub off on him or her and spark a deep interest and fascination with mathematics.
5. Your child can ask questions anytime he/she likes. It’s quite possible that your child is too shy to ask questions in class, and that might make him or her miss out on an important aspect of a lesson. With a private tutor, your child can ask all the questions he/she likes, and that will help greatly in their learning.
6. The confidence and self-esteem boost. The things your child will learn from the math private tutor you’ll hire will make him/her more confident about the subject in general. When a child feels confident about schoolwork, it triggers more creative thought processes and makes learning more complicated processes easier.
7. The homework help. There are times when your child’s math homework is something that even you can’t handle. By hiring a math tutor for your kid, your child will be able to get the help he/she needs to finish the homework.
Disadvantages of hiring a math tutor
1. Dependence. It goes without saying that children who have gotten so used to having a math tutor to help them out will form a dependence that could be a problem if and when that math tutor ends the arrangement and goes away.
2. Lack of development of resiliency skills. With a math tutor to lean on practically all the time, children tend to fail to build the resilience that is essential to their learning.
3. Laziness. This is most especially true when the math tutor does all the thinking and the hard work for your child. This typically happens when a child refuses to cooperate and gives the tutor attitude. Rather than dealing with the attitude, some private math tutors choose to just do the homework themselves.
4. The expense. Hiring a math tutor for your kid costs money, and for some parents, it’s something that might be considered as an unnecessary expense.
5. The risk of being taught the wrong things. This is something that could not really be detected unless you take a closer look or when your child’s math scores in school take a dive despite your child’s best efforts. This is the reason why parents should choose private math tutors for their children very carefully.
6. Tutoring eats up their personal time. Many children resent private tutoring because they believe it takes away from whatever time they have for themselves. After doing work at school all day, some pupils just hate the idea of having to spend more hours at home with a tutor.
7. No guarantee. Hiring a math tutor for your kid doesn’t always produce positive results. Even daily one-on-one tutoring sessions are not a guarantee that your child will pick any math lesson up and do well in school.
If you’re considering hiring a math tutor for your kid, it is very important to weigh the advantages of getting a math tutor against the disadvantages of hiring a math tutor. While the ones listed above are not by any means definitive, I hope they can help you choose between hiring and not hiring a math tutor for your kid.
