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"  When I flipped it over and saw the word &amp;quot;math,&amp;quot; I lost interest immediately. Why would I want to play a math game? I&amp;#039;m a writer. Where are my crosswords, my word searches, my anagrams? Where are my letters? I tossed the game that someone had sent to me onto the kitchen counter, figuring that I&amp;#039;d find someone to give it to later. It&amp;#039;s a wonder I can add at all. I don&amp;#039;t hate math, really. I was pretty good at it in school, so much so that I actually scored higher on math than in the verbal section of the SAT&amp;#039;s. But my husband, who has watched my face contort and sweat as I struggle to teach my fourth grader how put thousandths into fractions, says that I shouldn&amp;#039;t admit that. &amp;quot;Hey, I wonder how many words in the English language begin and end with &amp;quot;th&amp;quot; like that!&amp;quot; I cheerily offered to my 10-year-old last night when he asked me for help on his math homework. He sighed, and left to find his father for help instead. I am a word girl. But later when I looked for the math game, dauntingly entitled &amp;quot;Personal Trainer: Math,&amp;quot; it was gone. Then I heard video game music that didn&amp;#039;t sound like Mario Kart (for once) coming from the other room. My son had loaded the math trainer onto his handheld game console, and was already racing to beat his best score. I asked him to show me what he was doing. &amp;quot;Okay, I already did the Daily Test,&amp;quot; he explained, &amp;quot;so I&amp;#039;ll do this one.&amp;quot; He clicked on something called the &amp;quot;Kageyama Method,&amp;quot; which instantly made my eyes glaze over. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ll do multiplication,&amp;quot; he said, and I snapped out of it and tried to concentrate on what he was doing. Soon, he was rapidly writing answers to random multiplication problems and wracking up his score. When he finished, he asked, &amp;quot;Wanna try?&amp;quot; Multiplication tables? Um, nope. But I figured I ought to try it out so I could understand why my child liked this math game. I grabbed the console and began writing answers to such problems as 9 x 7 and 8 x 8 as fast as possible. When I finished, the game told me I was in third place. I think I had a nightmare like this in elementary school.  I let him gloat, and gave him back the game. He wandered off, walking and writing math answers at the same time. I can barely do it sitting down. And apparently, I&amp;#039;m not alone. A new survey of 400 kids between the ages of 9 and 14 found that many children think that math is the hardest subject at school. In fact, about 1 in 5 kids believe they&amp;#039;re more likely to grow up to be a famous athlete, actress or singer than to get A&amp;#039;s and B&amp;#039;s in math. Worse, many think they won&amp;#039;t even need math when they grow up. Ah, but they will, and not just when they&amp;#039;re checking their kids&amp;#039; math homework. Of the 400 parents surveyed, 86% said that math is important to their careers, even though more than half had once thought they&amp;#039;d never use the math they&amp;#039;d learned in school. I brought this up with my other son, the one who&amp;#039;d sooner pick music and art over multiplication tables. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s what calculators are for!&amp;quot; he protested. I tried to explain why you need to understand the basics behind math problems to even use a calculator in the first place. Then I told him about the study, and how 1 in 5 adults had also thought they&amp;#039;d be more likely to end up famous than to use math as grown-ups. &amp;quot;But you are famous...sort of,&amp;quot; he retorted. &amp;quot;And when do you use math? You&amp;#039;re an author.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;To add up my royalty checks,&amp;quot; I replied, and soon, he stopped arguing. My fourth grader is recharging his Nintendo DS so he can play more math games later. Me? I still prefer crosswords, but I think I&amp;#039;ll try to save face by beating his Kageyama - or whatever -- score tonight. You don&amp;#039;t have to like math to want to be Number One. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a22210/math-games/>