--- title: "The Shame of Counting on Fingers | Times Tables Games | XTables Champions" description: "Real parents and teachers speak this week about maths shame at every age, the kids still skip-counting in secondary, and the stories that finally make facts stick." lang: en json-ld: | [ { "name": "XTables Champions", "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "WebSite", "url": "https://xtableschampions.com" }, { "name": "XTables Champions", "logo": "https://qtrypzzcjebvfcihiynt.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/base44-prod/public/68cac2c61c34894625d63273/cae3abbca_logo.png", "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Organization", "url": "https://xtableschampions.com" }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://math-magicians-academy-25d63273.base44.app/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "from the playground maths shame skip counting stories 2026", "item": "https://math-magicians-academy-25d63273.base44.app/from-the-playground-maths-shame-skip-counting-stories-2026" } ] }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "My child knew their times tables last week but seems to have completely forgotten them. Is something wrong?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "This is far more common than most parents realise, and it does not mean something is wrong with your child. Multiplication facts that are learned through repetition alone, without deep understanding, are stored in a fragile way. They can vanish under pressure, after a break, or when the question is phrased differently. The fix is usually not more drilling but building flexible understanding, so your child can reach the same answer by more than one route." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "My child counts on their fingers for times tables. Should I stop them?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Finger counting or skip counting is a valid strategy, and stopping a child from using it without giving them something else to rely on can cause more anxiety than it solves. The goal is to gently build faster, more automatic pathways alongside the existing strategy, not to take it away before a replacement is ready. Many children move on naturally once they feel confident and unpressured." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "I struggled with times tables as a child myself. Am I passing my anxiety on to my child without meaning to?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "It is very possible, and you are not alone in this. Research consistently shows that children pick up on parental anxiety around subjects even without a word being spoken. The most helpful thing you can do is name it honestly to yourself, as one parent did this week, and try to separate your history from your child's. They are on their own path and it does not have to repeat yours." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "My child understands that 3x5=15 but cannot work out what three times something equals fifteen. Why?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "This is a genuine cognitive gap rather than carelessness. Understanding that multiplication is reversible, and that it connects to division, requires a level of number flexibility that many children, especially those with dyscalculia or weaker working memory, need explicit teaching to develop. It is not a sign of low ability. It is a sign that the concept needs to be approached from a different angle." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is it too late to learn times tables if you are a teenager or an adult?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Absolutely not. Several adults and older teenagers shared their stories this week, including a 42-year-old and a 16-year-old, both working through the same gaps with determination. The brain remains capable of building these pathways at any age. What helps most for older learners is removing the shame first, then using low-pressure, meaning-focused methods rather than rote repetition that already failed them once." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "My child shuts down completely when maths gets hard. How do I stop the freeze happening?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The freeze response is a genuine physiological reaction linked to anxiety and the way stress affects working memory. When a child is in that state they genuinely cannot access what they know, not because they have forgotten it but because the anxiety is blocking retrieval. The most effective approach is to reduce the pressure around the moment of answering, which might mean removing timers, allowing more thinking time, or changing the setting entirely. Rebuilding trust that mistakes are safe and normal is the foundation everything else rests on." } } ] } ] --- [ XTables Champions Part of the ESSTA Kids family ](/Welcome) [About Us](/About)[Rewards ](/OurRewards) Tips & Tricks [Games](/Games)Login [ XTables Champions Part of the ESSTA Kids family ](/Welcome) [Learn](/levels-and-progression) [Games](/GamesOverview) [All Games](/GamesOverview)[Connect Four](/connect-four)[Guess Who?](/guess-who)[Times Tables Bingo](/times-tables-bingo)[Snap!](/snap)[Play with Friends](/games/play-with-friends)[Play against Champion](/games/play-against-champion) [Every Learner](/times-tables-for-every-learner) [Adaptive Learning](/adaptive-times-tables-learning) [Schools](/ForSchools) [Lunchtime Clubs](/LunchtimeClubs)[SENCO Support](/SchoolSencoInfo)[Homework Setting](/SchoolHomeworkSetting)[Whole-Class Games](/SchoolWholeClassGames)[Level Matching](/SchoolLevelMatching) [Wellbeing](/wellbeing-and-safeguarding) [Pricing](/pricing) Log In / Sign Up [Back to all articles](/Blog) # The Shame of Counting on Fingers | Times Tables Games 3 July 2026 This week I have been sitting with some voices that feel a little quieter than usual, but honestly no less important. Not the big institutional arguments, not the policy debates. Just people admitting, in their own words, that they are embarrassed, confused, or quietly running out of ideas. Let me bring them to you. ## The shame that follows us for decades I want to start here because it stopped me in my tracks. A 42-year-old man wrote this week, simply and honestly: "I'm 42, multiple high grade degrees and qualifications but don't know my times table and really struggle with basic maths. It gives me a lot of anxiety and a deep sense of shame." And then, separately, a student in Year 11 wrote: "I've struggled with multiplication since I was a kid. I never realised how it would screw me up until now that I'm learning radicals and trigonometry and I'm completely failing. I was actually crying five minutes in." These two people are decades apart in age. They have never met. But they are describing the exact same feeling, word for word almost. That is not a coincidence. That is a pattern. What strikes me reading these is how long the wound stays open. We talk a lot about catching children early, and yes, of course we should. But these voices remind me that the shame is cumulative. Every year it goes unaddressed, it compounds. The 42-year-old with the postgraduate qualifications is not less intelligent. He just never had a way in that worked for him. Neither did the 16-year-old, or the 11th grader who wrote: "I know I sound like an idiot but I'm taking the time to learn this... I've always been ashamed of this since 3rd grade." None of them sound like idiots. They sound like people who deserved a different kind of teaching. ## When it sticks one week and vanishes the next A teacher shared something this week that I suspect a lot of classroom educators will recognise immediately. She wrote about a student who had completely nailed a multiplication lesson: "Two weeks ago she was crushing it. The whole day went smooth. She breezed through her worksheets with almost zero help from me. I genuinely thought she had it down. Then yesterday we revisited it and she had no clue what it was or how to do it." Parents are experiencing the same thing at home. One mum described her daughter like this: "She knows 3x5. But when she's asked what three times something equals fifteen, she doesn't get it. The different order is just too confusing for her. And then division is so rough." This is one of the most common things I hear, and yet it catches everyone off guard every single time. The brain does not store maths facts the way we imagine it does, as if they are filed neatly in alphabetical order. For many children, especially those with dyscalculia, anxiety, or weaker working memory, a fact learned in one direction genuinely does not transfer automatically to the other. It is not forgetting. It is never fully having it in the first place, at least not in a flexible, retrievable way. Retrieval under any kind of pressure, even just a slightly different question format, can trigger the freeze. And once a child freezes, one mum described it painfully well: "She freezes and then can't access what she does know, and then that becomes more evidence to her that she's just bad at it." That cycle, freeze, fail, confirm the story, freeze again, is what we are really trying to break. ## The parents overcompensating for their own past A dad updated his Reddit post this week and it was one of the most honest things I read. He wrote: "I think I am trying too hard on him to get him to memorise this stuff. I struggled with maths and it was attributed to my lack of memorising the times tables. I think I'm trying to over-correct and over-compensate my struggles and being way too heavy on him." I find this kind of self-awareness remarkable, and also quite moving. He caught himself. A lot of parents do not. The pressure flows downhill without anyone meaning it to. A child picks up on a parent's anxiety about maths long before any flashcard comes out. What this dad did, stopping and naming it, is genuinely difficult. And he did it because other parents online were honest with him first. This is exactly why I think this column matters. When one parent says the quiet part out loud, it gives permission to others. You are not a bad parent for having feelings about maths. You are human. ## Stories, characters, and the approaches that nobody was taught to try One voice this week offered something genuinely hopeful. A mum who is also a maths educator wrote about trying story-based methods with her child: "I started building stories around each number, giving them characters and environments. For example, Sixby the Deer gets tangled in 42 vines." I love this not because it is a magic solution, but because it is a reminder that there is more than one road in. Rote repetition is one road. Stories, images, sounds, movement, they are other roads. For some children, they are the only road that is not blocked. A student who found flashcards impossible wrote: "No matter what I do the multiplication tables just cannot stick to my brain. I rely on skip counting with my fingers and it makes me look pathetic." Those are their words, not mine. Skip counting on your fingers is not pathetic. It is a strategy. The goal is to build a bridge from that strategy to something a bit faster, a bit more automatic, with kindness and without the clock. That is exactly the kind of thinking behind XTables Champions. No timers creating panic, no red screens for wrong answers, and a scaffolded approach that meets children where they actually are rather than where we assume they should be. If your child is one of the ones described in these voices this week, and so many children are, I would warmly invite you to take a look and get in touch. We would genuinely love to hear from you. Whatever you are carrying this week, whether it is an 11-year-old still counting on their fingers or your own quiet shame about numbers, you are not alone in it. Not even slightly. ## Frequently Asked Questions My child knew their times tables last week but seems to have completely forgotten them. Is something wrong? My child counts on their fingers for times tables. Should I stop them? I struggled with times tables as a child myself. Am I passing my anxiety on to my child without meaning to? My child understands that 3x5=15 but cannot work out what three times something equals fifteen. Why? Is it too late to learn times tables if you are a teenager or an adult? My child shuts down completely when maths gets hard. How do I stop the freeze happening? ## Ready to help your child? Join thousands of families using XTables Champions to make multiplication click. Get Started Free XTables Champions Game-based times tables for children aged 6 to 11. No timers, no tears. For parents, schools and tutors. Part of ESSTA Kids. #### Platform - [Schools](/ForSchools) - [Levels & Progression](/levels-and-progression) - [Our Programme](/Programme) - [Rewards](/OurRewards) - [Pricing](/pricing) - [About Us](/About) - [Learning Philosophy](/LearningPhilosophy) - [Contact](/Contact) #### Community - [Insights](/Insights) - [For Parents Blog](/Blog) - [Tips & Tricks](/TipsTricks) - [Success Stories](/SuccessStories) - [Events & Competitions](/Events) - [Live Results](/Results) - [Lunchtime Clubs](/LunchtimeClubs) #### ESSTA Kids Expert learning programmes for children who need extra support. [Visit esstakids.com →](https://esstakids.com) © 2026 XTables Champions, An ESSTA Kids Programme. All rights reserved. [Privacy Policy](/PrivacyPolicy)• [Terms & Conditions](/TermsConditions)• [Sitemap](/sitemap.xml) XTables Champions Game-based times tables for children aged 6 to 11. No timers, no tears. For parents, schools and tutors. Part of ESSTA Kids. #### Platform - [Schools](/ForSchools) - [Levels & Progression](/levels-and-progression) - [Our Programme](/Programme) - [Rewards](/OurRewards) - [Pricing](/pricing) - [About Us](/About) - [Learning Philosophy](/LearningPhilosophy) - [Contact](/Contact) #### Community - [Insights](/Insights) - [For Parents Blog](/Blog) - [Tips & Tricks](/TipsTricks) - [Success Stories](/SuccessStories) - [Events & Competitions](/Events) - [Live Results](/Results) - [Lunchtime Clubs](/LunchtimeClubs) #### ESSTA Kids Expert learning programmes for children who need extra support. [Visit esstakids.com →](https://esstakids.com) © 2026 XTables Champions, An ESSTA Kids Programme. All rights reserved. [Privacy Policy](/PrivacyPolicy)• [Terms & Conditions](/TermsConditions)• [Sitemap](/sitemap.xml)