If your child goes quiet, makes excuses or starts to cry the moment times tables come up, your first instinct is probably to worry about them. But here is something worth sitting with: new research from 2026, drawing on work from the University of Cambridge and National Numeracy, suggests the anxiety might not have started with your child at all.
77% of children who experience high maths anxiety actually have normal to high mathematical ability. What holds them back is not a lack of aptitude. It is the emotional signal they are picking up from the adults around them.
When I looked into this research, that figure stopped me in my tracks. Because it reframes the whole conversation. This is not about children who cannot do maths. It is about children who have learned, often from adults they trust, that maths is something to be afraid of.
The Numbers Are Uncomfortable But Important
The same body of research finds that 18% of UK primary school teachers report high maths anxiety themselves, and 23% of parents feel genuinely anxious helping with maths homework. That is roughly one in five teachers and nearly one in four parents carrying real stress into maths moments with children.
I want to be clear: this is not a criticism of parents or teachers. Maths anxiety is a recognised psychological response, and it is incredibly common. A lot of adults went through a school system where being wrong in maths felt humiliating, where speed was treated as the same thing as intelligence, and where no one really explained the why behind the numbers. Of course that leaves a mark.
The problem is that children are extraordinarily perceptive. They pick up on hesitation, on a sigh before sitting down to help with homework, on the words "I was never good at maths either." Those signals, repeated over time, tell a child that maths is a domain where failure is expected. And children who expect to fail tend not to try.
What This Looks Like in Real Life
From the schools and families we speak to at XTables Champions, a pattern comes up again and again. A parent sits down to help with times tables. They blank on 7x8. They feel embarrassed. The child sees their parent struggle and feels the tension in the room. The homework session ends badly. Next time, the child finds a reason to avoid it.
Or a teacher who is not a maths specialist is asked to cover a numeracy lesson. They deliver it technically correctly but without enthusiasm or confidence. The children sense the lack of certainty and disengage.
None of this is deliberate. None of it makes anyone a bad parent or a bad teacher. But it is a cycle, and cycles can be broken.
As our founder Gal Darrash puts it, "We built XTables Champions because we kept hearing the same thing from parents: I want to help my child, I just don't want my own nerves to get in the way."
Breaking the Cycle: What Actually Helps
The most important thing an anxious adult can do is remove themselves from the position of being the teacher. That sounds counterintuitive, but stay with me.
Children do not need their parent or teacher to be a maths expert. They need practice that feels safe, repeatable and low-stakes. When the learning happens through a structured, engaging platform rather than through a fraught homework session, it takes the pressure off everyone. The adult does not have to perform confidence they do not feel. The child gets consistent, calm repetition without absorbing anyone else's stress.
Beyond that, a few things can genuinely shift the dynamic at home. Talking openly about your own maths experiences helps, not to catastrophise, but to normalise struggle. Saying "I found this tricky too, let's figure it out together" is very different from "I was always rubbish at maths." One invites curiosity, the other closes the door.
It also helps to separate the child's experience from your own. Just because you found times tables hard at school does not mean your child will. Children's brains are not our brains. The research backs this up: most children with maths anxiety are entirely capable. They just need the anxiety out of the room.
A Note for Primary Schools
The 18% figure for teacher maths anxiety deserves its own conversation. Non-specialist teachers covering maths lessons are in a genuinely difficult position. They are expected to project confidence in a subject where they may feel uncertain, and that pressure rarely comes with adequate support.
What we keep hearing from schools in our early conversations is that the request is not for teachers to suddenly become maths experts. It is for tools that do the heavy lifting, so teachers can focus on encouragement and engagement rather than trying to recall methods they half-remember from their own schooling.
That is a reasonable ask, and it is one schools should feel able to make. Structured, curriculum-aligned platforms that children can use independently in class or at home mean teachers are not left alone with their own uncertainty. The structure holds, even when confidence wobbles.
The Takeaway
Maths anxiety in children is real, it is common, and new 2026 research confirms that a significant chunk of it flows downward from adults. But the same research makes something else very clear: ability is not the issue. Most of these children can do the maths. The block is emotional, not cognitive, and emotional blocks can shift.
The goal is not to become a maths person overnight. The goal is to stop the signal of anxiety reaching your child during their most formative numeracy years. That is entirely achievable, and it does not require anyone to pretend they love algebra.
Want to Take the Pressure Off Times Tables at Home?
XTables Champions is designed specifically to support children with times tables practice in a way that does not depend on parental confidence or teacher expertise. If you are a parent who worries that your own maths nerves are affecting your child, or a school looking for something that supports anxious learners and under-confident teachers alike, I would love to hear from you.
Visit xtableschampions.com to find out more, or get in touch directly. We are a young company and we genuinely have time to talk.