It was the middle of her third-grade year and my daughter couldn't recite the times tables. Her class seemed to be working endlessly on addition and subtraction--with a smattering of multiplication--using bunches of dots, little rods, and word problems. I read the school's literature concerning "hands-on" learning, but I still thought the kids were playing too much and learning too little. I voiced my concerns to other parents and found I wasn't alone.

One dad I know went to his child's Open House and found "2+3 = 5" written on the chalkboard with a big "X" through it. "We don't teach math like this," the teacher said. The man promptly transferred his child to another school. I also heard that fistfights had actually broken out between parents who were educational traditionalists and others who wanted a more progressive approach. So what's a parent with this kind of "math anxiety" to do? I started by talking to my daughter's teacher.

"Should we do flash cards?" I asked.

"If you want to," her teacher replied. "But you might try family math. Maybe games." Games? This did not reassure me.

I investigated family math, however, and discovered a whole new way of looking at math. Family math offered the opportunity to help my kids master math in a friendly and unintimidating way.