J. Michael Shaughnessy, NCTM's president could not have summed it up any better than he did in December's NCTM Summing It Up article called Support for Parents and Families: Helping your Math Students. Shaughnessy's article diiscusses what to tell parents when their child asks them for math help that they are unable to do themselves. The biggest red flag that could be thrown out there is the comment "I don't know. I was never any good at math myself." Shaughnessy actually addressed this type of response and the "math gene" as some people believe they either "have or don't have" in the October issue of Summing It Up.
The three things Shaunessy reecommends that educators tell these parents are as follows:
1) Remember, mathematics is important, and we can all do it.
2) Work together as a team with your child—don’t show (them) how to do it.
3) Investigate the NCTM resources that can provide assistance when helping your children with their math work.
Personally, I think that if you sit down with your child and show them that we do not always know all of the answers to every problem at hand, but we CAN research and utilize valuable resources to investigate a solution, I think this is a very valuable lesson. I don't know about anyone else, but I can tell you that I have had to look some solutions up myself or spend a day or two thinking about it before I can fully explain a particular situation. By making it a learning process for both the child and the parent, I believe the parent is setting a better example than some parents who may know how to do the problem and just give the solution to thier child.
http://www.nctm.org/about/content.aspx?id=27223
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