Do you understand it?" I asked. She studied the printed sheet of fingered A4 intently.

A glazed expression gradually clouded her face.

She didn't look at me but then barely moving her lips she said very quietly: "I think so.

"It's just those brackets."

Yes, those brackets they were always a problem.

For her, just like me, maths is a foreign country where a different language is spoken.

It only ever made sense for me when a teacher or a grown-up explained it.

And the moment they went away all understanding vanished.

And so it seemed with my little girl. She's 10 years old and most of the time likes to pretend she at least two years older.

But as I looked at her sitting next to me in the back of the car – waiting for the boys' football match to start – she could have been five again.

We sat beside each other and went over the sums.

"You see this one," I said. "You need to work out the bit in brackets first."

I was feigning confidence. The truth is, I was as unsure as she was.

"What's nine times seven?" I asked.

Her little face clouded.

And I knew exactly how she was feeling.

She knew the answer and I knew she knew the answer. But her mind had gone blank.

And I remembered so clearly what that was like.

That moment someone asks you to work out a sum you can think of anything but the answer.

She was silent for a few seconds. And hesitatingly she said: "Is it a s-s-sixty ...three?"

She smiled in relief and we looked at the next part of the sum.

There seemed an endless list of them on that sheet, all containing brackets.

"Why do they have those brackets? It's so stupid," she said.

I couldn't argue. Why do they have those brackets?

"They just do, I don't know why," I said.

Time for a break – a Cadbury's Snack – her favourite.

And then with a little bit of coaxing and some help we finished the last sum.

All that was left was for her to complete two sets of times tables.

By now my youngest son's football match was about to kick-off.

"Can you manage the rest?" I said clambering out of the car.

"I think so," she said.

She gave me one of her under-confident smiles as I shut the car door.

A few minutes later, out of the corner of my eye I saw my little girl running towards me, her dark blonde hair flying behind her in the breeze.

"Look, Dad, look," she said waving her sheet of paper. She'd finished all the tables and she'd got them all right.

Smiling broadly she ran off towards the play area.

The nightmare that is maths homework was over – at least for a week.