MADISON, Wis. — PEOPLE ask me all the time how they can get their kids excited about math. That ought to be a softball for me, because I teach math for a living. I wake up excited about math.

But it’s not that simple. With the college students I teach, it’s a straightforward transaction. They’re paying me to teach them math, and my job is to cajole or incentivize them into doing the work that’s necessary to learn the subject, whether they feel like it or not.

It’s a different story with your own children. None of us want to be Leo Wiener. Yes, Wiener helped shape his son, Norbert, into a child prodigy who got a Ph.D. at Harvard at 18, and who later became a groundbreaking mathematician. But this was how Norbert recalled the process:

“He would begin the discussion in an easy, conversational tone. This lasted exactly until I made the first mathematical mistake. Then the gentle and loving father was replaced by the avenger of the blood. ... Father was raging, I was weeping, and my mother did her best to defend me, although hers was a losing battle.”

No parents want this story told in their child’s memoirs. But how can we encourage kids in a difficult task like math without doing so in a way they’ll come to resent?