I never forced my children to memorize math facts...or cursive writing. (gasp!)Well, I attempted to force them to learn for a while, but came to realize that it was an unnecessary and foolish waste of time and energy, that my children had many more engaging and important things to do with their time than memorizing numbers that had no meaning to them.
My daughter is 19 and was "extremely relaxed homeschooled" until her senior year, graduated public high school with honors and STILL doesn't know her times tables and this does not affect her life negatively in any way. By the way, she has beautiful handwriting.
My 20 year old son, also "extremely relaxed homeschooled", didn't know his times tables until he went in the Navy. He wanted to take enrichment classes in his teen years and was told by his teacher that he was WAY behind on his math skills and must work very hard to catch up in order to get along well in our world. I blew him off and told my son to learn math if he wanted to, that those particular skills are not necessary for everyday life and he can learn them later if he feels he needs them. He never opened a math textbook again, although he did spend much time with his head in a computer and with computer literate people. He also spent a lot of time with scientific minded folks having deep discussions about things I have never even heard of.
He went into the Navy and during his "college" training he and another homeschooled kid tutored many of the other guys who didn't understand the "higher level math skills". (That's pretty good for a kid who was told just a couple years previous that he was very unskilled at math. I also think this may contradict the studies that state that homeschooled kids are behind their public school peers in math skills. Although this example is only two children, I have to wonder if public schooled kids may be better at taking the test showing math skills while the homeschooled kids are better able to apply math skills to everyday life? I suppose that is a topic for another day.) Currently he has a Naval career in electronics, computers and encryption, which regularly uses those skills and more.
After he had been out on his own for a while I asked him if he wished that I had handled his education differently and if he had any suggestions for his younger siblings. His only suggestion was that I had used the "real" terms in math, like "sum", "addend", "quotient" and such. I think those are really only necessary if you have a math based career though.
Also, my 13 yo knows some multiplication facts but was not forced to learn them. He learned them through normal every day experiences, like calculating a tip for the waitress or figuring tax on an item he wanted to purchase. My 10 yo loves doing all sorts of complex math in his head, skills he learned intuitively, completely on his own while "playing" outdoors. (in reality he was observing and interacting with nature and learning a lot about natural patterns in our world)
I love to brag about my children, but the reality is that I had nothing to do with it. I let them be, encouraged them when they wanted it, lived life with them and loved them. They are intelligent, considerate people. It has worked out well for us so far.
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