Adding up to 10, like the other comment explains, is the common way. Using 14 as intermediate step suggests a different way of thinking. OP could be on to something if that's normal to you.
I don't think this has anything to do with ADHD, it's just a little shortcut you can use when doing math in your head. I was taught techniques like this in school when we learnt addition and subtraction etc.
It’s also a good way to double check your answers. If you can reach to the same conclusion through different processes, then it’s probably the right answer.
In elementary school my son would not memorize addition and multiplication and just use strategies like this.
That became a problem later on as we just can handle a finite number of intermediary results in our brain, so just memorizing the tables reduces a lot of mental load for calculation in your brain.
Another thing that helped him a lot was just writing down intermediaries on a piece of paper.
Btw it was a bit similar for me, I just got the table memorized perfectly and got faster doing simple calculations in my mind than using a calculator when I was training the multiplication and addition tables with my son.
idiology! they're indoctrinating our children with this woke bullshit now. they're trying to make us see the "common core" in things. What's next, they're gonna tell us that mexicans are people too?
Same. I optimize numbers to nicer rounder values and then add on those. 7+6=7+3 to make nice round 10 and then add whatever remains to that, so 10+3=13. I don't know why, it just makes sense.
Making Tens (and Hundreds):
Composing and decomposing:
Students learn to break down numbers to make friendly numbers like 10 or 100, which are easier to add.
Example:
To add 8 + 5, they might see that 8 needs 2 to make 10. They could take 2 from the 5, leaving 3. Then, they add 8 + 2 = 10, and 10 + 3 = 13.
I'm pretty sure they just had us brute-force memorize all of the single digit additions and multiplications in grade school. Seemed to work out okay for me.
I usually do that approach with multiplication of big numbers and square root calculation. Usually make it at most 10% error, which I consider quite a win :)