Babies and infants love mathematics. Give babies a set of blocks, and they will build and order them, fascinated by the ways the edges line up. Children will look up at the sky and be delighted by the V formations in which birds fly. Count a set of objects with a young child and then move the objects and count them again, and they will be enchanted by the fact they still have the same number. Ask children to make patterns with colored blocks, and they will work happily making repeating patterns--one of the most mathematical of all acts. We want to see patterns in the world and to understand the rhythms of the universe. The joy and fascination young children experience with mathematics are quickly replaced by dread and dislike when they start school mathematics and are introduced to a dry set of methods they think they just have to accept and remember. Successful math users have an approach to math as well as mathematical understanding that sets them apart from less successful users. They approach math with the desire to understand it and to think about it, and with the confidence that they can make sense of it. Successful math users search for patterns and relationships and think about connections. They approach math with a mathematical mindset, knowing that math is a subject of growth and that their role is to learn and think about new ideas. The outcome of the misguided school emphasis on memorization and testing can be seen in the numbers of students dropping out of mathematics and in the math crisis we currently face. This article discusses techniques to develop mathematical mindsets in students so that they are willing to approach math with sense making and intuition.