I had a child who spent a year thinking he was bad in math. Took another year of working with him to get him to drop that thinking. He thought if you have to teach him a math concept and a procedure for solving a problem then you are bad in math. He just wanted to know it without any discussion at all. But he didn't want to figure it out himself in an inquiry method way...he just wanted POOF to know it.
We spent tons of time explaining what "bad in math" might look like and explaining what normal "learning new concepts" looked like and what was expected of him and what wasn't (the poof was not expected). Eventually he decided that he was decent in math. And he is kind of mathy as a general nature but isn't brilliant but he was selling himself way short of his natural well above average ability. It was his attitude that held him back not aptitude.
