My DS is younger and not especially anxious, so this is not an IME, and you should feel free to disregard it... but is there scope for split the learning up into smaller steps, for example, by accepting any attempt at a new skill to begin with, without requiring him to fix his mistakes? It's not quite clear whether this was the first time he'd taken out the trash, but if so, I think I might have picked up the spill myself or done a "let's just", rather than asking him to. My reason would be that this is bound to be received as criticism and I'd rather be happy he'd made an attempt; I see "making an attempt and not getting it right" as a normal stage in between "not being ready to make an attempt" and "doing it, including fixing any mistakes".
Examples:
- this morning, as it happened, instead of getting DS6's breakfast cereal for him I asked him to do it [late, I know, but explaining why he hasn't done it before would take us OT] and supervised him doing it. He spilt the milk, of course, so I wiped it up, saying something like "ah yes, another time, you'll remember that you need to tip the milk bottle very gently so not too much comes out".
- however, yesterday he made a mess in the bathroom and did half a job of clearing it up. Clearing up his own messes in the bathroom is not a new skill, so I just told him to go and finish the job.
