Not wanting to try something that he knows he will have a tough time with has been an ongoing challenge for my dyspraxic ds13. It took me quite a few years to realize he actually had a good intuition about the kinds of tasks which would be extroadinarily challenging for him compared to my expectations of neurotypical kids. Over time we've worked out a combination that helps us through the fear of failure preventing a start - I listen and ask ds questions to talk him through all the possible things that might happen if he tries and it doesn't work, as well as talking him through the basics of how to do whatever it is - and I'm talking really basic here. So that's ds' role in the system - he talks his fears over with me and that sometimes lessens them, and I help him mentally prepare by talking through how I, as a nt person, would approach and accomplish a task. A lot of the time he will give me feedback about some little tiny something that just doesn't work for him. One example is that he can't spit - that came up as a reason for not wanting to try something else that was so far-flung from spitting at first glance I never would have guessed he was thinking about it. The second part of this combo is my end of the deal - I need to remember that some very simple things involving coordination of body movements are not only not second nature for kids with dyspraxia, they can be very very difficult and take much more repetition than for a nt child to learn, and some movements might never become "automatic".
I need to learn to do what you do! DS has such ...interesting... difficulties with some things, and even before I learned the words "apraxia" and "dyspraxia", I had eventually began to tell people that he had a lack of kinesthesia. A good, solid approach like yours might be just the ticket!
