When a child has decided they are "bad at maths", the belief becomes the bigger obstacle. Here is how to work on both.
At some point a lot of children decide they are simply not a maths person. Once that belief settles in it starts doing real damage, because a student who expects to fail stops reading the question properly — and then fails, which confirms it. The belief and the skill have to be worked on together, and the belief is often the more urgent of the two.
Practice that is far too hard teaches helplessness; practice that is far too easy teaches nothing and is transparently condescending. The useful zone is work a child can do with effort — hard enough to need concentration, easy enough to finish.
For a discouraged student, start slightly easier than their level for a week. Finishing things is the point: a run of completed sessions does more for the next hard problem than any amount of encouragement.
Saying "I was terrible at maths too" is meant as solidarity and is usually heard as permission. It tells a child this is hereditary and therefore not worth fighting.
Praising speed or cleverness has a similar problem: both are things a child either has or does not, so a hard problem becomes evidence against them. Comments about what they actually did — checking the work, going back when something looked wrong, not giving up on the second attempt — point at things they can repeat.
If a session has turned into tears or a row, it has stopped being practice and there is nothing left to gain from finishing it. Stopping early is not giving in; continuing is what teaches a child that maths and conflict belong together.
If the struggle is persistent rather than occasional — across topics, over months, despite consistent practice — that is worth raising with their teacher, who can see how it compares with the rest of the class and whether an assessment would help. Practice at home is useful support; it is not a diagnosis.
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