How can I encourage my child to 'try'

[Lovingmylife]

My gorgeous, funny and creative DS has lost lots of confidence over the past year and especially last 6 months and now doesn't want to try anything remotely challenging. He is 7 and good at so many things. But he has struggled academically. He won't try anything fiddly e.g. crafts, tying shoe laces, etc. He is refusing to read now saying he is rubbish at it. He is actually a brilliant reader. He had a friend who was a very negative person, always telling my DS he was stupid and rubbish etc. School did nothing. Fortunately the family have moved away now but my ds is so unconfident now. He gets frustrated and in a rage easily and I want to build his resilience up. Any tips? I try very hard being patient, new ideas, leaving him alone and not hovering. It's getting frustrating because he is missing out on learning so much by not having a go and I don't want him to believe he can't do things and can't achieve things.

Sorry no advice OP but bumping for ideas on resilience, my DC needs some too!

Would it help if you try something new and get it wrong and laugh it off. Like maybe bake a cake and have it totally flop. You could do it together and have a laugh over how bad it looks.

Perhaps pointing out how other people deal with mistakes, especially adults; laughing it off and moving on. Try to tell him stories about people who have found something very hard at first, but kept going, and then done well.

Definitely model making mistakes or losing at things and brushing it off. Eg take a wrong turning on the way to somewhere you both go often, point it out if he doesn’t notice then laugh it off and carry on with your day. Also model trying new things for yourself to set a good example.
I’m not sure if it’s quite the same but one of my ds is hugely worried about failing so won’t try, especially anything competitive like games. When he was younger if he lost he would get extremely upset. I sat him down one day and explained that really the winners of a board game were all the people who got to play, and spend time with their family or friends. The losers were the ones who didn’t join in and missed all the fun. Any time he is losing and starts to wobble I remind him that just by playing he has already won and it seems to work.
If he is reluctant to read and do laces have you had his eyes tested recently?
Also this book is brilliant. It has lots of short pieces (1 page each) about different boys and men who have struggled and then succeeded- it really caught the attention of my ds. Sorry can’t clicky link it’s Stories for boys who dare to be different by Ben Brooks.

Model it for him - do stuff you will find hard. Show him that you struggle to do them, and that you might not do it right but thats OK (cake decorating is good for this - it may look rubbish but still tastes great).
Do stuff together that neither of you have done - fall off a SUP board and laugh, fail abjectly at pottery. Compare how you are doing, and let him give you tips on how to do it.

Football made a huge difference to my son, the fact that your team can lose but you're still having fun, mistakes are made, almost constantly by everyone during the but you get the chance to fix them or try again.

Have a look into creating a "growth mindset" there are various self help guides for children available.

Also consider whether there is something else underlying things, just to rule them out.

Dyspraxia impacts fine and gross motor skills, but can also impact other areas that seem unrelated such as following instructions, organising thoughts, and inference.

It can be very dispiriting to keep trying and failing through no fault of your own.

Other things for dyspraxia are sensitivity to taste or texture, so over fussiness on clothes and foods.

Will he do the library reading challenge? He can choose whichever books he wants and the medal at the end might give him a boost.
Try things like asking him to help write a list for shopping.
Baking where he weighs the ingredients himself.

It will be good for him to see something for his achievement and then praise him that all his hard work helped him to achieve something.