This is a great post, Red Squirrel!
Also, OP, your post made me think of Po Bronson's How Not to Talk to Your Kids: The inverse power of praise.
“Some things came very quickly to him, but when they didn’t, he gave up almost immediately, concluding, ‘I’m not good at this.’ †With no more than a glance, Thomas was dividing the world into two—things he was naturally good at and things he wasn’t.