>Students never being told that math is actually difficult and requires perseverance, encountering a struggle for the first time in math, and taking it as a personal failing rather than the expected order of things.I think this bullet point overlooks other factors contributing to the idea that the math anxiety is a personal failing.
For example, kids doing poorly in math observe other kids that grasp the concepts quickly and don't fall behind. Some get A's without struggling.
The article/study of this thread is about primary & secondary school and at that young age, the math of Algebra, Trigonometry, etc was not difficult for me. It was tedious (e.g. endless manual matrix multiplication exercises) -- but it was never difficult. Some kids really do struggle with basic topics like fractions, percentages, reciprocals, etc.
The first time math was "difficult" was Calculus I. (What's this delta-epsilon proof of a limit all about and why do I care?)
Yes, one has to practice math but kids are not stupid in that they see some of their peers master it easily. The kids understandably conclude that their brain isn't optimized to easily understand math. Explaining to those slower kids that "math is difficult therefore you must practice more" actually increases their math anxiety.