A the imho proper and useful concept of "learned helplessness" refers to a situation where someone learns that appearing helpless and asking others for help is the success strategy for achieving any goal. In an environment where this is true, most people will quickly learn this. The situation where this is bad is when a person learns this unconsciously and really believe themselves to be helpless, their learning immediately ruling out even the thought of solving any problems themselves.

There is no reason why both negative and positive stimuli couldn't contribute to such learning. If you reward children every time they ask for help, or punish them every time they try something themselves, or both, there is a big chance they learn helplessness to some degree.