Maths anxiety is mostly avoidable. It starts, almost every time, at a single transition where the child's understanding stops being concrete and starts needing to be abstract. Here's the age-band map.
Ages 6-8 (Cadet Sparks) — the visual years
Milestone: count to 100, add and subtract within 20, understand "more" and "less" as a comparison (not a word). Every problem should still be drawable.
Ages 8-10 (Junior Explorers) — the multiplication cliff
Milestone: multiplication tables to 10×10, understand multiplication as repeated addition first, then as area, then as scaling. Kids who only memorise tables without seeing the three meanings struggle in middle school.
Ages 10-12 (Discovery Crew) — fractions and word problems
Milestone: fractions as division, percentage as "out of 100", simple algebra ("find the missing number"). The word-problem wall lives here. Practice translating words to maths, not solving.
Ages 12-14 (Mission Specialists) — formal algebra
Milestone: one-variable linear equations, simple graphing, ratio and proportion. This is where the abstraction crisis hits. Slow down if needed.
Ages 14-16 (Xplain Pilots) — the functional turn
Milestone: quadratics, functions as machines, simple trigonometry. Connect each topic back to something physical — parabolas as thrown balls, trig as triangles the kid can actually draw.
Ages 16-18 (Star Captains) — proof and abstraction
Milestone: calculus basics, proof structure, probability. If the earlier bands were skipped too fast, this is where it shows.