As a math instructor/tutor, my responsibility over the years has been to make the subject intriguing to my students as many students don't like math, so the first thing is to build a friendly relationship and very optimistic attitude towards the subject matter.
Sometimes, we both have to agree ( myself and my students) math is hard but not impossible. so will start doing it consistently and constantly in a very simple way step by step way up to the advance level and soon my students start to gain strength and competence as their phobia for math dies gradually.