Welcome ConnectingDots
I think the problem with not knowing what to write as an explanation to show how you did your math homework is a *really* common problem - it didn't come naturally to any of my children, two of whom are very talented at math and one who has struggled with learning new math concepts. With my kids, when it was early elementary, if I knew they knew how to do the work, understood the concept and it was simply easy enough for them to do the work in their head or without really thinking, I didn't worry about whether or not they wrote anything down for the "show your work" questions. This didn't go over well with some of their teachers, but I had to remind myself, this is only early elementary - unless this is preventing them from moving ahead with more challenging math, I just let it go and ignored the complaints from the teachers. I *did* always first ask my child why they were having a hard time with showing their work, and explained to the teachers what the issue was but if the teacher was sticking firmly with must-show-work I just stayed zen about whether or not that part of my child's homework was blank.
Re writing "too hard" - I would tell my kids that *I* wasn't going to let them write that, even if it was ok with the teacher. We haven't had exactly that issue, but we have had a few times when teachers tell our kids they can skip things that I as their parent think are important for them to learn/do, so we tell them they have to do it because we said so. Sounds domineering and non-child-centered.. but.. it's only a few things here and there
Re not particularly liking writing and having sloppy handwriting - if nothing showed as a concern in his testing, I wouldn't worry about it - all of that is fairly typical at his age. If you start to notice that he is slouching over his work, has an odd pencil grip, rubs his wrists a lot or seems to have much sloppier work than his classmates, then I'd wonder if something else was going on and if discomfort with handwriting was causing part of the reluctance to answer the problems. Having a child who was showing resistance to handwriting that was related to an undiagnosed (at the time) disability in K-1, the thing I noticed about reluctance to write was it was across the board on *all* homework, not just the "show your work" problems in math.
Best wishes,
polarbear
