My eldest has had this problem twice. The first time was after he skipped a grade and moved to a middle school aimed at gifted students. He was also 9 years old. Having to work was a real shock for him. It took him the better part of that year to get used to working, organizing his time, and the idea that stuff in school can actually be hard.
His second year at that school was a dream. The teachers and the dean gushed about what a wonderful student he was. Homework problems diminished by ~90%.
Then that school moved far away and he went to an easy charter school and got used to getting As with near-zero effort.
This year, he homeschools online and is again taking challenging courses (CTY, EPGY, etc.). The studying problems came back in September, but this time, he got past them in a few weeks.
Other people have posted about the same problems, especially after grade skips/consistently getting challenging work.
Bottom line: what you described strikes me as a normal, understandable, and complex reaction. Studying and working through challenging material are learned skills. If you have no concept of them, you can have a hard time getting up the hill. Also, getting used to the idea that you can't answer every question (or whatever) immediately also takes getting used to. It's a blow to the ego, and if you have no clue how to approach something difficult, it's easier to turn away. I'm not saying it's
right to turn away. I'm just saying that when you have no clue what to do and maybe you feel like it's hard because you're not smart enough, it's easier to just get distracted by some fluff on your trousers.
Personally, I find this situation in academics to be only indirectly related to working on something in other areas. I've known people who worked their butts off to improve a tennis stroke, but shut down over school/college work. In those situations, tennis (or Legos, whatever) was fun! School sucked.
I try to remind my kids of times when they struggled with something they thought they'd never do, and managed in the end. This helps a little. But really, I think it's a matter of time and of patient (well, the best you can do) parental assistance. I spent a seriously large amount of time with my eldest that first year in middle school. Another person here once wrote the same of her child after a grade skip. She said that she pretty much had to breathe for him that first year. I felt that way, too.
Again, I think what you described is completely normal and to be expected. Plus, he's still a young kid. That's probably also part of it. If you see it that way, it might not feel so frustrating when you're trying to help him.
True, you're going to have to put a lot of energy and creativity into helping your son learn to study, but he'll get it eventually. Take heart in the facts that study skills have to be learned just like math and science, and that acquiring them and internalizing them takes a while.
