I have forgotten to say that other than the learned helplessness, the other major cause of his refusal to do school is his expectation that it should be "interesting". I'm interpreting this as novelty seeking ADHD. However, considering he has gotten a grade or subject skip every time he pulled the behavior pattern (because he needed it), now he is conditioned that refusal = reward. My interpretation. He also has a maladaptive reaction of trying to make tasks interesting by adding to them (in his mind), which is not doing them at all.
He's trying to make them interesting with sensory stimming, but get distracting in the stimming and getting comfortable and abandons the task. When I interrupt the pattern of behavior he gets sulky and refuses to comply. He read a book that gave him an alternate strategy of racing against a timer. Racing the clock works reliably to get him engaged and interested in the activity. However, he refuses to use this strategy without prompting, and usually resists with prompting.
Can lead a horse to water, can't make it drink.
