It sounds to me like he has run up against some things that make him struggle (handwriting, memorizing times tables) and he is not accustomed to that. It is causing him to think he is not "good at" those things because they were not automatic.
Instead of finding ways to avoid them, I would take a different tack. When this happens with my kids we discuss how people learn to do things by practicing and some things take longer to learn than others. I try to teach them how to persevere with something they don't feel good at because when they finally do succeed they will get a real feeling of satisfaction! This is a great learning opportunity. I think it's ok for you to insist that he work on something like times tables. I don't think that's pushing.
Bribing totally backfires with my DS. It works much better for me to insist that he do certain work that he doesn't like and then he does the work that he finds more interesting. We "save the best for last". He has even carried this idea over to dinner time and has started eating veggies first (I'm wondering how long that will last
)
Cathy
