Combined with anxiety, this can easily create an "I would prefer not to" situation.
Yeah, we have anxiety in spades around here and I agree that is a huge component of it. I think when DS has to do something he doesn't enjoy and feels like drudgery, he becomes overwhelmed with anxiety. When he loves what he is doing, he is kind of a "jump and the net will appear" kind of person in his approach. It works with his personal projects but not with homework.
The difficulty level is not the issue; organization and amount of busywork is.
Ultimately, this was the deciding factor when I chose not to bail out of his program. ALL of the problems he was having were problems he will have at any middle school and were not related to the material being too difficult. He may have been somewhat stressed by having to (finally) learn something at school, and that may have been a piece of the puzzle. It was not the biggest one. He told me that he could not bear to go back to "regular school" because this was the first time he wasn't bored in class. I had some trouble with his getting poor grades--but have realized that is my issue. It is probably better to get Bs and Cs while actually learning than to skate through with As because it requires effort. I admit, though, I would prefer the As. His goal for next year is to improve to As and Bs and if he can get himself together, that is certainly possible.
