What about hate of learning?
Hate of learning is tough to repair, since it's an attitude, not as easy to fix as, say, getting glasses for better eyesight. My eldest son had the hardest time with it, because he spent one year in public school kindergarten. We started homeschooling by doing public school routines at home (it was all my husband and I knew). That lasted about a month. I realized I had four children at home (ages 7 years down to 18 months) with no lunch ladies and no janitors. So we went in cycles of being ON, doing academics, housework, and field trips, then being ILL and dropping everything, then being OFF and doing housework/laundry/chore training, then back to academics full bore. My first child had learned to wait for complete instructions (schools punish children who work ahead). He had major hate of forced learning by the time we had done this cycle for a couple years.
Learning about Charlotte Mason helped me tremendously: 15 minutes per subject, time out in nature every day, journaling/drawing what we saw outside, Mom reading aloud and then children telling me what we read and what they thought about it. We had amazing discussions, especially insights from children who jumped on the couch while I read; I learned which children could pay attention while playing and which children had to have something to do with their hands. I also learned to recognize when they got antsy and couldn't take in any more.
After a half year of trying Charlotte Mason's methods we learned about Thomas Jefferson Education; both of these philosophies freed me to do what worked.
My eldest son graduated from homeschool high school with 20 college credits, age 18, and eventually went into the military. He's passionate about learning the things he's interested in. He knows how to find information and can talk and write intelligently about many things.
My toughest issue with him was healing our relationship. He and I were at the point of yelling and crying every day before we dropped the intense academics. He was about 10 years old. I realized that it helped no one to force him; we both dreaded doing more school. We dropped everything seatwork at that point. Our family was preparing to move, so for six months our school work was singing songs for the yearly Sunday School program, prayer, Pledge of Allegiance, memorizing a few scripture verses, weekly Cub Scouts, and helping Mom with packing and cleaning, plus babysitting and learning to prepare simple meals while Mom nursed. That was a good detox time, relatively, because there was no academic pressure at all (I literally could not enforce anything beyond the necessary food, putting away toys, and laundry). The baby was ill a lot, which meant children learned on their own a lot.
When I came up for air after that move, he had recovered a love of learning and I saw that they had learned without my direct and constant supervision. At that point I felt really free to switch plans, because we had been miserable trying to keep to a strict schedule and because I KNEW that the children would keep learning without it.
Decide what you need to do, that your child can see you do and occasionally help with--your own learning. Make it something important enough that you will stick with it. Accomplish something useful and be enthusiastic where he can see you. Talk with him and let him know what you're doing and why; explain and answer questions but stop when he stops. Don't flood him with unwanted information.
Do require getting enough sleep and enough exercise; teach the skills you learned for self-maintenance. Let him see you planning your work, planning the next day and the next week/month. When he's interested, ask him to help plan, and explain why you schedule things the way you do. Talk about and listen to your child's questions and especially your child's comments.
Listen. Pay attention. Your child is a treasure you get to help grow.
