is there a possibility this child is gifted? I know, both from my own son, and talking with others, that it's often the middle school years that gifted kids (especially if there is another underlying problem) begin to fall apart.
Changing classes, more homework and responsibility, the whole maturing thing sometimes is just too much for a child that has been able to "skate" along until now. And gifted kids often are perfectionists.
I think it's great that you want to help this child. I wish my son had had you for a teacher in 5th or 6th grade, perhaps we could have saved a bit of his self esteem in those years!
