If he's smart enough, then he can blessed well learn it. Kids will get away with what they can get away with. Quadratics will become an endangered species, and hide under rocks. And I'll tell you something else. The kid will respect you for it and, eventually, respect himself.
Kids esteem themselves when they have accomplished something worth esteeming.
Granted, if people insist on performance, life won't be real easy for a few years. Teen-agers are intolerable. It's a design feature. Boys act like James Dean in a sulk. If you have a daughter, she will play your heartstrings like a bull fiddle, because girls do that, and then relapse into tyrannosaur mode and shriek.