Reluctant to 'learn' in a 4 year old

[SeoraeMaeul]

I'm sure there are better ways of phrasing it but basically my son doesn't like to learn new stuff - and this is everything from colouring in and writing, to reading, to playing football, to swimming .. well to anything.

I know at 4 all the new stuff is hard and he has always been shy in the face of change or new people, so I'm not expecting him to embrace every change/new experience. The problem is some of this stuff he has to learn like reading and writing. He tells me its hard and he doesn't like it - in fact its beginning to make him reluctant to go to school (he's in the french system as we live abroad and started school at 3 so this isn't about him just starting). And I can see a noticeable gap between him and the majority of the other kids in school. The teachers tell me - and I've seen this at home - he just says I can't do it and then won't even try.

Any tips on helping him accept learning new stuff? Its more the general concept of learning new things than the specifics - or do you think I should pick a couple of specific things help him to learn those and hope the general idea sinks in?
Hope that makes sense?

My son was similar until 5/6 ish.

Rather than try to change him I decided to try more things that were out of my comfort zone and let him see me fail/mess up at things.

Some of the things that you list might not interest him. I have 2 sons and neither enjoy colouring in, the oldest started to enjoy writing at 6ish and neither read for pleasure. My youngest is 4 and he might pick up a pencil to do a maze or those activity books where you draw a line or circle the answer but he doesn't like writing. They do daily writing at school so I won't worry yet but like you I realise that some children are quite skilled at it already.

He is still young and personally I would focus on building his confidence so he feels that he's good at something- building Lego, riding his bike or whatever.