Ten year old issues

My friend has a ten year old and suddenly he's in that kinda grown up, kinda still a kid phase.

Anyway, he did great in school last year, but this year she got a call saying he had a 0 in one class and was failing 2 others.

It's only 3 weeks into the school year.

Anyway, the teacher gave him his work for the class he has a 0 in and he would shove it in the desk, without doing any of it. So she got together the assignments he has not done for him to bring home over Labor Day weekend and do and he got home and told his mom "he forgot"

Other than that, he's also been in this "well I thought my way was a better way"

Or I noticed today he will be "cleaning" something and really he's just looking at movie cases or fiddling with something in the floor while he watches TV.

She's also getting frustrated with his attitude in general. He has the attitude that nothing is his fault (like he knows he was supposed to bring his work home he didn't finish, well didn't do, but since the teacher doesn't assign homework, he "thought he wasn't allowed to bring it home")

Or he'll give the dogs baths and when he is told to clean the bathroom, it's "not his fault the floor is wet, the dog was the one in the bath"

Or when he will get out, the floor will be covered in water and he knows he's supposed to clean it up, but doesn't. Nobody cleans up after him by the way, his mom expects him to do it, so finally after an hour of reminding him because he "forgot", he will wipe up some of the water and leave the bath toys all over the floor, just push them next the wall or tub.

She honestly isn't sure what to do. I told her that it's probably an attitude because he's getting older and wants to be adult, but isn't quite there. Has anyone else had a child that started acting like this around this age? Is there anything that helped deal with it?