Yeah, that isn’t how a person learns to deal with the emotions of life. This child will never know how to interact normally with people that don’t have a PhD and are at an academic conference.
Not saying he shouldn’t get diversity of social experiences but the idea that a bunch of mutual misunderstandings with kids his own age is somehow going to result in better development doesn’t really track, either.
Learning how to navigate mutual misunderstanding productively and non violently is one of the most important aspects of socialization. Those misunderstandings are the development.
That assumes that the other party is also interested in navigation; some people are - and I’m sure you’ve reached this conclusion in your own experiences - just not worth the time and effort it takes to engage with. As it is all we can do is guess on the state of this kid’s social life because the article doesn’t talk about it. He could also have friends his own age; going through a PhD program would make it harder, but it’s not like has to worry about feeding himself, taking care of his living situation, and paying off student loans like most PhD students.
It just means being a child prodigy is a curse. It’s monkey paw shit. The kid is screwed either way. No matter what, he’s going to grow up with a massive ego about how he’s a god compared to the rest of us plebs only to crash out hard when he gets tripped up by something that he’s not a prodigy in, which is literally everything outside of the one thing he’s super competent in. Even a well-adjusted adult has to constantly fight against stans inflating their ego. A kid doesn’t stand a fucking chance.
Yeah, that isn’t how a person learns to deal with the emotions of life. This child will never know how to interact normally with people that don’t have a PhD and are at an academic conference.
Not saying he shouldn’t get diversity of social experiences but the idea that a bunch of mutual misunderstandings with kids his own age is somehow going to result in better development doesn’t really track, either.
Learning how to navigate mutual misunderstanding productively and non violently is one of the most important aspects of socialization. Those misunderstandings are the development.
That assumes that the other party is also interested in navigation; some people are - and I’m sure you’ve reached this conclusion in your own experiences - just not worth the time and effort it takes to engage with. As it is all we can do is guess on the state of this kid’s social life because the article doesn’t talk about it. He could also have friends his own age; going through a PhD program would make it harder, but it’s not like has to worry about feeding himself, taking care of his living situation, and paying off student loans like most PhD students.
It just means being a child prodigy is a curse. It’s monkey paw shit. The kid is screwed either way. No matter what, he’s going to grow up with a massive ego about how he’s a god compared to the rest of us plebs only to crash out hard when he gets tripped up by something that he’s not a prodigy in, which is literally everything outside of the one thing he’s super competent in. Even a well-adjusted adult has to constantly fight against stans inflating their ego. A kid doesn’t stand a fucking chance.