Social skills for the burgeoning scientist (Score 1)

What a great topic for discussion ! I used to be one of your typical wunderkind uber-geeks, for more than half my life. I think the problem for myself (and for most children who are currently affected by this) was that the social systems are built to accomodate people of average intelligence, and these children are above-average. Working within these systems, the children are supposed to make certain mistakes and bond with other children, usually over common problems. The relationships forged during these events then draw the children together in-between, and they learn from each other how to construct a social persona. The obvious problem in the case of an above-average child is that oftentimes they won't make the same mistakes as ordinairy children, and thus miss the whole process. Childhood's social instruction being cumulative as it is, these effects become more glaring as time passes, until they are rejected as being too different from the other children.

When I was sixteen I got tired of being "geekish" and set out to figure out exactly what the difference was between how I acted and how everyone else did. After a couple months of watching and thinking, my parents noticed and brought me home some texts on sociology & psychology. After I started looking at the other kids and understanding the reasons behind their acctions I was much more sucessful in fitting in. So sucessful, in fact, that almost every job I've had is in sales/customer service/etc, and I am always one of the highest performers.

So I guess the moral of my long rambling post is this : don't try to get a kid who understands nothing about socializing and everything about science to learn to socialize. Show them the social sciences - they can figure out the rest (if they want to).