avoid the simple procedural stuff (Score 1)

physics / math / "music" are the easiest subjects for a child prodigy to learn. A dated OS like linux would be a complete waste of time, and would probably hinder him from ever contributing anything creative to society. -Object oriented, distributed, and multi-agent programming are reasonable fields to explore. but don't get cought in silly simple procedural details. "Chaos theory" , "Complexity theory",' "non - linear dynamics" are where the real boundaries are most scientific advance, like quantum computing, AI, genomics, and fusion energy. The rest is basics.