Originally Posted by longcut
This is just a sweet moment thing, but it makes me feel good about my kid not acting conceited (in fact, I think he still underestimates himself). DS told me that he thinks he can get along with pretty much anybody, because he thinks everybody has something special about them, all he has to do is find out what they have in common.


This is precisely how my DD moves through the world. She *never* lacks for friends.
Mostly they can't truly go where she can, and she knows it. Still, she always hopes, and she genuinely likes everyone (the sociopaths excluded-- those she loathes and goes out of her way to punish, or at least keep busy so that they don't bother her other homies).


She has a classification system, actually-- it divides at the EG level and beyond, though, because those people may either be globally capable or more specialist types. MG+ people gravitate to her, though the ones who are pretty invested in their intellectual superiority find her a tough person to be around intensively, much to her dismay.

When she really takes the mask off, she wows.

For an example, she recently learned to play SET while at a college math club meeting. After observing 2min of play (coming in late), she proceeded to clean the floor with everyone else in the room. She even beat the faculty advisor. Twice. Her speed was apparently downright superhuman.

Then she did a discrete proof that the other Wunderkind had been struggling with for two days. It took her 20 minutes, and then she went off to play rehearsal, happy as you please. She's never had any discrete math or any real instruction in how to construct proofs, never done competition maths, nothing. This is just raw ability.

The club president and advisor are eyeing her for a Putnam team next year when she'll be seventeen.

So yeah, mine is one of those sweet souls that is so pro-social that she isn't "dumbing down" so much as genuinely looking to make other people feel great about themselves, and wishing for true peers. So she searches for ways that she is LIKE others, not ways that she isn't. smile It's a terrific gift, that.


Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.