[sannee]

Indeed. I was completely miserable in high school, instead getting my dose of social interaction by visiting a hackerspace. Genuinely believe that was the only thing that kept me from going insane at that point in life.

Now of course interacting with people that are twice my age during my teens has produced some bonus problems in my social skills, but the alternative here is feeling completely isolated, not somehow magically learning to be normal™ person™ as many educators seem to think.

[blagie]

A lot of these depends on personality. Personally, I didn't relate to my peers at all, and did a lot better with an older crowd.

This child does great with his peers. They relate around activities like soccer or other normal kid stuff. It hasn't been a problem yet. He's bored out of his wits in class, but the social stuff is fine.

I also don't think he has the maturity to do well with kids much older than him. College students can interact around intellectual interests just fine, but to be blunt, he'd just come off as super-obnoxious to college-age kids (not in a snooty way, but in the same way as most other kids his age). I don't think he'd make many friends there.