The parent-report thing is definitely problematic here. Parents will never say "my child is bad at everything", and will often avoid saysing "my child is good a

The parent-report thing is definitely problematic here. Parents will never say "my child is bad at everything", and will often avoid saysing "my child is good at everything", especially if they have other kids. So they will generally pick one trait the kid is good at, and say he or she is bad at the other one. Usually math (and other school subjects) are much easier to measure, so "social skills" just get thrown around to compensate. For example, I am very good at math, and have been told my entire life that I'm not "real-life smart" or that I have high IQ but low EQ. But now that I'm older I found that I'm pretty good at emphatizing, understanding and predicting other people reactions. Then again, quantifying empathy is hard, and I'm pretty sure that parents would often get it wrong even without the bias. Some kids are sad when a character in a book/movie dies, but will never show it.