News of the day

Finnforest wrote: I'm so glad I'm not a kid today.  Butt out, administrators.  Best friends rock.  I can't even imagine my life without two or three certain people.  No amount of casual friends beats the intimacy and bond of a deep friendship.

“I think it is kids’ preference to pair up and have that one best friend. As adults — teachers and counselors — we try to encourage them not to do that,” said Christine Laycob, director of counseling at Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School in St. Louis. “We try to talk to kids and work with them to get them to have big groups of friends and not be so possessive about friends.”

(Epignosis - wtf?)

“Parents sometimes say Johnny needs that one special friend,” she continued. “We say he doesn’t need a best friend.”

(Epignosis - It sounds to me, madam, that you need a special friend)

Two points Dean.  Of course, best friendships can sometime create discipline issues in the school setting, and certainly if that’s the case it must be addressed.  No argument, in fact I’m for much harsher disciplinary measures for troublemakers than you, I’d wager.

The rubbish part is the more general inference that there is something unhealthy about having best friends, ie…deep, close friendships.  All of us had childhood friends we can point to that were something very special, I can name several friends I loved to death.  There was nothing wrong with those friendships, on the contrary they were some of the most joyous moments of my youth.  So you’re going to argue there is something wrong with close friendships?  That all friendships should be mere casual acquaintance en masse? 

I didn’t expect you to argue the latter questions Dean, and couldn’t believe you would think that…so basically those are rhetoricals

Though when you say “more power to them”, I believe those folks are saying it should extend beyond the playground.  That’s what I believe is dead wrong because I know how special those friendships can be. 

And yes I’ve also seen young kids devastated by special friendship loss these days, perhaps the reason its so much more devastating than it was for us is that they are a bit more coddled these days, whereas in our day our Dads would hand put us to work with extra chores if he caught us moping around.  These days they’d take the kid to the shrink and put him/her on meds.