Some people don't want children to have best friends- NY times article

I had to stop reading this article because it made me sick.

"But increasingly, some educators and other professionals who work with children..."

Right there is a huge problem with the world. "Professionals" try to interfere in what naturally works with children. Get out of the way and let children live their lives.

Look up this poor little boy in the article in 25 years and he'll be sitting in a shack, surrounded by ammunition, plotting to murder some women and telling everyone that his neighbor's dog did it.

---

This smacks of Pop Psychology B.S. . No two kids are the same. Some rely on a "Best Friend" singling out one person with whom they feel comfortable. Others find comfort in groups.

---

"make kids have superficial relationships and you'll have a bunch of lonely, socially awkward lunatics floating around..."

That's what describes the youth of America, perfectly. And they all have a cell phone in their hands.

---

And let's definitely have a one-size-fits-all rule so that we can screw up at least some portion of the future leaders of the world. Heaven forbid that we let kids decide what makes them happy.

You guys are basically saying what I said. What is right for some kids is not right for others. We are so lucky to live on a cul-de-sac that has several kids Henry's age. When he's bored he goes out and finds someone to play with. Now we do arrange playdates with is friends from class that don't live in our neighborhood, but that's like once every 2 weeks.

---

This sounds like a gross misinterpretation of the film Heavenly Creatures. Or better yet, looking at friendships through the scope of social networking.

I have always been a shy kid. I can say that my first close friends early in life were boys and was one of few girls who hung out with mostly boys. Only until about Middle School did I bond with girls but at the same time I could not stand the group settings that were too superficial and full of unnecessary drama. Parents, including my own, were a bit obsessed with playdates and inviting everybody in your class to birthday parties up until I finished Elementary. I live in a weird area where maybe two kids are around my age while also being gerrymandered in a school district where one house has kids who go to one school district and another house goes to another school district. My shyness and inability to walk the line of certain social cues (still an issue) did concern my parents but over time they were OK with me having a small group of friends.

I always appreciate the times that I had somebody to back me up than being in a group that thinks being all good-natured includes pinning and singling people out in groupthink. Yeah, I hated Middle School.

I'm eighteen now, and I've had a best friend since we were seven years old. We've never had a class together since fifth grade, we've never been in the same lunch school since ninth grade, and we don't do any of the same school activities, so we rarely see each other.

She's really shy, and I'm quite outgoing, so I have a great group of friends from theatre and chorus, while she doesn't have a lot of other friends. But whenever we spend a day together, we have a twin telepathy that I don't share with anyone else, and we've done everything from going on a three-week European tour together (no one in my family has ever left the country) to dressing up as figures from the French Revolution for school and staying in character all day. We are going to different colleges next year (we tried to apply to the same one, but she didn't get the scholarship she wanted and had to switch) but not too far away from each other.

Because I don't see her very much-- usually only fifteen minutes a day before school-- I also know how it feels to not have 'a best friend' around for the majority of the day (she doesn't have a facebook, I don't have a phone) and I feel like it's important for people to have someone that they share their memories and secrets and insecurities with who understands them better than they understand themselves. If I ONLY had my other friends and not her, I feel like I'd feel lonely.

---

I was a Special Ed teacher for 32 years and find the Times article bewildering. Having a best friend can have enormous benefits. Having prescheduled "play-dates" seems fine if it is not taken to an extreme. Too much of that sort of thing sounds artificial. What ever happened to kids from the neighborhood just hanging out together, spontaneously?

My best friend from childhood remains my best friend today, some 64 years later. He lives in Florida and I live in New York State, but when I was having some major depression and anxiety in January, he offered to drive up to see me. We talk by phone on a regular basis and make a point of seeing each other at least once a year. Incidentally, our older brothers bullied us--being best friends shored up our resistance to this bullying.

Camping allows a great chance for kids from different backgrounds to meet and learn to get along. Having a best friend at the same camp can deter home-sickness. Making a temporary best friend from the camp environment seems healthy to me. Group togetherness is fine to a point, but like group sessions in all types of milieus, enough is enough.

---