Busybodies intrude on childhood friendship

[Valin]

The Anchoress:

Elizabeth Scalia
6/17/10


Sometimes I wonder if “enlightened experts” ever had childhoods,

. . . increasingly, some educators and other professionals who work with children are asking a question that might surprise their parents: Should a child really have a best friend?
…
“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.”

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

Unreal. Read the article. The schools and “experts” are intrusive and unnatural. And sad.
This isn’t about what’s good for the children; it is about being better able to control adults by stripping from them any training in intimacy and interpersonal trust. Don’t let two people get together and separate themselves from the pack, or they might do something subversive, like…think differently.

Meatballs is a very silly movie with a very important, kind (and apparently subversive) core message: if you can make one good friend, you’re doing very well. That group identities have certain undeniable values, but our intimate relationships are what keep us grounded, and help us to discover and more completely be who we are.

[Geee]

[pollyannaish]

My God. This is essentially stripping away our ability to have intimate human relationships. This scares the heck out of me.

[Pepper]

Valin!

 

Perhaps Christine Laycob never had a healthy childhood and enjoyed friends. We should feel compassion for her, a knee jerk reaction, striking out at those in school who called her names.

 

Maybe she recently got banned from Facebook pages by her girl friends.

 

This is what you get from misguided educational missiles.

 

 

My God. This is essentially stripping away our ability to have intimate human relationships. This scares the heck out of me.

[nickydog]

Kids will ignore it. They are more sensible than some grown-ups. It is perfectly normal to have a best friend.