Should best friends be banned for kids?

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chisdog

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https://www.businessinsider.com.au/...nds-to-protect-kids-feelings-2017-9?r=US&IR=T

Schools are banning besties to 'protect students' feelings'

Members of the royal family aren’t often told what they can and can’t do. But just a few days into his first year of school, 4-year-old Prince George already faces a mandate: No best friends allowed.

Thomas’s Battersea, the school George attends, bans kids from having best friends, Marie Claire reports. Instead, teachers encourage all students to form bonds with one another to avoid creating feelings of exclusions among those without best friends.

Jane Moore, a parent whose child attends the school, explained the idea on a recent episode of the British talk show “Loose Women.” “There’s a policy,” she said, “that if your child is having a party — unless every child is invited — you don’t give out the invites in class.”

The trend of banning best friends has been growing for several years, and it’s spread beyond European borders to American schools as well.

Some psychologists and parents argue kids become more well-adjusted when they have larger friend groups and can avoid negative feelings associated with feeling left out.

Critics, however, say the approach robs kids of the chance to form valuable coping skills. By grappling with mild social exclusion when they’re young, kids will emerge as more capable, resilient adults, these advocates argue.

People who support kids having larger friend groups in place of best friends tend to view these larger groups as healthier for nurturing a sense of belonging. “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,” Christine Laycob, director of counseling at Mary Institute in St. Louis, told the New York Times.

Best friends, with their tight bonds and inside jokes, throw a wrench into that open environment, school officials contend.


In England, where the trend is still more popular, schools across South West London, Kingston, and Surrey have taken up the practice. Some accounts suggest the practice has moved up north to Canada, as teachers in big schools may shuffle friendships around to expose kids to a range of peers.

A wealth of research indicates best friends create value for people throughout their lives. One study recently published in Child Development found people with best friends enjoyed better mental health well into adulthood.

“We weren’t surprised that better adolescent close friendships turned out to be important, but we were surprised by just how important they turned out to be into adulthood,” Rachel Narr, University of Virginia doctoral student and lead author of the study, told New York Magazine.

Narr’s study also found kids with broader friend groups tended to grow up with higher rates of social anxiety than kids with smaller numbers of closer friends.

And although anti-best-friend policies may help kids in the short-term, research suggests the strong connections found among best friends could be vital for mental health in a world where adolescents are lonelier than ever.

Seriously, this World is getting nuttier each day!
 

Mr Invisible

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I blame the Terry Wrists.

Seriously the royals do kinda overdo it. Let the kid be a kid.
 

Alan79

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I can't see how they plan to stop kids from having preferences about who their favorite friend is. It's a bit ridiculous.
 

Wolfmother

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That's such a good idea.. It broke my heart when my daughter didn't get an invite to a party in kindy .. We all went to a park and thats when the girl handed out the invites.
My daughter straight out asked her if she could go too but the slut said her whore of a mother ran out if invitations!
I was so heartbroken, hate seeing kids disappointed
 
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EXPLORER

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That's such a good idea.. It broke my heart when my daughter didn't get an invite to a party in kindy .. We all went to a park and thats when the girl handed out the invites.
My daughter straight out asked her if she could go too but the slut said her whore of a mother ran out if invitations!
I was so heartbroken, hate seeing kids disappointed
Whilst it's hard to watch
It's a great learning experience for your daughter

Disapoitment is a harsh fact of life
 

Typical dog

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That's such a good idea.. It broke my heart when my daughter didn't get an invite to a party in kindy .. We all went to a park and thats when the girl handed out the invites.
My daughter straight out asked her if she could go too but the slut said her whore of a mother ran out if invitations!
I was so heartbroken, hate seeing kids disappointed
Nothing worse in the world then seeing your kids upset and feeling excluded. As another poster commented though, it is the harsh reality of life.
 

Wahesh

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That's such a good idea.. It broke my heart when my daughter didn't get an invite to a party in kindy .. We all went to a park and thats when the girl handed out the invites.
My daughter straight out asked her if she could go too but the slut said her whore of a mother ran out if invitations!
I was so heartbroken, hate seeing kids disappointed
What a bullshit excuse. They could've photocopied the invitation. Or scanned/printed it on the computer. There are plenty of ways around it. What a load of crap.
 

CroydonDog

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The theory has some legs, at least in relation to kids not forming "BFF" style relationships at such a young age to the exclusion of other kids.

I never really thought about it much before, but I was coincidentally reading an advice column in, I think, the Guardian a couple of months ago where a mother wrote in about her daughter, who was about 8, and whose alleged best friend had simply cut her of and moved on to another girl, just like that. It had completely devastated her daughter. Whilst many of the responses, were along the line of "she's only 8, kids change friends all the time at that age, toughen up etc" (and the reality is, these thing are indeed true), there are definitely downsides of putting your eggs into one basket, so to speak, at such a young age, without exploring wider relationships/friendship possibilities. Of course, as a child gets older, they will figure things out for themselves, and move towards either larger or smaller social circles depending on a number of factors. I'm sure some people work better with smaller, tighter friendship groups, whilst others will be happier in larger ones.

Then there are some poor kids who are simply outcast, and won't have many friends, but not by choice.

I don't think a 7 year old not missing out on an invitation is going to rob them of developing coping skills TBH.
 

CaptainJackson

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What if you don't want friends and just want to be left alone?
 

Wolfmother

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What a bullshit excuse. They could've photocopied the invitation. Or scanned/printed it on the computer. There are plenty of ways around it. What a load of crap.
It was a lie but it kind of eased the pain of feeling excluded.
 
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Alexander the Great

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That's such a good idea.. It broke my heart when my daughter didn't get an invite to a party in kindy .. We all went to a park and thats when the girl handed out the invites.
My daughter straight out asked her if she could go too but the slut said her whore of a mother ran out if invitations!
I was so heartbroken, hate seeing kids disappointed
Asshol3s. as if one more kid is going to break the bank
 

Wolfmother

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Whilst it's hard to watch
It's a great learning experience for your daughter

Disapoitment is a harsh fact of life
I don't think that type of lesson is appropriate at the time. Its damaging particularly if she didn't speak to me about it.
Luckily I was able to make her realise that they were the ones with the problem not her.
Tbh the mother was developmentally delayed and so was the child so yeah!!
 

Wahesh

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Asshol3s. as if one more kid is going to break the bank
Especially in kindy - that's the very crucial time where kids are meant to be making friends with one another, not being left out. That's freaking terrible.
 
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