This article is infuriating. They're effectively trying to social engineer these kids to prevent a few side effects that are crucial in their development.
Why is it that we think that kids are somehow meaner now than they were at any other point?
Yeah these kids had better learn to be friends with everyone, or else it's detention all year!
Interesting take on the NYT article here:
http://inmedias.blogspot.com/2010/06/if-any-friendship-coach...
When I read this quote: "I don’t think it’s particularly healthy for a child to rely on one friend," said Jay Jacobs, the camp’s director. "If something goes awry, it can be devastating. It also limits a child’s ability to explore other options in the world." My unfounded but immediate assumption was that nobody really like him when he was a kid.
But more seriously, there is an approach implicit in the article that I have seen quite often in schools and large businesses. Because leaders are unwilling to do the hard work of examining problems on a case by case basis and creating solutions (Often because they are unwilling to suffer the criticism that indiviual decisions create) problems are approached from rediculous and overly broad perspectives. (See for example Zero Tolerance policies in schools, airport security, etc.) Being unwilling to confront bullies in this case is leading to the deliberate elimination of best friendships. By making it a policy, it eliminates having to make hard decisions, one can now simply say, "Policy says...." and punt.
Using twins as the anecdotal sample for whether children have best friends is another point against the thoughtfulness of the author. As a twin myself, I would argue that twins have a built-in best friend and thus rarely have another "best friend" like a singleton would, so they are a particularly poor choice to illustrate anecdotal evidence that kids don't have single best friends.
Hey, I wasn't a weird loner. I was a trend setter!
Looking at this from a networking scenario, will this create a mesh network of relationships, where a balanced trust is generated through each node, sharing information through the network replicating over each node... Okay now picture 1984, where everybody is equal, people can't have relationships, the government regulates everything... I don't know, something about this disturbs me. I have 3 friends I'd trust my life with, who'm I was best buds with in the respective areas/schools I went to (I went to different districts moving around alot). I haven't been diagnosed with anything other then to lose my college beer gut.
It's the Brave New World, SWPL version.
"increasingly, some educators and other professionals who work with children are asking a question that might surprise their parents: Should..."
This kind of meddling makes me sick. Dear educators, stay the hell away from my kids.
I'm getting tired of all this trumpeting of the end of this, the end of that, the end of everything.
This has got to stop. And by this, I mean psychoanalyzing every single aspect of childhood to the point of saying that having a best friend is "bad".
Seriously.
Stop it.