{"id":793,"date":"2010-06-18T15:21:02","date_gmt":"2010-06-18T15:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/crackpot-educators-call-best-friends-social-evil.html"},"modified":"2010-06-18T15:21:02","modified_gmt":"2010-06-18T15:21:02","slug":"crackpot-educators-call-best-friends-social-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/crackpot-educators-call-best-friends-social-evil.html","title":{"rendered":"Crackpot educators call best friends social evil"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is there no natural social phenomenon that levelers and militant egalitarians won’t seek to destroy to create their Utopia? From the NYT<\/a>:<\/p>\n

But 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?
\nMost children naturally seek close friends. In a survey of nearly 3,000 Americans ages 8 to 24 conducted last year by Harris Interactive, 94 percent said they had at least one close friend. But the classic best-friend bond — the two special pals who share secrets and exploits, who gravitate to each other on the playground and who head out the door together every day after school — signals potential trouble for school officials intent on discouraging anything that hints of exclusivity, in part because of concerns about cliques and bullying.
\n“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.”
\n“Parents sometimes say Johnny needs that one special friend,” she continued. “We say he doesn’t need a best friend.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What crackpots. The idea that the way to decrease bullying is to deny children the opportunity to make a special friend or friends is cruel and crazy. It’s like saying that the way to stop school gun violence is to prevent anything that even looks like a gun from being brought to school — like, say, little toy soldiers pinned to a hat. No teacher or school would object to that. Oh, wait…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is there no natural social phenomenon that levelers and militant egalitarians won’t seek to destroy to create their Utopia? From the NYT: But 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? Most children naturally seek close…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morals"],"yoast_head":"\nCrackpot educators call best friends social evil - Rod Dreher<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Crackpot educators call best friends social evil - Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Is there no natural social phenomenon that levelers and militant egalitarians won’t seek to destroy to create their Utopia? 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