Children don't need best friends - true or false? ( Archived) (48)

"A head teacher of a leading primary school has said young children should not have best friends because it could leave others feeling ostracised and hurt...

parents of children at a private day school in south-west London have been told it's not good for their offspring to have best friends...

Instead they should be encouraged to have "lots of good friends" to avoid overly possessive relationships and upsetting fall-outs, head teacher Ben Thomas was quoted by the Daily Telegraph as saying".

I find this idea upsetting for few reasons. Firstly, I think it will create a generation of people who are unattached, superficial and indifferent to others since they will never learn closeness and intimacy. Secondly, learning intimacy may be a basis for relationships later in life. When all people are same to you, how are you supposed to stay with one person? Thirdly, close relationships give a feeling of security. I, for example, did not have many friends and never wanted to have them, but was quite happy to have one at a time. Did anyone feel excluded because of that? Don't think so. If I was not allowed to have a friend, how lonely would my school life be? Why should a child be deprived of a friend if a child is not the outgoing type liking to have lots of friends?

And how are they going to terminate the forming friendships? I know that in my nephews' school here in Ireland children are 'rotated' to sit with different children all the time possibly for the same reasons. They still have friends though. Are the teachers to intervene in pupil's relationships even further? How far? Am I old fashioned or what, but this idea seems scary to me. Control and manipulation rather than education in my opinion. What do you think? There is a link if somebody wants to read the article.

The link's not loading for me right now, but I think kids will have the friends they want to have, however much adults try to interfere.

Like yourself, I've never been much into groups of people and prefer to spend time with people one at a time. Probably just as well given what an eclectic bunch of people my friends are. Some of them you definitely could not put in a room together, they come from such different worlds.

I also remember the loss of security I felt being separated from close friends as a child. They do say girls are more likely to have best friends rather than groups like boys tend to. How much of that is a result of subliminal social conditioning I do not know - perhaps this is a reaction to conditioning we take for granted.

Whilst I think its healthy for children to have groups of friends, to separate two kids who have gravitated together because of the latest fad seems over-controlling and destructive to me.

Someone's friends should be their own choice, surely? By choosing for them you are not affording them something that as adults we would consider a basic human right.

Can't remember whether boys had close friends but the men will remember that for sure. I remember though, that there was a pair of a girl and boy who were best friends in a class. They had many other friends too. They both were friendly to others, but always sat and walked together. What could be wrong with that?

Huh,I was best friends with a number girls in grade school until our parents ended them. Go figure.

Now, one of my nephews and his real friends have imaginary friends who have names, parents, siblings, etc. They are telling stories about these imaginary friends. It is probably a harmless play to the extent that children understand that it is a play.

I met my best friend 46 years ago when I started school and simply couldnt imagine my life without her. I honestly think our relationship has been the most important in my life.

I am a very sociable person, always was, have always had a wide circle of playmates as a child and social mates now but always only one best friend, I certainly dont think I have suffered in anyway by having a best friend in fact the opposite, its great to have someone who has been there all my life, we know each other totally and even finish each others sentences, when either of our families have a "family" occasion we are each invited without question so in a way as a result of our close friendship I have had two families.

I remember having boys as best friends from time to time and my daughter still mostly has male friends. She gets all beside herself when she finds girls she gets on with. The boys thought she was great because she could fight better than them. They seemed to like getting duffed up by this teeny weeny pretty little thing.

They do and ideally they're called parents.