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A Best Friend? You Must Be Kidding
The New York Times ^ | June 16, 2010 | HILARY STOUT

Posted on 06/21/2010 10:05:41 PM PDT by Melissa 24

ROM the time they met in kindergarten until they were 15, Robin Shreeves and her friend Penny were inseparable. They rode bikes, played kickball in the street, swam all summer long and listened to Andy Gibb, the Bay City Rollers and Shaun Cassidy on the stereo. When they were little, they liked Barbies; when they were bigger, they hung out at the roller rink on Friday nights. They told each other secrets like which boys they thought were cute, as best friends always do. Readers' Comments Readers shared their thoughts on this article. Today, Ms. Shreeves, of suburban Philadelphia, is the mother of two boys. Her 10-year-old has a best friend. In fact, he is the son of Ms. Shreeves’s own friend, Penny. But Ms. Shreeves’s younger son, 8, does not. His favorite playmate is a boy who was in his preschool class, but Ms. Shreeves says that the two don’t get together very often because scheduling play dates can be complicated; they usually have to be planned a week or more in advance. “He’ll say, ‘I wish I had someone I can always call,’ ” Ms. Shreeves said. One might be tempted to feel some sympathy for the younger son. After all, from Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn to Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, the childhood “best friend” has long been romanticized in literature and pop culture — not to mention in the sentimental memories of countless adults. 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?

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: children; friends; leftuniverse; nytimes; psychology
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“When a teacher is trying to tone down a best-friend culture, I would like to know why..."

So the best way to discourage bullying is to prohibit close friendships? I don't know whether to vomit or cry.

1 posted on 06/21/2010 10:05:41 PM PDT by Melissa 24
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To: Melissa 24

It makes me want to vomit out my eye sockets.


2 posted on 06/21/2010 10:08:13 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear (These fragments I have shored against my ruins)
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To: Melissa 24

Why are we surprised...when THERE IS NO GOD IN SOCIETY...people believe they can control everything from the weather to human nature.


3 posted on 06/21/2010 10:08:39 PM PDT by Hildy
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To: Melissa 24
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?

Liberals always ask the dumbest questions.

They're probably threatened in that their devotion to their dogmatic worldview won't allow close friendships.

4 posted on 06/21/2010 10:11:29 PM PDT by TheThinker (Communists: taking over the world one kooky doomsday scenerio at a time.)
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To: Melissa 24
I don't know whether to vomit or cry.

When the state wants you to have a best friend, it will issue you one.

Until then, the State is your best friend, citizen.

5 posted on 06/21/2010 10:12:04 PM PDT by null and void (We are now in day 514 of our national holiday from reality. - 0bama really isn't one of US.)
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To: Melissa 24
About once a generation, a psychiatrist or psychologist appears who has a unique insight into human nature. One such was a fellow named Harry Stack Sullivan, at the Pratt Institute back in the 1930's-40's.

Sullivan was one of those savants who had the uncanny ability to relate to and cure schizophrenia without medication. Yes, they appear, and reinvent the wheel, every thirty-forty years or so.

One of Sullivan's insights was the essential value of what he called, simply, "buddies." He noted that people who had intimate(non-erotic) same-sex best friends as children, seldom developed severe mental illness later in life.

Anyone who attempts to suppress a 'best-friend' relationship ought to be considered a perpetrator of child abuse and be treated accordingly.

6 posted on 06/21/2010 10:25:15 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: Melissa 24

This garbage was obviously dreamt up by a bunch of silly adults who urgently need to get lives of their own. Amazing that they don’t grasp that best friends stick up for each other when somebody tries to bully one of them, and weaken the hold that cliques have on individual members.


7 posted on 06/21/2010 10:36:21 PM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
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To: hinckley buzzard

“Anyone who attempts to suppress a ‘best-friend’ relationship ought to be considered a perpetrator of child abuse and be treated accordingly.”

I think you’re on to something there.


8 posted on 06/21/2010 10:43:29 PM PDT by Melissa 24 (I Brake For Epiphanies)
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Schools have 0 business asking such questions. We need laws that limit schools to basics 3 rs etc. Social engineering needs to be stopped!


9 posted on 06/21/2010 10:47:48 PM PDT by sanjoaquinvalley (Long Time Lady Lurker)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

It makes me want to vomit out my eye sockets.

this


10 posted on 06/21/2010 11:10:30 PM PDT by JimBianchi11 (The 2A is the cornerstone of our free society. Those that don't support it, oppose it.)
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To: Melissa 24

It’s another crazy idea manufactered by crazy people.


11 posted on 06/21/2010 11:57:13 PM PDT by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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To: Melissa 24

12 posted on 06/22/2010 12:03:08 AM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: hinckley buzzard

of course that raises the question of whether it’s because having a best friend protects against developing later mental illness, or whether it means children prone to mental illness find it difficult to make friends.


13 posted on 06/22/2010 12:07:34 AM PDT by balch3
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To: Melissa 24

It makes me sad to see how times have changed wrt having a best friend.

And, recess...


14 posted on 06/22/2010 12:11:21 AM PDT by dixiechick2000 (Remember November...I can see it from my house!)
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To: Melissa 24

Close same-sex friendships are natural and a precursor to opposite-sex relationships. It’s cliques that need to be discouraged, if anything does. Maybe they can’t be discouraged, but the phenomenon of the In Crowd has left many a child with sad high school memories.

Bullying should be discouraged also—it’s kind of an offshoot of the In Crowd phenomenon.


15 posted on 06/22/2010 12:20:11 AM PDT by firebrand
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To: null and void
Until then, the State is your best friend, citizen Comrade.

FIFY
16 posted on 06/22/2010 12:20:31 AM PDT by Kozak (USA 7/4/1776 to 1/20/2009 Reqiescat in Pace)
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To: balch3

I think it means that people incapable of making close friends are most likely to become psychiatrists.


17 posted on 06/22/2010 12:47:08 AM PDT by magslinger (If recycling makes cents as well as sense, I am all for it.)
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To: Hildy

...”Why are we surprised...when THERE IS NO GOD IN SOCIETY...people believe they can control everything from the weather to human nature”...

YES! We are seeing pure evil paraded as “caring.” It is a way to have the population accept enslavement rather than human rights. It is common sense turned inside out and upside down..It is irrational and will not stand over time because “normal” will be reasserted at some point in the future. It may take war to reassert human rights but it will happen sometime in the future.


18 posted on 06/22/2010 1:59:48 AM PDT by jazzlite (esat)
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To: Lancey Howard

As a famous little girl once said, “Boys are Aliens”.

:)


19 posted on 06/22/2010 3:38:49 AM PDT by Bigh4u2 (Denial is the first requirement to be a liberal)
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To: magslinger

I think it means that people incapable of making close friends are most likely to become psychiatrists.

That’s MY take!!!!


20 posted on 06/22/2010 4:36:55 AM PDT by mpackard (Read my Lip-Stick)
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