The End of The Best Friend

[teqrevisited]

If two children seem to be too focused on each other, the camp will make sure to put them on different sports teams, seat them at different ends of the dining table or, perhaps, have a counselor invite one of them to participate in an activity with another child whom they haven't yet gotten to know.

Wow... Just... Really? Forcing you to spend time with someone you don't know or might not want to know? I can see they're trying to promote good overall relations but deliberately separating two kids who consider each other Best Friends will just make them hate the school.

 

[Yureina]

Everyone needs a best friend. I especially know that now because I have been effectively lacking a good real life friend for about 4-5 years now. Its really sad.

 

[nerd51075]

I used to have best friends. I've grown away from everyone and I am much happier for it. I have not one real life friend right now and I wouldn't change it for the world. I don't need people, they don't need me, everyone is a winner.

You sir, are either a liar or a troll.

OT: Kids need best friends, blah-dee-blah-stuff-that-has-already-been-said-50-times.

I can assure you I am neither. Just a misanthrope who likes being alone.

I'm not sure why, but I am having trouble believing you on that one. Oh well, to each their own.

Likewise, I don't understand why people can be so trusting of eachother and leave themselves so vulnerable. But you're right, we're all different.

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[WolfThomas]

Best friends are good, but a trio of best friends is best, that becomes an inseparable force. Plus if anyone pulls a girl, the others can still have a good time.

 

[Queen Michael]

"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."

Might as well say that "I don't think it's particularly healthy for a child to eat food for nutrition" said Jay Jacobs, the camp's director. "If something goes awry, like if the food is poisoned or has gone bad, it can be devastating."
Can't the guy understand that it's nice to have someone you can trust with stuff you don't want to reach other people's ears? It's not a choice between having one really good friend or many, it's a choice between one or none.

 

[capin Rob]

I don't have/need a best friend,

 

[unoleian]

Damn. The very idea of a best friend exists for a very particular reason. There's just something to be said for that person who is always there no matter what happens, who you can disagree with and yet still love 'em all the same seconds later.

It's human nature to have that level of transcendent interaction with, probably, only one person on the entire freakin' planet. There's a good reason for it, even if sometimes we may not be entirely certain what that reason is.

Sometimes, I think people's attempts to control the very nature of what it means to be human, to equalize everyone, to control and police and coddle all actions to such a degree is doing far more harm to our collective mentality than to simply accept and enjoy the very things that happen between certain people because, dammit, that's just the way it's supposed to be.

 

[PatrickXD]

That's ridiculous, best friends are amazing, they can relate to you and vice versa so talking is free and easy, never awkward. It's great to have a best friend, I understand the concern to an extent but it seems that they have lacked the idea of getting into trouble, you need that one best person to fall back on. That's almost like saying that everyone should marry every other woman in their work place.

 

[XJ-0461]

Trying to manage people's friendships? Who the hell saw that as a good idea? Seriously, who came up with this crap? I have a feeling that this could lead to some sort of dystopian society.

Besides, it's just gonna make the kids pissed off, sad and angry. Because why would little Timmy want to play with someone who's company he enjoys and he gets along with well when he can be forced to spend time with some kid he may not like or have anything in common with? I mean kids having fun together? That's just stupid, right?

And bullying may increase as well. Say some little geeky kid with not much confidence who's always trying to keep people happy (it's OK, I can say that, I was that kid) gets forced to spend time with some jerk jock who enjoys picking on kids not as tough as him. Yeah, I'm sure that they'll magically become friends and the world will be full of sunshine and rainbows. There'd be more happiness if the kids could play with who they want to!

Basically, if they're trying to make a better future by forcing everyone to get along, they're gonna fail miserably. Let kids be kids. Sort out the fucking social issues when they're older. Don't punish them because they have a best friend.

Ugh... so many things wrong with this idea.

 

[Queen Michael]

You know what? I'm not done yet.

How thick can aperson be? Do these people have no brains?

"In recent years Timber Lake Camp, a co-ed sleep-away camp in Phoenicia, N.Y., has started employing ?friendship coaches? to work with campers to help every child become friends with everyone else."
With EVERYONE else? Really? Is it that big a crime if a child likes somebody more than somebody else? Can't they even acknowledge that sometimes, you like one person more than another? It's like this is a Saturday Morning Cartoon and they are the aliens who, at the end of the episode, are exclaiming angrily "But the emotions of these humans don't follow our calculations!"

If you have a best friend, you have somebody you really can trust. You get along with him/her, you tell her/him your secrets, and you hear his/her secrets. That's valuable, and it can't be replaced by superficial friendships that only involve meeting to play and then going home. And what's the poor kid supposed to do if s/he has some secret he wants to share with somebody before s/he bursts? Just tell it to everyone?

If things go wrong, it won't be pretty. But that's always the case when things go wrong! And the kid will be more mature for it.

Am I the only one who suspects that these people don't practice what they preach?

 

[jonnosferatu]

Fucking assholes.

Yes, I recognize this doesn't contribute much, but I find the thought behind this utterly despicable and want to shoot the people responsible for this idea coming into practice.

EDIT: Productive time:

As a number of the article comments brought up, this totally ignores the fact that a fairly large number of children (myself included) are introverted and do not enjoy strong interaction with larger groups of people at once. Intervening with their lives and manually trying to push them into a mold that would work well for an extrovert is, ironically, going to result in little more than feelings of isolation and rejection, as they will not enjoy time in group activities and will probably wind up being outcast from the group but stuck inside it because they're not allowed to leave. This is setting the introverts up for disaster, and probably isn't benefiting the extroverts much either, as closer friendships are an important part of development and the introverts are generally going to be more prone to establishing and maintaining such relationships with extroverts than the extroverts will with each other - simply because the extroverts don't have much reason to do so.

I'm obviously playing up the model here, and probably making faulty conjectures, but I'm confident that my central point - that this interference is inherently bad for everyone involved - is solid.

Thoughts that came up reading:
"Yes, of course...under no circumstances must a child ever be allowed to discover what loss feels like."

And, with regards to the Chris commenter (page 1):
The girls are FUCKING EIGHT YEARS OLD. Of course they're clingy, possessive, and generally unpleasant - they're eight years old and growing up in America. I can't fault you for intervening and trying to even stuff out - that's the correct parental response to such a situation, honestly - but there's a difference between healthy parental intervention to demonstrate what constitutes acceptable behavior, and heavy-handed intrusion to prevent the close relationships from ever actually forming. The girls you describe aren't forming close relationships in the first place - they're just fucking around with each other because they're EIGHT. YEARS. OLD.

etc.

 

[similar.squirrel]

While I agree that it's not a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket, this is ridiculous. What right do schools have to meddle in students' affairs like this?

 

[Queen Michael]

You know what? I'm STILL not done yet.

I bet soon there's gonna be a camp where they tell the boys they have to be in love with ALL the girls and vice versa, it's not fair otherwise. Because these people know nothing of what people are like, they just know what their calculations show people SHOULD be like, and they can't even understand that having five friends isn't the same as having one best friend times five.

 

[Latinidiot]

Madness! A best friend is something you can't deny.

 

[jobobob]

It would make them afraid to try different options, my best friend showed me half of my friends.

 

[Queen Michael]

Madness! A best friend is something you can't deny.

Madness? THIS! IS! SPARTA!
Oh, and by the way, you're right, and neither should you try. These people have to realize that kids need to form friendships by themselves so they'll be prepared for the adult world, where there won't be anybody to managa your social relations for you.

 

[elilupe]

You NEED at least one best friend in your life! This is just making all the kids have shallower connections with everyone, instead of having real connections with one or two people.

 

[Latinidiot]

Madness! A best friend is something you can't deny.

Madness? THIS! IS! SPARTA!
Oh, and by the way, you're right, and neither should you try. These people have to realize that kids need to form friendships by themselves so they'll be prepared for the adult world, where there won't be anybody to managa your social relations for you.

exactly!

they say that the results 'can be devastating'. What could they possibly devastate by being exeptionally affectionate to a select individual? will that person 'break their heart'? is that their 'concern'? that's part of life, man. Let children live their lifes like the parents themselves did. I think that people are sometimes so busy giving their children the thing they didn't have, they forget to give their children the things they DID have.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Irresponsible parents.

Ruining the next generation since 2004.