Pre-school bans kids from using term "Best Friend"
 

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Shesus...

I know, some want to stop children having a best friend. This is something most children innately do (as we know). I support inclusion, it isn't nice for a child to be left out because they have more difficulty making friends, encouraging children to have a whole group of friends and inviting others to play is a good thing, from my own memories it could sometimes be a problem if you chose to play with a child other than your 'best friend' so working on that too is a good thing, but stopping them from having that closest friend? no, a lot of them are going to have someone they bond with most.. . Course this article is about banning the term not having that closest friend.

Modern progressives remind so much of early Bolsheviks.

They ban words and change their meanings, while reality obviously stays the same and then they are pretending that they made "a meaningful change" and made society "better".

Gladly, reality usually win over those morons, but not before a lot of people suffer for their stupidity and ignorance.

I don’t see a problem with not encouraging the terms use. As long as a replacement term is offered such as “good friend.” We don’t need to be making it more difficult for children to express themselves by banning words and not offering replacements. Also I would hope the teachers would have discussions about what makes someone a good friend.

"Not encouraging" is different than saying, "Timmy, you can NOT call John your 'best friend' in this classroom!"

Which is crazy.

Yeah it doesn’t teach the kids much of anything to be saying “no” all the time. Except maybe that school has lots of strange rules.

It’s hard to believe that a teacher would straight up say “Timmy your not allowed to say that.” I would think the teacher would be more like “Timmy remember we say ‘good friend’ when we see someone treating us nicely.”

One way seems like teaching while the other seems like just code enforcement.

Maybe “good friend?” Perhaps the kid could describe what makes the friend “best” or “closest.” That way if someone else is interested in being friends they know what to do and the door is open. Like Ted might say “Timmy is my good friend because he eats lunch with me and we talk about video games.” So other kids might know if I go eat lunch with Ted and we talk then I can be a good friend too.

Yes but could 'good friend' imply that those who aren't the closest friend are bad? I think it could be difficult for a young child to describe their favourite friend in a way that doesn't make them stand out from the rest.

No. They are just not as good. :lol:

I'm old enough to remember grown-ass adults being buttmad at Livejournal for not having a "subscribe" feature separate from the "friends" feature.

Then again, I also remember elementary school where girls would make entire notebooks of hate for other girls, and then give it to them telling them they should die.

So you know, the internet before there was the internet.
Why wouldn't we want to nip that kind of thing in the bud early?

I don't understand what is wrong with "the best friend"?
People always will have "best friends", so I absolutely don't see why people need to deny reality again.

Using any other word will be the same thing - if you call cat a fish, it still will be a cat. No matter how it hurts your feelings.

And what banning "best friend" from use has to do with it?

According to your logic people should have stop using words "friends" altogether, because, that the only way you can stop humans being exclusionary towards some people. But that is hilarious and never will work out - as long as humans exist, they will socialize and get close with like-minded people.
No amount of hand-wringing and crying about hurt feelings won't change that. Denying it basically denying humanity, but on the other hand it's not the first time, when ideological zealots deny reality.

I would legitimately be concerned about the mental health and stability of someone who thinks that the concept of having best friends is bigoted and children must be socially conditioned to reject it.

I really have no idea. Maybe some may take it as “best” means ranking order. Like “best” is the supreme and most excellent above all others. I would then wonder why keep subpar friendships? Shouldn’t you want all your friends to be “best?” If not they are just acquaintances.

Obviously you have never heard of a catfish. :trazz:

Apparently, if I understood it right, the logic behind this decision, is that kids might use "best friend" card to bully others ("You are not my best friend and won't invite you to the birthday party") and to make that all kids are "best friends" for everyone.

Apparently people who brought this idiotic idea forward, have a very lousy idea of how humans actually work.

Children still will socialize, they still will pick up most liked people amongst others. It's inevitable, it's like humanity works - you always have 1-2 special people who are above all others, so to speak. Trying to break this cycle, is basically denying children first steps in socialization.

Concentrating only negatives is hilarious and inept idiocy, which will lead towards more infantilizing children and making them even less prepared for the real world, where most don't give a **** about your personal feelings and not everyone want to be your friend.

Still a fish. :trazz:

I think it also could be about balance and not shutting people out. Refining those social skills. How often do those “1-2 special people” from childhood stay with you throughout your life. Often people can shelter themselves in a few close relationships and lose out by not being open to others.

I think it’s important to help kids recognize the traits that they find important in a friend. No matter what the term is. Although some terms facilitate the exploring better than others.

Banning kids from saying "best friend" wont change how they act towards others. Next thing you know, they'll try to prevent kids from hanging out with their supposed best friends because of the whole "leaving other kids out" thing.

Children still would do it, no matter how you call it. They still will pick up special people and so on. You or anyone else can't stop it.

The only way you can prevent this, is to physically stop kids interacting with each other and those who they think are special for them, and this is obviously an outright abhorrent idea.

Also, "losing your special people" - so what? Everyone going through this. Stop infatilizing kids. You can't soft cushioning them for the rest of their lives and give them insurance that nothing bad will happen. In a manner of speaking, bad things are good for developing character and strength of will.

Trying to get rid of this will turn kids into weak infantile idiots incapable interacting with the rest of the world. Unless you want to turn the whole world into one big Demolition Man type "Utopia", where even cursing is prohibited and people are treated with soft gloves, like brain damaged children 24/7, which wouldn't work, because, of human nature to resist any type of dictatorship.

It won't stop them from having best friends.

Precisely.

An attempt to make everyone equal won't work.
People are not equal. Never were and never will be, unless humanity will start tampering with Eugenics.

Some people are smarter than others, some are more talented, some better at singing, others better at dancing. You can't do nothing about it and denying that is to deny reality itself and treat everyone like they don't have any identifiable traits, since this is the only way to achieve "complete equality".

And even if government will try to do enforce such "equality" they will fail. Actually Soviet Union attempted to facilitate it, by literally purging and ostracizing people who were not fit to be the part of the system (too smart, too talented and as a resulted demands too much and so on).

The result, ironically, was opposite: due to the forced "equality of everyone" USSR technology and science ended up in the shitter, because, all truly talented people were either removed from position where they could bring meaningful changes and those positions were occupied by professional dumb asslickers or escaped from USSR to the other countries. As a result country ended up in trashbin.

So, this is where your "equality of everyone" inevitably leads to: stagnation, death of imagination and individuality. And as a result death of society.

If your under the impression that folks are trying to take friends away, stopping kids from making friends or forming close bonds. Then you have missed the point. No one is wanting to do any of that.

Can't have one kid feeling privileged and another kid feeling inferior now...

This is retarded.

The good news is that this is a private, nonprofit preschool for about 30 children. So y'all are welcome to not send whatever spawnings you happen to have to this one school.

The parents in question decided to not send their child there anymore. No harm no foul.

Hm, 2 steps forward, 100 steps back. This is so stupid. It's like people don't want kids to learn how to deal with disappointment or loss or any of that other stuff you have to learn to deal with as kids so you can deal with it as adults. People move away, people grow apart, it's a part of life. The generations coming WILL be nothing but delicate little snowflakes who can't handle any type of negativity or finding healthy ways to deal with that negativity.

Anyway, I doubt kids will actually go by this, though. They'll probably still have a best friend regardless. It's only natural.

While I get what some mean by 'Best', when used here it doesn't mean someone is better than someone else, for I don't know how long it has just meant a child's/persons closest friend, most see it that way.
TrutleWA, agreed on inclusion and encouraging a wider number of friends, this is being done is schools (I assume across the board) and is a good thing, preventing close friendships is different (I know you didn't say it wasn't btw, I'm just continuing on), this is natural to all of us, but as pointed out, that isn't what the article was about.

... I got into 2012's trutles and I end up here taking about best friends ....LOL

The folks around here have a lot of feelings.

Oh, that post wasn't meant as complaint, I just found it funny getting into some conversations and then remembering why I came here to start :)

Then what exactly it will achieve? Alright, you banned the word, but kids still will make best friends with someone. So what's the point?

Why rising generation of fragile hypocrites who will say one thing, but do the other?

Seems some people definitely operate on this logic, no matter how little sense it does.

You guys get offended by every clickbait article the media posts. “They can’t say best friends!? This is because they started letting boys wear pink! I knew this would happen!” But then someone is like “Hey, you’re using the wrong pronouns and it really sucks so...” and you scream “Stop being offended!!!”

And opinions. I think that is a good thing btw imo. I like the folks around here bc of that.

Read the article in OP and it may offer insights into what the school is hoping to achieve. I can’t help you beyond that.

Political correctness gone mad.

Funny how this works, right?

My mother is the director of a pre-school. And if I know anything about my mother, she would call great b-s on this :lol: .

Dissaproving of something does not equal to being offended.

Yeah, there's a big difference between what "best friend" means to a nine year old and a four year old.

I'd surmount the whole issue in this particular school being from someone higher up in staff being sick of "best friend" being "weaponized" as described earlier. It's a dumb reason, but it's the best I can think of.

Right around Duckling's age, I would guess that kids start to scale back on that "Bestie Warfare".

(Though, I'm not really one to talk, as I didn't exactly have a "best friend" in school, on account of being the weird kid with a double whammy of being very early bloomer)

I'm not sure the difference is so much what it means as how they deal with it at those ages. A nine (10 in her case) year old realizes that people have different interests and tastes, so they don't internalize it as much, where the 4 year old see it as one person getting more attention from the friend even though they are friends with both. That makes a difference, I think. It's all in the maturity level of the friendship.

Enough of the Personal sniping/attacks... you can debate this stuff, but stop it with getting PERSONAL.

Apologies, Machias. That might have been a bit over the line. I do feel however that certain behavior has been going on too long, mainly concerning belittling the opinions and beliefs of others here, and especially treating anyone with differing views as "leftie snowflakes". That is a violation of rules, isn't it?

I can relate a little to the last part of that only I was fortunate to have had a few close friends.
I found that 'best friend' issues came as an older child rather than a younger one, you spend time with another child (without the best friend) and you are called out by class members, that mindset had gone by the teens years but I still had a close friend who I was with most of the time besides having other friends. (she's remained a good friend)

I don't think it's the description or that a child has a close friend that is an issue, it's the taunting 'nah, you aren't my best friend, he is' or pairing and not playing with others also, that's what I meant earlier about encouraging inclusion and friendships instead.

That's actually a good point...and probably part of why "best friend" can be weaponized. Especially when they want to deliberately isolate other children. Which does happen in preschools.


Of course, the big problem is, what preschooler is going to abide by this "rule"?
If anything, they would probably have made the problem worse.

That's fair.

Yes there is a difference in what you can expect an older child to understand. We have people who are closer to than others but obviously think differently, we wouldn't turn to a colleague at work and say 'I like you but ,<whatever name> is my favourite person here, I like you 2nd best, :)

Who can weaponize it?
Little kids?