
Schools are banning best friends to protect students' feelings - DeusExMachina
https://www.businessinsider.nl/schools-are-banning-best-friends-to-protect-kids-feelings-2017-9/?international=true&r=US
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staticelf
This seems incredibly stupid. You can't ban kids from having just one or a few
friends, it's one thing to teach them manners etc. But saying you can't have
close friends seems just plain stupid if I understand the article correctly
and doesn't reflect the life of grown-ups at all.

> Best friends, with their tight bonds and inside jokes, throw a wrench into
> that open environment, school officials contend.

How? The article doesn't explain why it should. Only because you have close
friends doesn't automatically mean that you are hostile towards everyone else.

I am a grown up, I only have a few friends and I think that is perfectly
normal. I hate this kind of over protecting, "we know better than you"
mentality. Personally I think it's way more important to have a few close
friends than a lot of people you are simply loosely connected to.

Even the science is against it the idea:

> And although anti-best-friend policies may help kids in the short-term,
> research suggests the strong connections found among best friends could be
> vital for mental health in a world where adolescents are lonelier than ever.

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daemin
This seems a very extroverted policy since extroverts naturally tend to have a
large pool of people they are friends with. Introverts tend to have a few
people that they know really well.

