UK Schools Ban Kids From Making Best Friends

reply to post by IAMTAT


Learning to cope with loss is part of growing up.
Learning to deal with losing is part of growing up.

They are stunting the growth of a generation(s).

Authority provides for friendship.
Authority provides for rewards in "participating".

Authority deems what you find necessary.

reply to post by n00bUK


After a couple of mins giving this some thought I am inclined to think this is just about trying to make life easier for the teachers so they don't have to deal with tear's and or minor upset's when children "fall" out...which again I believe is a normal part of child development.

Utter tosh!

as a father with a son in a uk school i'd like to think i know better, and then when i see....

Originally posted by IAMTAT
More links on this:
www.thesun.co.uk...
www.foxnews.com...

it just confirms it.

a crazy suggestion/dictat in a school or handful of schools does not a summer make. sounds like a well meaning lesson on integration taken out of context and blown out of all proportion.

Originally posted by IAMTAT
reply to post by Logos23

 

I see you're from the UK...Apparently, schools in the UK feel they know better than you do regarding who your children should have as a friend. I would be angry as hell if they tried to control my sons in such a manner. Who do they think they are?

To be fair I don't think this school madness is unique to any one country at the moment ...I tend to feel that the UK are usually late comer's to this sort of thing and we aren't really the leader's in this sort of BS school politic's.

I suspect those couple of school's are isolated example's....I know for a fact here in the North where I live we don't bow down to teacher's and school's ridiculous request's.....infact I'm smiling imagining the kind of response teacher's would get from parent's round here!

I have never hears so,much rubbish in my life! Do you believe everything that is written in the papers? There has been no word on this on TV or anywhere else I have seen and I regularly check all news channels and don't bother with the rubbish that is printed. I remember one paper said there was a tank and an aeroplane on the moon with pictures! Complete crap! You make friends at school, best friends are for life and no one would even contemplate trying to stop that happening . It's like saying to us to not have a friend or best friend, friends are part of growing up.

You're taking the piss,right? Right??????

reply to post by skalla
While it may not be commonplace now it is definitely heading in that direction. They started this policy at my nieces daycare a few years ago. Last year they instituted it at all three of my city"s elementary schools (in Texas). One of my friends in Missouri told me it is policy at her grandchild's school, and one of my cousins in Illinois has two children in two different area schools where they have recently embraced this rule as well. I do believe it is just a matter of time before it is adopted everywhere.

reply to post by Logos23


The thing is all these stories come from a small number of PC dominated local councils in London and the South East.

The Sun takes obvious delight in taking these ridiculous policies and blowing them out of all proportion just to portray Labour as the 'Loony Left'.

When these stories are subsequently read by our cousins over the pond they naturally assume it is representative of our school system as a whole, and it's my experience that it isn't.

reply to post by Freeborn


Indeed!...not sure where in the UK you live, but where I am from they wouldn't have a cat in hell's chance in implementing this kind of BS....they would get laughed at big time!

reply to post by darkbake


Agreed, I've only had one or two good friends over the years, and just being in a room with people I do know gives me a sensory overload.

I guess the teachers are thinking more friends=more success, as they see with the more popular kids surrounded by those who just want to bask off their good luck.

It doesn't really work that way, believe me, I know both sides of the coin.

Absolutely ridiculous!

This falls in line with everyone gets a trophy, everybody's the same, and no one person means more than another.
When are these stupid officials going to learn that, yes, people are better at some things than others and it's OK to like one person better than another? How are children ever going to learn how to handle rejection?

Originally posted by littled16
reply to post by IAMTAT

 

Really what it boils down to isn't preventing the kids from pain if best friends "break up" but to force the children to be friends with everyone, even kids they don't like, so that none of the little buggers feel "left out". They are programming them at an early age to do what is considered best for the "collective" rather than what is in their own personal best interests. Let the brain washing begin!

And that is a bad thing? Thinking on collective, rather than individual pursuits? It is extremely good quality for the future. I hate this people who would screw anyone simply to get their "personal interests" fulfilled. Teamwork is nearly always better than individual work

The headline is shocking, although I do not see the point were best friends are disallowed? It simply encouraging work on larger groups, not together always. It simply makes less cliches. Otherwise groups always do stuff together and cliches come. Overally that is not good. Nowadays many kids move, and if they are extremely close with one kid in the class who stays, it may leave quite an emotional trauma.

reply to post by Cabin
It is sometimes people who don't learn to handle being left out or losing or being rejected as children who find they can't handle the real world mentally when they grow up and must face these things which were a foreign concept when they were children but commonplace in the adult world.

reply to post by Logos23


I'm from the North East - The Land Of The Prince Bishops.

Whilst we aren't immune from the PC dictates we are still a bit behind the times up here and retain our own sense of identity and as a whole tend to be pragmatic and resilient to anything that may be viewed as 'soft' or 'wimpish'.

reply to post by Freeborn


I think the problem is that a lot of report's, statistic's and views come from London or surrounding area's and get picked up on and the rest of the world see it as a UK thing......but people fail to recognise or understand even that London is NOT the UK....for the rest of us we know there is "life" further North....and very often what goes on in London is not representative of what goes on in the rest of the UK!

reply to post by Logos23


I don't really want to start discussing this here and possibly derail this thread but this is a very interesting article.
It ties in with the thread I was going to start but thought better of it.

www.bbc.co.uk...

Unfortunately I can't find the programme mentioned anywhere on iPlayer.

ETA.
Oops - just noticed that the programme is embedded at the top of the article - more evidence I'm afraid of the onset of middle-age!

Originally posted by Freeborn
reply to post by Logos23

 

The thing is all these stories come from a small number of PC dominated local councils in London and the South East.

The Sun takes obvious delight in taking these ridiculous policies and blowing them out of all proportion just to portray Labour as the 'Loony Left'.

When these stories are subsequently read by our cousins over the pond they naturally assume it is representative of our school system as a whole, and it's my experience that it isn't.

edit on 28/3/13 by Freeborn because: grammar and clarity

I wouldn't be quick to label this as a British (English?) anomaly. Schools in N. America are beginning to lean towards these 'policies'.

The media (the Sun in this instance) have every right and responsibility to ridicule and question these policies regardless of their political lean. What kind of job would they be doing if they didn't?

Bureaucratic policies and mindless interference by our 'loving and all powerful' gov'ts will be the eventual ruin of our souls.

reply to post by Freeborn


You should definitely think about starting that thread...I think a lot of people from the UK have got a lot out of the couple of thread's concerning UK issues the last couple of day's. If you do change your mind let me know incase I miss it!

I will go check out that link.

Next they'll ban boyfriends and girlfriends. Hey. Cant allow our children of experiencing the pains of breaking up.
Then what? Ban marrige to save people the pains of divorce.

Thats life!!! You feel and experience pain to grow and learn, and appericiate the good when it comes.

There are signs that this is coming to the US as well.

But at my older daughter’s preschool they actually do something similar.
When two or three kids appear to be growing too close — i.e. playing solely with each other to the exclusion of other kids — they have a system in place to prevent the kids from spending too much time together.

They don’t let them sit next to each other during snack and lunch, and they don’t let them hold hands when walking with the class in a line. They don’t stop them from playing with each other, but they break up the clique at other, arguably critical times (to a preschooler, anyway).

www.babble.com...

Other reporting on the UK story:

www.huffingtonpost.com...

www.abc15.com...

www.independent.co.uk...