Best friendships can ‘exclude other school pupils’, says headmaster

 
2 May 2013

Young children should not have a best friend because it leaves others feeling excluded and upset, a London prep-school headmaster said.

Girls in particular are prone to forming close-knit friendship “triangles” that often end up with one member feeling ostracised, according to Ben Thomas, head of Thomas’s private day school in Battersea. Instead, children should be encouraged to have lots of good friends, he said.

Mr Thomas said: “There is sound judgment behind it. You can get very possessive friendships, and it is much easier if they share friendships and have a wide range of good friends rather than obsessing too much about who their best friend is.

“I would certainly endorse a policy which says we should have lots of good friends, not a best friend. I would be happy to make it school policy, although it would need to be age appropriate.”

Mr Thomas, whose school charges up to £16,245 a year, added that it would be most helpful for children between the ages of four and 10, because by the time they reach 11, 12 and 13 they are “making up their own minds”.

He said: “These obsessive friendships can be very hurtful for those who are left out of them, and ostracising is as painful as physical bullying.”

But parents at the school had mixed opinions, with one saying: “You have to have best friends, it is all part of learning the ways of life.”

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