Hey, Teacher! Leave Them Kids Alone!

According to this New York Times article, there's a new trend towards school officials (and camp counselors) discouraging and even actively trying to break up close friendships between children and forcing them to socialize in large groups, the theory being that this way, everybody will be friends with everybody, and this will prevent bullying.

Man. Where to start? My first thought as I read this was that it's an introverted kid's worst nightmare. And then the implication that introversion is a defective state that must be overcome started to make me, a textbook INFP, angry. Not that introverts don't need to learn how to function in an extraverted society, but doing so is both mentally and physically exhausting, and we need those close, one-on-one relationships to recharge us as much as we need time alone to process things. That's not a defect. It's basic wiring, something as fundamental and impossible to change as our skin color. These kids won't have any energy left for learning because they're being forced to use up all of their reserves on being social with too many people at once. And that doesn't even touch on all of the undiagnosed ASD kids out there who are being thrown into overwhelming social situations that they're not equipped to handle.

That's just one of the problems with this scenario. The article (and its commenters) point out several more. But the main problem is that I fail to see how this is supposed to prevent bullying or exclusion. Believe me, it is possible to be excluded within a big group. Ask any kid who's always picked last for kickball. I was bullied and excluded relentlessly growing up, often by big groups of kids. It was the close friendships I developed that helped me survive junior high and high school with my sanity intact. And it was those friends sticking up for me, and eventually helping me learn to stick up for myself, that eventually got the bullying to stop.

I'm not saying that that's the answer. I don't know what is. Here's a confession: the worst thing that was ever done to me was in 10th grade, when three girls held me down on the floor and stapled scraps of paper into my hair, while the rest of the class either watched or kept their heads down and pretended not to see (yes, this happened during class time, while the teacher had stepped out for a few minutes). It was humiliating, and pretty traumatic for a 15 year old girl, but I walked away with no physical damage, and I eventually got over it. This seems like nothing compared to the degree of bullying faced by today's kids, who have to worry about somebody pulling a knife or a gun and just want to literally survive with all of their parts intact. I can't even begin to answer how you deal with that.

But I'm pretty sure the answer isn't denying kids the opportunity to develop close friendships and forcing everybody to make superficial friendships with everybody else. That sounds to me like a recipe for doing more long-term damage than bullying (at least, of the degree kids dealt with back in my day) ever has.

Stopping the Insanity

Every year, of course, I make a pledge to myself that I will be vigilant, I will make preparations all year long, I will not let another Christmas sneak up on me and turn me into a frazzled wreck trying to accomplish the impossible in an impossible amount of time. And every year, of course, I promptly forget said pledge until I'm looking up from unwrapping a piece of Halloween candy and going, "Buh? Christmas is less than two months away? That's unpossible! You are crazy in the head." And then the insanity begins, and the whole thing starts all over again.

This year has been no different. For the last two months, most of my spare time's been spent working my poor, frozen fingers to the bone on knitting projects that I should have started in July. My Christmas vacation began Saturday, and my visions of baking and lazy gift wrapping vanished when I remembered I still needed to do Christmas cards and to drive out to my mom's to pick up my husband's gifts that I didn't trust him not to open if I had them shipped here, and to shop for gifts for the people for whom I will not possibly have time to knit the gifts I'd originally planned, and, oh yes, to finish the knitting I already started. So far, my vacation has been not so much a vacation as a blur of activity and panic.

How do I cope with all of this panic? Hot cocoa with copious amounts of Dr. McGillicuddy's Mint Schnapps certainly hasn't hurt. Nor has the fact that knitting is something I can do with my feet up while Nightmare Before Christmas plays on a loop to keep me company. Mostly, I keep my mind in place by carving out "me" time wherever I can get it. An extra five minutes in the shower, going to bed early, sleeping in, eating regularly and mostly right, taking time out to shave and moisturize and pamper and take good care of myself. It's not easy to do that. Instead, it's incredibly easy to forget to do any of that. Today I even forgot to eat. That is some serious forgetting right there, if you're me, if you love eating like I do. But it's important to remember these things, and to do them. These are the things that make last-minute preparations bearable, even when all of your preparations end up being last-minute. These are also the things that make it possible, when all of those preparations are finally done, to relax and enjoy the company of your friends and relatives and not end up a sniveling mess on the floor of your mother's master bathroom trying to fend off a nervous breakdown on Christmas day.

But you might want to go ahead and bring Dr. McGillicuddy along to mom's house, just in case.

Insanity

I know, I know. I just declared an end to a hiatus and a start to a brand new blogging attitude, and a mere week later here I am about to declare a hiatus again. But this is just a small hiatus. Mini, really. Just for this week, because my job just handed me an insane amount of work to do in a conversely yet equally insane amount of time, before I start my vacation and escape from all of this insanity. And my "free" time is still devoted to an insane amount of knitting that must be done, insanely, by Christmas. And so my oh-so-painfully slim allotments of blog time this week will be spent having another go at that whole moving to a new URL thing that was such a failure last week. If the blog disappears off the face of the internet again, that will be why.

I will be back and blogging when all of this insanity ends, or when my vacation begins, whichever happens first. If it makes you feel better, you can count down the days with this. Or, y'know, count down to Christmas, which is what it's really for. Or just stop and marvel at the awesome beauty of the universe. Whatever floats your boat.

I know why those people in that sleigh are laughing all the way. It's because trying to get everything done on time during the Christmas season drove them completely bonkers.

Bet you thought I was going to say "insane."