A Massachusetts preschool has decided to ban the phrase "best friend", rationalizing that it will cause mental damage to the other 4 and 5 years olds. Earth to the Massachusetts preschool teachers: Children don't apply the same psychological mumbo-jumbo to words that adults do. This kind of wackiness makes me crazy.

I agree that this is overboard, but children are sometimes "hurt" when someone they think of as a best friend claims someone else as their best friend. The difference is children generally forget about such slights quickly, often within minutes, unless someone — like a teacher or overly protective parent — makes an issue of it. This decision has all the earmarks of being the result of a complaint by a helicopter Mom parent and educators struggling to find a rule to hide behind so they can keep their jobs.

I sympathize with the teacher's and school administrator's struggling to keep their jobs. But the ones I feel sorry for are the child(ren) of the parent(s) behind this. She (I am guessing it was most likely a girl) will grow up with a parent dedicated to sweeping away every slight and every obstacle and is unlikely to learn how to deal with social and other life problems. Too often these children are so unsure of themselves that when they get to college and are faced with some of life's harsher realities elect to stay blind drunk and/or blitzed out on drugs rather than facing their inability to cope.

Just as Monty Python's Norwegian blue parrot was pinin' for the fjords, I pine for the days of yore when kids were expected to fend for themselves and learn life's lessons as need be.

When I was in elementary school bordering on middle school (in those days called junior high), the school bully always tried to prove his worth (despite considerable deficits in cerebration department) by punching out those who were not so intellectually deprived. My retort to his threat of giving me a bloody nose was to threaten to sneeze on him if he did; that put the kibosh on his threat.

Moving right along ....

I recall a school bully named, appropriately, Dick....who would beat me or my friend Adrian whenever he caught either of us alone. He was easily a full head taller than us an had a weight advantage.

When Adrian and I finally had enough we hid in a laneway that Dick took on his way to and from school. The two of us managed to get Dick to the ground where we punched the crap out of him. He never bothered us again.

Back to the theme, joemike is absolutely right, we are not doing our children any favours when we protect them from every possible hurt.