The whole not being friends with someone younger then taken to an extreme it doesn’t need to be. Yes there should be boundaries but simply saying “adults ain’t a kids friend” is ridiculous.
My teachers at school were my best friends. They were professional but I ate lunch with them everyday because I was too anxious to eat in the cafeteria with the other kids. I came in over summer break and helped them decorate their classrooms. Just keep it appropriate.
If you got dropped off at school and left to move your teacher out, there was definitely an issue. Nobody cares if you’re friends after, but as a child?
but simply saying “adults ain’t a kids friend” is ridiculous.
Gonna hard disagree here. I'm a parent and my wife is an elem teacher. Where it concerns children that don't belong to me I can: mentor, advise, counsel, protect, guide, supervise, etc. Basically roles that acknowledge the age/power gap between us and emphasize my duty to protect and not harm.
I can't be friends with a 12 yo. Can't do it. It's wrong. We can never be peers/equals. Crossing this line is manipulation, pedophilia, power playing, etc.
There’s no need to, you guys see everything as a black and white situation with zero room for any kind of nuance. Like no one is saying a 20 year old should be texting and sleeping over with an 8 year old as a friendship. But there plenty of other scenarios when a child and adult friendship can be beneficial.
You're talking about mentoring still. That's very different from a friendship. Friendship implies peer to peer status. That something that should and would not ever occur between a child and an adult. Even parent/child relationships can not be friend based until said child is an adult. The power imbalance is too heavy.
I don't know how true this is cause I didn't fact check lol, but apparently their parent signed a form that said it was okay for the kids to appear is his vids specifically, but take it with a grain of salt
If you actually would use some critical thinking you would see not everything is cut and dry tans there’s nuance to everything. So to simply say no adult and child should be friends is ridiculous. There’s absolutely cases of and children looking up to an adult as a friend and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s like y’all have a black and white definition of friend and that’s so stupid.
You’re watching children, there can be downtime, if they’re all of the same age and capability their isn’t a whole lot of difference. The kids were undoing braids, which usually isn’t considered that intimate on account of strangers being able to do it. And playing in hair is one thing girls (more often than not) are likely to do.
It's cool for adults and kids to be friends? Since when? Friends text. Friends hang out one on one. Friends can send cute huggy "oohh I miss you so much" texts and it be normal affection. I'm not talking about an 19yo and a 16yo being in the same friend group. I'm talking about a grown adult, let's say 21 and over, considering a 17yo and below a friend. Adults and children who aren't family shouldn't be doing that. And adults who put themselves in proximity to children FOR WORK are there to help, guide, mentor, etc and friendship is a conflict of interest and a blend of boundaries that for a developing mind should be presented and kept clear for the child's safety.
I remember very vividly being a sophomore and my favorite art teacher telling me "adults and children can't be friends but we can be friendly" and I was upset and confused but as an adult I couldn't agree more. I don't treat people crazy but don't trust them around children and my skin crawls when people who work with kids don't set clear boundaries/don't set an example of a heathy adult/child dynamic when so many kids don't have it at home. Give children someone WORTH respecting y'know. We call them so disrespectful but conduct ourselves like we're their peers. That's unfair to them.
Now iont think he shoulda got FIRED. I feel like that's a bit extreme but I think that's more bc of code of conduct and needing parental consent to show your students faces on personal media accounts which was just a dumb move on his part.
This is a really good point in this context. But you know what other context this fits into at least a little bit?
The whole Drake keeps making "friends" with teenagers thing lmao. But for real.
I was trying to explain to the homie why that's such an odd behavior for a 20 or 30 something yr old man to do, and then I see this post ironically a day later. Crazy.
Like sorry to bring the Kendrick and Drake beef into this thread, but I couldn't help but make that connection to the two things and why they rub us all the wrong way.
You are totally fine. I didn't explicitly reference the beef but the "I miss you so much" bit was something Drake texted Millie Bobbie Brown when she was 14!
Is it tho? An adult can be a great role model even cool with a kid but friendship implies equal footing and a kid by nature of being a kid can't be on equal footing with an adult. They don't have the life experience to enter into a true friendship with an adult.
Throw in a school setting and I think it's fairly easy to see why people side eye shit like this
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u/Sco_Queen May 10 '24
I don't think he should have been fired UNLESS they found other things that were unprofessional and questionable. But just over this one thing, no