How to Make & Keep Friends: Tips for Kids to Overcome 50 Common Social Challenges: Volume 1

I was looking for a book to help my 7yr old son with making and keeping friends. I must say I was not dissappointed. It is a wonderful book of tips. No excessive and lengthy explanations just perfect for both adults and kids. I can easily look for a tip about any given situation and read it to my son, and he understands and implements it perfectly. He even thanked me for helping him. It has improved his social skills immensely and he has not had a bad day at school since. He used to come home and say "oh mom I dont have any friends! no one wants to play with me !" Now he is a happy little boy who comes home everyday to tell me about who he played with and how much of a good day he has had. I absolutely love this book and would reccomend it to any parent who wants to help their child/children with making and keeping friends, and even learn some useful social skills.

My son was having a few friendship issues so as he is an avid reader I bought this book to give him some help. He is 10 and was able to read it on his own and followed lots of the advice which has helped him to resolve some problems. It is the sort of book that he will need to keep revisiting as it is easy to forget the strategies as a child. I would recommend this book to either share with a younger child (less than 10) or for an older child (10+) to read independently. Either way, it is good to discuss the strategies and advice with a grown up.

Working with primary school children with a variety of emotional difficulties, there was useful information in it to help them.

This book is a really clear guide on how to behave in different situations around friends. It covers 50 topics in a couple of pages each. My 9y old boy engaged really quickly and wanted to hear more once, despite his reluctancy, I read him a couple of pages. I only wish it had loads more quiz questions to put each tip into a more relatable scenario for children. I thoroughly recommend this book to any child going into year 5, 6 or 7 at school.

Having had a cursory look through book, already have identified chapters which we can dip into and learn as we go. It is very informative and well laid out and being the kindle edition, intuitive to use and explains exactly what the words mean and how they link into the other chapters in book. My 7 year will hopefully be reassured and can have any questions he has answered as we bought book to deal with problems he has been having at school and saying he was lonely and had no friends. He then admitted he was nervous so this book hopefully will explain there are rules to follow and he likes to follow the rules and will be able to overcome his fear.

This a a great book - aimed at younger children but with tips that teenagers definitely need reminding about! I ended up reading the chapters with my children (several aged between 9 and 14) while they were eating dinner so they were a captive audience!

This review is really from my 11 year old twin sons (with me paraphrasing). I bought them this book and they both loved it as they said it gives lots of practical examples they can relate to rather than being a 'you must do this.....' instruction manual.

Brought for my son who was going through a hard time in primary school a few years back he is now in secondary school and we still reference the book would think it’s best suited for children 6-10 especially but the skills and tips are ageless to be honest

I bought your book off Amazon because my son started middle school (and is coming back to public school after being out of district for 4 years PLUS he is painfully shy) and I thought it would be helpful. I read it and LOVED it. I got it in August and showed my son. He said "Mom, I don't need that - I'm fine." Well, the 1st day of school starts - he comes home and I ask how his day was, etc. - everything was good. I then asked him who he sat with at lunch (my biggest fear for him - the all too scary lunch room :)) - he says to me "Well, I sat at a table with other kids, but didn't talk to anyone & I ate by myself. I was a little sad." As a mother, my heart broke. So, I said to him "Well, I can give you some pointers to start a conversation or join in on one." And I gave him pointers from your book (unbeknownst to him) and he was actually listening. He then goes over to where I had put your book and says "Maybe I can read a couple of the chapters in here." I said "Absolutely - that's what I got it for." Next day, he comes home and told me he sat with another boy at lunch & they talked the whole lunch period. I said "Oh, did he start talking to you?", and he said "No, I started talking to him. I did what you and that book said to do." So, cheers for writing such a wonderful book. It is a fabulous resource. THANK YOU

Bell libro ma non serve per bambini piccoli visto che non ci sono disegni delle situazioni presentate, questo non attira l’interesse dei bambini è dificulta il dover spiegare come deve fare. Lo consiglierei per bambini dai 8 anni in su

My 7-yr-old and I read this book together, and find it very good. It's made so that each "social lesson" is 2-3 pages long, and simple, clear and accessible. It holds my child's attention, and we "role play" to put in practice what each lesson teaches. I've found it really simple, well-written, clear and accessible. It addresses common things children encounter daily, and gives different solutions or ways to address a given situation. We've recently read social lessons on managing impulsivity, staying on or switching topics when conversing, managing intense feelings (like anger), how to give people space, how to join into a group of kids who are playing, just to give a few examples. You don't have to do the rules in the book sequentially - we are working our way through it at random, picking a different lesson every day, which is just fine. I can't say enough good things about this book. Thank you so much to the authors for putting it out there. It's wonderful.

What I liked about this book is that my son and I really could read it together, as it is meant to be read. The structure of the book with a part for children and a part for the parents is really clever. Also, the tips are generally good. My son did learn something new, and probably felt less alone in his struggles to make friends. We tried to read one or two sections every night for several weeks. The only negative aspect I'd mention is that, although we spoke about it every evening, my son did not apply the suggestions given in the book. It could very well be related to him in particular, and I surely hope he had applied them. But it could also mean that they are not very relatable to children and that, although good in theory, they do not really work in practice. I remember when we tried to apply the "greeting everyone" suggestion. He did it, and then came home even more frustrated because he didn't see any improvements. Of course I tried to explain to my son that these things take time and repetition to work out, but for a child this does not really make sense. He made a massive effort (for him) to try and be extra nice to people, and didn't see the fruits of this effort. For this reason I gave 4 out of 5 stars. As a mum I really liked the book and I know it could help a lot if applied, but whether it resonates with children or not is another story. In our case it unfortunately didn't and ended up untouched in the bookcase after a few weeks. I would recommend it for parents who know their children will follow through and are persistent in general. In that case I do think it could help. I also appreciate all the love and effort that the authors put into the book, which is evident when one reads it.

Highly recommend! I bought this book on the recommendation of a pediatric counselor. The format of the book is simplistic and provides a brief list of strategies for each topic -- this makes each topic easily digestible and contained on just a few pages. The list of strategies are based on commonsense and things that seem second nature to most adults; however, they provide an excellent reminder for children and great talking points for everyday encounters. I am reading this at a slow pace with my kiddos to provide gentle reminders for social interactions. This book could also be read independently by young readers, but I think the talking points and ability to share relatable circumstances is invaluable. Overall, I highly recommend this book.