Product Description

Friends broaden our children’s horizons, share their joys and secrets, and accompany them on their journeys into ever wider worlds. But friends can also gossip and betray, tease and exclude. Children can cause untold suffering, not only for their peers but for parents as well. In this wise and insightful book, psychologist Michael Thompson, Ph.D., and children’s book author Catherine O’Neill Grace, illuminate the crucial and often hidden role that friendship plays in the lives of children from birth through adolescence.

Drawing on fascinating new research as well as their own extensive experience in schools, Thompson and Grace demonstrate that children’s friendships begin early–in infancy–and run exceptionally deep in intensity and loyalty. As children grow, their friendships become more complex and layered but also more emotionally fraught, marked by both extraordinary intimacy and bewildering cruelty. As parents, we watch, and often live through vicariously, the tumult that our children experience as they encounter the “cool” crowd, shifting alliances, bullies, and disloyal best friends.

Best Friends, Worst Enemies brings to life the drama of childhood relationships, guiding parents to a deeper understanding of the motives and meanings of social behavior. Here you will find penetrating discussions of the difference between friendship and popularity, how boys and girls deal in unique ways with intimacy and commitment, whether all kids need a best friend, why cliques form and what you can do about them.

Filled with anecdotes that ring amazingly true to life, Best Friends, Worst Enemies probes the magic and the heartbreak that all children experience with their friends. Parents, teachers, counselors–indeed anyone who cares about children–will find this an eye-opening and wonderfully affirming book.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61958 in Books
• Published on: 2002-07-30
• Released on: 2002-07-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780345442895
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Not since Dr. Spock or Penelope Leach has there been such a sensitive and practical guide to raising healthy children and this one doesn't end at potty training. Child therapists Thompson (coauthor of bestseller Raising Cain) and Cohen (Playful Parenting) have teamed up with Washington Post columnist and children's writer Grace (all three are parents) to describe the social lives of kids and the appropriate roles of parents, teachers and school administrators. They explore the stages of children's development, from parent-bonded to quasi-asocial toddler, the learning-the-rules phase in elementary school and adolescent and romantic bonding. Each phase may bring some negative experiences including some outright cruelty that can be hard on both parents and children, but sometimes necessary for learning about the world. They advise parents to think of themselves as "lifeguards" at the pool, aware of what's going on with their kids, but only intervening in the rare crisis. The book wraps up on a practical note, with chapters on how schools can be proactive and how parents can be most useful. Their advice? Don't worry so much, set a good example, keep perspective and relax most kids turn out okay. Thompson and Grace's breezy "we've all been there" anecdotal style will bring great comfort to any parents who're worried about their kid's social life in other words, any parent. (Sept.)Forecast: The planned 12-city author tour and print advertising in the New York Times and USA Today will yield big sales, supported by the strength of Thompson's name and Grace's media connections.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Bullying has become an area of concern in the media and society. This book discusses that topic but weaves it into a broader study of children's friendships. Thompson, a clinical psychologist and coauthor of Raising Cain; Grace, an author of children's books and a former columnist for the Washington Post; and psychologist Cohen (Playful Parenting) present a developmental perspective as they describe how children's social lives develop from toddlerhood to adolescence. Research and analysis are interspersed with personal anecdotes and vignettes in an engaging style. The book concludes with advice to teachers and parents on how to improve social life in schools and support children's friendships. This is not a formulaic, how-to book. As the authors themselves acknowledge, the best way to learn about friendship is to practice it. However, it does provide useful perspective on a critical aspect of adolescent development, which tends to be overlooked until schoolyard feuds erupt into violent confrontations. The book may also be reassuring to parents since it outlines information on current dating styles, acceptable ranges of friendship patterns, and normal gender differences in interpersonal relationships. Recommended for public library parenting collections to complement Charlene C. Giannetti and Margaret Sagarese's more narrowly focused Cliques: 8 Steps To Help Your Child Survive the Social Jungle (LJ 2/1/01). Antoinette Brinkman, M.L.S., Evansville, IN
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Why are children so mean to each other? Why is it so important to them to be popular? How can they be so loyal to their friends one moment and so treacherous the next? Thompson, the coauthor of Raising Cain (1999), takes on the subject of children's social lives in this fascinating book that will make parents alternately laugh and cry as they recognize their children and themselves as youngsters. This time, Thompson joins with another psychologist and a children's book author--all parents--to explore the reasons children behave as they do in relationships and offer advice on how parents can help them navigate friendships from childhood through adolescence. The authors present touching, sometimes tragic, anecdotes on everything from the typical childhood cruelties of bullies, teasing, and clique formation to the tight bonds of true friendship to investigate how children form and maintain relationships. They also examine the differences between friendship and popularity and give practical insight to parents on the complex social lives of children. Parents will treasure this book. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Richness of Connection and How to Make It Work for Children
This book deserves many more than five stars for its careful, thoughtful, and detailed look at how children develop their social lives. Like all remarkable books, it will extend your understanding beyond your personal life experiences and provide simple, common sense guidelines for achieving outstanding results. If you only read one book this year about improving the social life of your child, make it this one!

Every book I read about the psychological problems of youngsters focuses on the forms of social exclusion and bullying that typically occur in schools and neighborhoods. Best Friends, Worst Enemies takes that as the starting point, explains what causes the social exclusion and bullying, and details what schools and parents can do to eliminate it.

Social connection between children begins at a younger age than most people believe. The book details videotaped studies of infants watching and connecting with each other. Then, step-by-step, the authors show you how social interaction develops from those early months through to dating. I was particularly impressed by the conceptual description of youngsters being assigned a place versus the in group (in or out, and high or low status in that role). Although I could not articulate it, that certainly captures my recollection of those painful teenage years.

The use of animal studies is persuasive for the ways that humans often behave. I found myself chuckling over the descriptions of Alpha male and Queen Bee female behaviors.

The best part of the book is that it points out that exclusion is bad for those who do it, as well as for those who suffer from it. So all parents and all youngsters should be concerned.

The book avoids being too technical about psychological concepts. Everything described is built around the common human needs for connection, recognition, and power.

The section about how to improve schools was very sensitively done. It pointed out that teachers almost always know what's going on, but don't always know what to do about it. The many ideas for mixing the young people up and giving them all a chance to shine will, I'm sure, make many teachers enjoy their work more and help more students. I especially liked the idea of having a counselor meet with the kids who have trouble reading social clues, and helping them discuss and learn from each other how to connect. The idea of having high-status kids mentor low-status kids over the summer was also appealing.

Parents will have a tougher job to follow the advice here. You need to set a better example, and not be exclusionary in your own life . . . not gossip about others behind their backs . . . and help opens doors for your shy and excluded, or popular and obnoxious youngster. But, it's good advice . . . if you have what it takes to follow the advice.

Ask yourself at least once a day: How can I help someone feel included and appreciated today? Then, act!

This book is important.
Alice Miller (author of The Drama of the Gifted Child and Breaking Down the Walls of Silence) has long emphasized that if we are serious about solving society's problems, we must focus on how we treat children --- as individual families and as a cultural. This book is an excellent contribution toward that end.

From thought-provoking observations to practical suggestions about solutions, Best Friends, Worst Enemies is an effective education about social problems that begin in childhood, but do not end in childhood. One point the authors make that interests me greatly is that when one child is being bullied by others, the majority of children witnessing the abuse will either do nothing to intervene or they will join in with the bullying. If you think that is not a reflection of the society in which we live, think again.

As a psychotherapist and author (Embracing Fear, HarperSanFrancisco) who emphasizes personal responsibility and facing fears head on, I hope that more than just parents and educators will read this book. I think there is something here for us all to think about --- no, to do something about.

Thought-provoking
This book has been a help in understanding my five-year-old's peer relationships, and is thought-provoking even for non-parents. I found the book well-organized and well-written. It helps make sense of children's behavior in terms of their needs for "connection, recognition, and power." It points out that children balance these three needs. Soon after reading this book, my son provided a stunningly concrete example of this. He and his friend had drawn chalk "tornado spinners" on the driveway. My son said, "My tornado spinner is more powerful than yours, because it's bigger." The other boy quietly said, "I'm not sure if I want to be friends with you any more." My son said, "OK, OK, they're the same power." The need for connection had won over the need for power and recognition.

There are some helpful hints to be gleaned from the book as well. Here's one I related to. Often, if a child has a problem at school with another child one day, the parent will tend to ask the child on the following day, "So, how did it go with Johnny today?" Your child, meanwhile, had forgotten all about the problem, but your comment provokes a "come to think of it..." reaction, causing the child to continue to dredge up negatives.

The book divides children into "accepted," "rejected," and "neglected" types, to describe how their peers treat them. I fell squarely into the "neglected" category, which I think explains my lack of understanding of the "need to belong" that so many people feel -- I wasn't really "in the game."

The authors mention a fascinating psychological experiment dealing with the need to belong. The subject was put into a group of people, and all were supposed to look at several pairs of lines and tell which was the longer line: A or B. The members of the group were told in advance to lie in one case, and say that Line B was longer. Two out of three subjects went along with the group, and also said that Line B was longer! I was truly stunned by this result -- it explains a lot about the dark side of human behavior. One of the authors asked a group of children why they thought the subject went along with the group, and she said, "He wanted to be in the 'B-Line Club'." The authors avoid any moral denunciation of this kind of follow-the-group behavior, apparently feeling it wouldn't be appropriate in a book on psychology.

I highly recommend this book. I found it useful, and also just plain intrinsically interesting.