The Not-So-Friendly Friend: How To Set Boundaries for Healthy Friendships (Capable Kiddos)

This book is phenomenal! It has helped my 8 year old daughter really understand how to set boundaries and get through a really difficult bully situation that she is going through. I recommend this book to anyone who has an elementary aged child struggling with boundary setting and “mean friend” problems. Thank you!

I love this book. It clicked for my 7 year old daughter who is starting to have some not so friendly friends. I love the ending which explains boundaries. It helped me help explain to her and we practiced boundaries. I could feel her feel empowered and better. Great book.

Great book to read at home or take to school to share with classmates. Full of lessons all should know and be reminded of.

Bullies exist regardless. Talking about them and how to handle them to minimize a negative outcome, as a kid, is clearly not a skill everyone is born with. This book make it easier to open a discussion with a child. It also shows a perspective of a process to a self directed positive outcome along with a reminder of support resources. WELL DONE!

I think books on healthy boundaries for kids are so important! This is such a needed topic for us to open up with the kids in our lives because learning how to handle difficult people and find where our own boundaries lie is such a crucial part of mental health and well-being. This is not going to be a comprehensive book on healthy boundaries or difficult friendships. This is a nugget or morsel on the topic... a great conversation starter to be part of a bigger habit of talking about these topics with kids. I like that the author includes notes for parents and caregivers on the topic. Another thing I really appreciated about the book was the diversity in the illustrations. The little girl in the story has a classmate who is in a wheelchair. So nice to see that kind of representation in a child's picture book! I also liked that there were other children and a teacher who were not white included. Children's books featuring diversity and representation in the illustrations is something I personally want to see in the books we choose for our grandkids.

My two year old was hit in the face at the park and became afraid of all kids for a while. I turned to this book (and a few others on bravery) to start dialogue with him to help him understand that some kids are not nice but that doesn’t mean ALL kids are that way and sometimes you have to set boundaries with people who are not nice. He goes around the park and says “hi nice friend” to all the kids now (we haven’t encountered that one bully again), he requests reading this book as “nice friends book” and declares he wants to go to the park to see nice friends. My sweet boy is back to his playful loving self and no longer running away screaming from everyone like he was after the incident. Love the diversity shown in the book and it’s an easy book for littles to digest. I’ll check out if this author has any others.

I bought this for my 5 year old for us to read together. We have family friends who have a child the same age as our daughter and that friend is not-so-friendly. This is the perfect book for my daughter to realize that not everyone can be a good friend and what to do in cases where someone is not-so-friendly. I love how the book is written and the illustrations with different scenarios really held my 5 yr old's attention. We discussed all the pictures on each page as we read the book together. I love how the book shows how it makes you feel when someone is not-so-friendly and provides the tools to know what a boundary is, when to set a boundary and how to set & hold a healthy boundary. Excellent book!

Great book for kids. Helping my daughter so much.

Great for our innocent children who believe everyone is a friend, and don’t differentiate between true friends and children who hurt them. If your young child has regular interactions with another child, in daycare or kindy, that consistently chooses hurtful behaviours or words, this book is an empathetic social story that your child will understand. It’s about a girl who starts school, plays kind with everyone, uses her words and not her body during conflict. There’s one child who almost always behaves unkind towards her. At first she tries harder to be friends, but every interaction leaves her feeling really small and upset. She comes to understand this friend is actually NOT a friend, bc friends don’t make you feel that way. She decides to set clear boundaries and this is where we see the author teach the reader some empathy towards the aggressing child. The main character’s clear boundaries are: 1. She tells the other child, when they want to play with kindness, she will happily play with them. 2. But when the child chooses to behave unkind, she will tell them to go somewhere else and why. 3. When they are ready to treat her with kindness again, they are invited to join. 4. She will not tolerate them treating others unkind either and will step in. 5. If using her words doesn’t stop their behaviour, she will get help with a safe adult, like a teacher. 6. She will stick to playing with true friends who make her feel good. This book is helping my child realize the boy in class who hurts him daily, is actually not a friend, despite my child still trying to play with him every day. It’s helpful the books is a school setting, but I have found my son is now recognizing cousin’s, just like classmates, are not automatically his friend. If anyone is hurting you on purpose, via throwing things at you, punching you, head butting you, then lying to adults about their behaviour, thus making you feel sad, frustrated and small after interacting with them, they are NOT a friend.

Good advice for young kids. Understood well by a five year old Very nice pictures

I have a 4 years old little girl and she has a friend. As i have only 1 child i dont have so much experience what to do with bully little kids. And what should i tell them to teach the right way. But when families involve it’s difficult to teach how to behave someone s kids. I was looking for option what should i teach my child to protect herself being bullied. This book sort of gave me an idea what should i tell my child. Its a good book.

Es un libro genial que contribuye a enseñar a un niño a poner límites y no permitir que lo acosen o lo traten mal.

👍🏻