KID CONFIDENT #1

Advice for tweens and teens on building healthy relationships and avoiding toxic ones.

Zucker uses brief stories involving middle school students to illustrate social power, or the dynamic between peers. When this becomes unbalanced, the resulting shift in power can be mild or extreme, resulting in stress, belittling, and even bullying. However, when it’s balanced there’s mutual respect and generosity. With this foundation in place, the author moves on to offer examples of balanced and unbalanced interactions told in dialogue bubbles and from there, advice and examples. Individual chapters tackle concepts like assertiveness, self-confidence, self-control, the unique problems presented by social media, and strategies for repairing unhealthy interactions. These often include concise checklists. In the penultimate chapter, readers are reminded to nurture positive thinking, which takes practice, and are given concrete strategies. Finally, the book wraps up with information about cultivating resilience. Zucker’s advice lands best when accompanied by dramatizations or by the stories of individual teens who have succeeded by following her guidelines. The lively design, including playful illustrations, makes for accessible reading, with ideas unpacked into digestible pieces. Some concepts may be too abstract for younger readers, who may require help from adults to understand and implement them. The extensive list of resources that concludes the book has recommended reading lists for both caregivers and young people.

A breezy guide for fostering a happy adolescence by maneuvering its challenges and pitfalls.