Books on Social Skills for Children: NRC Staff Favorites

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The staff of the National Resource Center on ADHD has compiled a list of our favorite books written for parents to help their children with social skills development and mastery. More detailed information on each title, as well as additional books and periodicals written for adults with ADHD are available from the NRC Library's online database.

• Friends Forever: How Parents Can Help Their Kids Make and Keep Good Friends
  Authors: Fred Frankel
  Publisher: Jossey-Bass (Hoboken, NJ, 2010), 320 pages
  Summary: The author offers clear-cut friendship-making guidelines for parents and their children. Some of the book's recommendations include: don't over-schedule a child's time; guide children to participate in "friend-attracting" activities; seek out friends in the neighborhood. Included are also methods for dealing with bullying and inappropriate friendships, guidance for helping children become a good friend and attract lasting friendships for life, and techniques for teaching kids how to use MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter in positive ways that will foster friendships.
• Raise Your Child's Social IQ: Stepping Stones to People Skills for Kids
  Author: Cathi Cohen
  Publisher: Advantage Books (Washington, DC, 2000), 244
  Summary: This practical guide is designed for parents who want to help their special needs children develop social skills. Although the "Stepping Stones" program was developed as a social skills group therapy program, these same skills can be adapted for use at home with children. The book contains quizzes, sample dialog, and other helpful tools.
• Skillstreaming the Elementary School Child
  Authors: Ellen McGinnis and Arnold P. Goldstein
  Publisher: Research Press (Champaign, IL, 1997), 352 pages
  Summary: Skillstreaming is an intervention to teach students desirable social behaviors that focuses on four learning procedures: modeling, role-playing, feedback, and transfer. This book describes the Skillstreaming method and provides the Skillstreaming curriculum in the areas of classroom survival skills, friendship-making skills, skills for dealing with feelings, skill alternatives to aggression, and skills for dealing with stress. It is aimed at teachers of elementary school-aged children.
• Skillstreaming the Adolescent: New Strategies and Perspectives for Teaching Prosocial Skills
  Authors: Ellen McGinnis and Arnold P. Goldstein
  Publisher: Research Press (Champaign, IL, 1997), 352 pages
  Summary: This book is for use with middle and high school students. It shows how to teach 50 prosocial skills such as expressing feelings, apologizing, setting a goal, starting a conversation, and responding to failure. Skills are divided into six areas: Beginning Social Skills, Advanced Social Skills, Dealing with Feelings, Alternatives to Aggression, Dealing with Stress, and Planning Skills.
• Why Don't They Like Me? Helping Your Child Make and Keep Friends
  Author: Susan M. Sheridan
  Publisher: Sopris West (Longmont, CO, 1998), 150 pages
  Summary: Many children have problems making and keeping friends. This book was written to provide tools and techniques for parents to help children develop better social skills. The book describes the skills children need to get along with others, offers procedures to help the child learn these skills, and presents specific strategies for encouraging the child to use social skills.
  

Page created August, 2012