Friendship - (Empowering You) by Jean Rawitt (Paperback)

About the Book

In this age of social media, where so many friendships exist almost solely online, this book explores the greater meaning of friendship as an enduring and emotionally important area of life. It is a valuable resource for teenagers who are struggling to make friends, are in a t...

Book Synopsis

In this age of social media, where so many friendships exist almost solely online, this book explores the greater meaning of friendship as an enduring and emotionally important area of life. It is a valuable resource for teenagers who are struggling to make friends, are in a toxic friendship, or just want to build more meaningful relationships.

Review Quotes

A helpful guide for navigating friendships during the tween and teen years. The book is easy to read and understand, which makes is suitable for kids of various ages. The book could be used as a guide or starting point for parents, teachers, or counselors who are facilitating conversations about friendships with teens.

A warm and wonderful book about the joys and intricacies of friendship. Written in a kind and approachable way, I would recommend it to young adults of all ages. Everyone can learn from it.

Friendship is a treasure. It is brimming with insights from the author, contemporary experts, and, most importantly, from the real experts--young people. They share their ideas about the nature of friendship in its many varieties and practical wisdom on how to make, keep, and, when necessary, end friendships.

Jean Rawitt's Friendship: Insights and Tips for Teenagers is a comprehensive exploration of friendship that looks at relationships among teens, the group that developmentally most needs peer relationships to help them forge their identities. As a 25-year educator of high school students, I have found that this population needs guidance and coaching around forging and sustaining healthy relationships in this unusual time. In a 15+ month ongoing pandemic, many teens have become isolated in their rooms, playing video games alone or with friends, some engaging in risky behavior, but (their parents and they) confess they have forgotten how to socialize in person in healthy ways. The young people Jean spoke with share openly and honestly about their experiences of friendship in this unique time, a vital conversation that is not happening so much in schools or in families. For the sake of this generation's mental health and ability to flourish, I am deeply grateful that Jean is offering to catalyze this conversation with teens and the families, educators, and professionals who care for them.

Only a gifted writer and thinker can achieve what the author was able to accomplish in this book: offer important information to adolescents about friendships which is a critical factor in resilience, without teens feeling lectured to in a condescending manner. By using frequent quotes from adolescents from interviews, she is able to offer in their own language crucial tips on navigating the landmines of middle school, adolescence, cliques, betrayal, bullying, and social media, while honoring the overriding importance of friendships during this development stage. Wholeheartedly recommended for teens and their parents and teachers!

About the Author

Jean Rawitt is a freelance writer and a consultant for the Department of Volunteer Services at Mount Sinai Hospital (New York). For ten years, she oversaw the hospital's Varsity Volunteer Services, where she developed and coordinated a program for high-school students to volunteer on hospital inpatient units. She is the author of Volunteering: Insights and Tips for Teenagers and A Loved One with Dementia: Insights and Tips for Teenagers, both part of Rowman & Littlefield's Empowering You series for young adults. She lives in New York City.