Helping Your Socially Vulnerable Child: What To Do When Your Child Is Shy, Socially Anxious, Withdrawn, Or Bullied

This book offers resources for dealing with issues of childrens social vulnerability by providing cognitive behavioral tools parents can use to promote confidence, independence, and social ease in their children.

Tools You Can Use to Help Your Child In social situations, certain children are more likely than others to be subject to emotional and physical harm by more aggressive children. Shyness, social anxiety, or a tendency to be withdrawn may underlie this socially vulnerability, as may awkwardness in social situations or an inclination to be impulsive or explosive. If your child struggles with any of these problems, there is much you can do to help him or her develop more effective social skills and learn to fit in better with peers. In this book, the husband and wife team of Eisen and Engler provide you with a clinically proven set of coping tools and social-skill strategies you can tailor to your child's unique social and emotional needs. Use them to promote confidence, independence, and social ease in your child, whether in the classroom, on the playground, or at play in his or her peer group. As you help your child mange his or her emotions, you'll lay the groundwork for a more harmonious family life, better school adjustment, and ultimately, social success. Eisen and Engler have provided parents of socially vulnerable children a wonderful resource. They skillfully discuss the various reasons children may be anxious in social settings and what parents can do about it. This book will help parents, mental health professionals, and others who work with youth sensitively assist those children who have much to offer but are standing by on the sidelines of life. -Mary A. Fristad, Ph.D, ABPP, professor of psychiatry and psychology at the Ohio State University and director of research and psychological services in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Eisen and Engler have authored atruly valuable work. Social problems in children are often complex, misunderstood, frustrating, and difficult for parents. Helping Your Socially Vulnerable Child provides a reasoned and reasonable guide to understanding and helping children with social problems. These authors speak from science and experience. Their case-study approach provides an exceptional framework to assist parents in seeing the world through the eyes of their struggling children and providing much needed guidance and support. I will recommend this book without reservation to all of the families I work with. -Sam Goldstein, Ph.D., research professor of psychology at George Mason University and coauthor of Raising a Self-Disciplined Child