An invaluable guide for all parents wanting to understand the ups and downs of their child's friendships. Friends are desperately important to most children. However what children want, or get, from their friends and how important friendships are to them, changes throughout childhood. This book focuses on boys' and girls' typical experiences of friendship, and explains the changes that take place. It also looks at how a parent's role needs to change from directing and fixing friendships at the beginning to keeping in the background by the time they're in secondary school. With plenty of true stories from both children and parents, this book gives a real understanding of children's friendships in a very readable and accessible way, and offers advice on how to deal with problems encountered.