Genre ~ Children’s Fiction ages 7-11
Page count ~ 67
I am delighted to have Jennifer as a guest today ~ thanks to Rachel’s Random Resources for organizing.
check out what my fellow bloggers thought of this one ⤵
That ‘one’ friend
Let me take you back to your school years for a moment.
In your class do you remember the token teachers pet, the popular kid, the sporty kid, the band geek, the loner or the bully?
I’m guessing that you can put faces to those labels, does the bully stand out to you the most?
Those first friends make a difference to our lives, sometimes they are the first relationships we make outside of our own family as a child. Those relationships are the ones where we decide if we want them in our lives or not, but how do we know if they are a good friend to have?
I know I didn’t know, my teachers told us to apologise to one another when someone had done something mean, “make up and be friends again”. Just because we are in a class together does not mean that we are all going to make good friends for one another. In adulthood we learn the hard way that we are not everyones cup of tea, perhaps we eventually let it go or some of us mat still hold onto the quantity of friends for validation.
What if the message was different? What if we were equipped with the tools to learn what a healthy friendship was? That we don’t have to be friends with everyone in the class but we are respectful to those who we don’t feel are a good friend for us?
It wasn’t until my eldest daughter Sophie had that ‘one’ friend that wasn’t healthy for her to be around. Sophie was only young and in Primary School, I was frustrated that she couldn’t see why the friendship was disrupting her, hurting her, giving her anxiety and making her feel ashamed of herself.
Do you remember that ‘one’ friend that encouraged you to get into trouble, pressured you to do something you didn’t want to do, took things from you, gossiped behind your back etc. Plus your parent knew they were a bad influence on you so you didn’t listen.
I could see a lot of similarities between my eldest and my younger self, I became worried about this becoming a repeated pattern and it was important that she knew that she didn’t have to be liked by everyone or be friends with everyone. I knew that telling her wouldn’t be the way that she would learn, she needed to discover what makes a healthy friendship and what makes an unhealthy friendship for herself.
The Funky Frecks was born, I wrote it with her and my younger self in mind. The draft was written on a train down from Hull to London in almost one sitting. A bit of editing later, I asked Sophie to read it for me as a first children’s book. “Sam sounds like Abbie from school” she came up to me after reading through it, we had a conversation about why Sam wasn’t a good friend to Jess in the story. I then drew two gingerbread men on paper, one was the perfect friend and the other was the friend that’s not a very good friend for us. Sophie listed qualities she would like from a good friend and did the same on the other side.
The story opened her eyes to the different behaviours and the discussion alongside the activity I created took it further. Sophie started to look for the right friends and now has an amazing supportive friendship circle. Going forward my hope is that this has equipped Sophie for every relationship she makes, a preventative measure for unhealthy relationships.
The Funky Frecks educates through a form of entertainment, when you buy the book you gain access to a resource pack which can be used within your own conversations / youth groups / school classes / assemblies etc. Let’s equip our children with the knowledge of healthy friendships, they deserve to have the best circle of supportive people around them just like we do.
https://mybook.to/TheFunkyFrecks
Book blurb:
Jess is excited to start her new school and she soon makes friends.
But it’s not long before one friendship makes her feel uncomfortable.
Feeling trapped and alone, Jess isn’t happy.
Can she figure out a way to ask for the help she needs?
Parents & Teachers: Downloadable resources included
To help start the conversation about healthy and unhealthy friendships, there are some free resources which can be used at home or in group settings.
Purchase Link – https://author.to/jennifergilmour
Author Bio –
Jennifer Gilmour is an author and advocate for women in abusive relationships, using her own experiences of domestic abuse as a catalyst to bring awareness and to help others. Jennifer has published two publications, Isolation Junction and Clipped Wings which have both been Amazon Best Sellers and received awards. Jennifer speaks at events across the UK and continues to raise awareness through her blog posts, public speaking, radio interviews and social media.
Jennifer has listened to her readers and has grown a digital community to support discussions around domestic abuse online. Starting with her Twitter Chat which opened late 2017 #AbuseTalk, this developed into an online forum in 2018. In 2019, Jennifer launched a podcast which include interviews with those in the sector and gives followers the opportunity to ask burning questions.
Recently Jennifer has released her first children’s book The Funky Frecks which is about healthy friendships in the hope that this educates children on the signs of an unhealthy friendship, a preventative for possible future abusive relationships. It is backed by 4 different CIC’s and has a resource pack for teachers and parents.
Most Informative Blogger Award 2018 (Bloggers Bash Annual Awards)
UK & European Award for using Social Media for Good 2019 (Social Day: Social Media Marketing Awards)
#SBS Winner 2020 (Theo Paphitis)
Jennifer says: “Together we are Louder”.
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Love the guest post. Sounds like a good book.
Thanks, Carla! It does sound like a good one 💜