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'''Nine Ways to Empower Tweens #LifeSkills by Kathleen Boucher and Sara Chadwick'''
''9 Ways to Empower Tweens'' is a self -help book for tweens, setting out to show them vital #lifeskills. Don't groan! I know there is a market glut of such books for we grown -ups and for young adults too, but there is a needful space in an increasingly technological world accessible to younger and younger children for material for tweens too. There are nine short sections:
How to Speak Confidently<br>
I don't want to precis the whole thing but the book is genuinely full of practical wisdom and advice, from building resilience through affirming oneself and recognising intrusive thoughts, to making relationships of trust. And there are plenty of little humorous interjections to stop it from an overly worthy feel. There's a goldfish joke in there that made me laugh out loud. But I'm not telling you what it is: you'll have to buy the book to find out.
I have been a little bit worried of late that the word ''empowerment'' has been subject to a little bit of mission creep - that any form of self -expression is empowering, that actually doing anything that takes your fancy is also empowering. I don't think that's quite true. Human relationships are about give and take. They are about negotiations and negotiating well, for the benefit of oneself ''and'' others, is the key to a fulfilling and happy life. Empowerment isn't very empowering without resilience either. And so I absolutely ''loved'' this little book. It emphasises resilience throughout and it also places thoughtfulness at its centre. Children reading will come away with a good understanding that human beings have rights ''and'' responsibilities and that the key is achieving a healthy balance between them. As one of the endorsers of the book pithily puts it, the empowering here is showing tweens how ''to become lifelong learners and teachers''.
I don't know about tweens, but I found it empowering myself! And in all the right ways.

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