If your kid has no friends ...

A few ways to prime your child's friendship pump:

• Help him with social skills

• Create a welcoming home. Find opportunities to have kids over (the end of soccer season, the start of summer) and serve up popcorn and a video.

• Arrange play dates, particularly with younger kids, who make great chums for kids who are socially awkward.

• Be a role model (which means befriending other parents and keeping your nose out of a novel when you attend your child's track meets).

• Sign him up for Little League or drama camp, where he can get more social-skills practice.

And if your child continues to have no friends? Take heed. Solitary play is normal in preschool, but can be a red flag in grade school or middle school, experts say.

"The kids who concern me are the ones who wander around the periphery of the playground, day after day, playing in the wood chips," says Terri Hollinsworth, director of Wally's Club, which teaches social skills to groups of kids in elementary school and middle school. "These are the kids who are either too shy to approach other kids or have been rejected so many times that they've given up."

If this is your child, you may want to seek outside help, and the sooner the better, because problems that go on too long can affect a child's self-esteem, experts say. Talk to your child's teacher or the school counselor. Your child might need the help of a social-skills group or even psychotherapy.

All children squabble, get teased, and know the pain of liking a peer more than that peer likes them. It's all part of growing up, and kids can generally handle it.

Bullying is another matter. For boys, bullying usually means being hit, kneed, elbowed and threatened with physical violence. For girls, it can mean falling victim to the Queen Bee or "Mean Girl" syndrome, where a clique leader and her peers ice out a group member — ignoring her, spreading rumors about her, sending her harassing instant messages and making snide comments like, "I can't believe you wore that dress to school today!"

Studies show that ongoing bullying can place kids at risk for depression. But often kids — particularly those in middle school — avoid talking to their parents about what's happening. So parents need to watch for changes in their kids' behavior.

Says Marja Brandon, head of the Seattle Girls School: "You know it's time to connect your child with a counselor if she's no longer excited about going to school, is no longer raising her hands in class, is receiving dropping grades and isolating herself from others."

Parents should also seek outside help if they receive calls from the school principal or other parents, letting them know that their child is bullying.