The other day I took my children to a family-friendly restaurant for lunch: The second we walked in, my eldest son disappeared into a sea of grade-school boys, only to be seen for the few minutes he sat with his cronies and ate a burger.

Like all mothers of more than one child, I wanted my sons to have equal opportunities, and so I was happy when I noticed a few minutes later that a favorite friend of my second son’s was also at the restaurant. “Max is here,” I enthusiastically told my son, Josh.

“I know,” he told me, barely looking up from the drawing he was doing with the pack of crayons the waitress had dropped on our table.

“Want me to come with you to say hi?” I asked him.

“No,” he snarled at me. “Who cares anyway?”

I knew better than to mention Max again, and instead we began playing hangman, but the answer to Josh’s question was obvious. Who cared about Max? I did.

My son isn’t a loner. According to his teachers, he has many friends and is well liked. But unlike my older son, who treasures his friendships, Josh’s friends are less important to him. Or are they?

“I used to think friends didn’t matter that much to my oldest son, but it turns out he actually didn’t have the skills he needed to make them,” a mother of three told me. “He went to play therapy and literally was taught some basic guidelines on how children make friends. Now I can see just how much his friendships mean to him.”

Oh no. My heart sank. Another form of therapy to consider for my children.

“Some kids just don’t know how to join a game,” one such therapist who runs children’s groups on the Upper West Side said. “They don’t know how to say, ‘Hi, my name is Johnny. Can I play too?’ There are verbal cues that can be taught and also nonverbal cues.”

“In a safe environment, the children who come to my groups can master a basic set of rules on how kids make friends,” the therapist said. “I’ve seen the confidence of so many children who have struggled to make friends blossom overnight. It’s one thing if you have a child who is content to have a friend or two. Or happy to play on her own. There are plenty of kids like that. It’s another thing to have a child who is devastated or feels rejected because she has no friends.”

“My third child is so confident and chatty at home and is a hit with her brother’s and sister’s friends,” a mother said. “But at school it’s a different story. She really has had to work at making friends. But she’s managing.”

One school psychologist said that in the area of children’s friendships, parents must learn to take their cues from their children. Apparently my desire for Josh to run over his friend is not unusual. “Parents want their children to be popular, to have a big circle of friends,” he said. “Sometimes parents feel that if their kids don’t have enough friends, it’s because they, the parents, didn’t make enough of an effort. That may be partially true when a child is four. But not at seven or eight, or especially ten or thirteen.”

“No one disputes the fact that friendships are important for children and play a role in their self-confidence and emotional strength,” he said. “But you only really need to worry about your child if he seems upset or worried about it. Or, of course, if your child is being bullied.”

A 2001 survey funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, found that more than 16% of American school children are bullied, most between sixth and eighth grades. The study also found that children who are bullied are more likely to suffer from depression and low self-esteem well into adulthood, and that the bullies themselves also pay a price — they are more likely to engage in criminal behavior later in life.

Anecdotally, many city parents report bullying at an earlier age.

“There’s been bullying every year at my daughter’s school for the past three years, and get this — she’s in second grade,” a mother of two said. “Last year the teachers didn’t even know it was going on until I told them about it. I know that parents and teachers should let children sort most things out on their own. But not when one or two children are being repeatedly intimidated and teased. Schools should be quick to take action. But often they aren’t.”

The other day in the car I overheard my boys discussing last year’s summer camp. Apparently sometimes the boys ate lunch together in the cafeteria at the same time, and sometimes, when they didn’t, it was hard for my younger son to figure out where to sit. The oldest offered his advice: “You know, Josh, at lunch, you can just sit down with any kids, and say your name and meet new people.”

Who needs a play therapist when you’ve got an older brother?

sarasberman@aol.com