Actress and mental health advocate Taraji P. Henson is on a mission to create the world she wants to see. The star does this by using her influence to facilitate difficult conversations about mental health or pay equity. Henson’s latest venture is a new children’s book, You Can Be a Good Friend (No Matter What!), which became available on June 18.

The book narrates a story about the main character, Lil TJ, who struggles to make friends on the first day of school but eventually cracks the code and helps others to do the same. Henson says the main character reflects her inner child.

“Little TJ is me, my little girl, that I’m healing every day and giving a voice when unhealed Taraji  Henson would tape her mouth up and throw her in the closet. But I’m healing her” she says. “And this is what little TJ looks like healing. She is full of life. She understands love, she knows herself, She understands herself, and she embraces herself,” the Academy Award-nominated star explains.

What was important for me was to also give parents steps in the back of the book. Because what happens is, when your children are hurt, you feel the pain worse than they do, and you wanna go into fix-it mode,” she says. “But how can you fix something if you don’t have the proper steps?”

She also adds that parents must be good friends themselves if they’re to teach their children to be good friends to others. As a mother of one, Taraji  Henson recalls helping her son, Marcell Johnson, navigate his friendships and shared some of the lessons she gave him.

“Friendships take work,” she says. “You get more flies with honey. Some days you’re gonna bump heads with your friends, and you will have to decide if that friendship is important enough to work on. You know, to see if you can settle your differences, because sometimes you won’t be able to.”