The Last Boys Picked: Helping Boys Who Don't Play Sports Survive Bullies and Boyhood

by Janet Sasson Edgette, Beth Margolis Rupp

Overview

Boys who don't play sports are often the targets of bullying, but a boy's worst bully may be the one he can't see: society's expectations about how he should act, how he should relate, and how he should play.

Overlooked by a society that reinforces impossible standards of "masculinity," boys who are uninterested in competitive sports or have non-aggressive personalities are often vilified and bullied for being different as they grow up in the shadow of America's obsession with bigger, faster, richer, and stronger.

Through a fascinating assortment of in-depth interviews, clinical case studies, and examples from popular literature, Dr. Janet Sasson Edgette and Beth Margolis Rupp illustrate how these boys are relegated to a second-class social status simply because they can't make a free throw or because they can spell better than they can run.

Compassionate, empowering, and instructive, The Last Boys Picked will help parents, teachers, coaches, and caregivers identify the social and emotional hurdles that these boys face. It offers specific action steps to help any child build resilience and a healthy self-esteem-and tips for talking to them about their experiences and teaching them to face the schoolyard-and the world-with confidence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101560839
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/04/2012
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	603 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Janet Sasson Edgette, Psy.D.., is a renowned child and family psychologist, and the author of five books. She leads popular workshops on parenting and children’s mental health nationwide.

Beth Margolis Rupp, M.A., is a nationally recognized educator and service-learning specialist with over 25 years of experience developing community school partnerships. She has devoted her career to empowering people and improving communities through education.

Table of Contents

Authors' Notes ix

1 Living in Dread of Phys Ed 1

2 What Kind of Boy Doesn't Like to Play Sports? 27

3 The Role of Sports in Boys' Lives 59

4 Fake It, Make It-or Break 87

5 The Dangers of Romanticized Masculinity 127

6 Boys in Straitjackets 149

7 We Need a Different Type of Warrior 165

8 Family Matters 187

9 Whenever Anyone Loses, Everyone Loses 223

10 Becoming Effective Agents of Change 241

Postscript 263

Acknowledgments 267

Notes 271

Bibliography 275

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"The Last Boys Picked is an important and relevant addition to the parenting bookshelf. It offers insightful and practical advice for helping all boys—those who don’t play sports as well as those that do—navigate the sometimes difficult journey of boyhood."
-Michael Gurian, author of The Wonder of Boys

Editorial Reviews

Psychologist Edgette is the mother of Jake, who, unlike his brothers and peers, simply did not enjoy sports. The talents and aptitudes of boys like Jake for other kinds of activities often go unrecognized, she says, because not only are they excluded from the popular crowd, their sexuality is called into question and bullying ensues. When she began writing this seven years ago, the Boy’s Movement was at its nascence, geek chic had yet to fully evidence itself, and nonathletic boys were overlooked by peers, teachers, coaches, and parents. She believes, however, that the problem persists, despite those movements, and that the remedy is for adults to step up and change the rules, challenging the status quo and applauding and encouraging the boys (and men) whose social skills are not formed on the playing field. In order to be effective, a parent can follow her instructions and stop the cycle of boy-against-boy aggression by exposing and making explicit the covert dynamics lurking behind certain bullying behaviors, but her approach follows the now familiar antibullying protocols being adopted in schools and on teams. While this is certainly an issue parents will encounter, and this book’s straight talk will help some moms and dads, a magazine feature would have sufficed. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"The Last Boys Picked is an important and relevant addition to the parenting bookshelf. It offers insightful and practical advice for helping all boys—those who don’t play sports as well as those that do—navigate the sometimes difficult journey of boyhood."
-Michael Gurian, author of The Wonder of Boys

From the Publisher