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.
Dr. Janet Sasson Edgette is a psychologist practicing in Exton, Pennsylvania who, for the past twenty-five years, has specialized in providing services for children, teenagers, young adults, and their parents. She also specializes in providing sport and performance psychology enhancement services to athletes and performing artists. Janet is the author of six books on parenting, counseling, and sport psychology, including the popular parenting paperback, Stop Negotiating with Your Teen: Strategies for Parenting Your Angry, Manipulative, Moody, or Depressed Adolescent, and her critically acclaimed book for mental health professionals entitled, Adolescent Therapy That Works: Helping Kids Who Never Asked for Help in the First Place. Her most recent book is called The Last Boys Picked: Helping Boys Who Don't Play Sports Survive Bullying and Boyhood.
Janet's work in the areas of child, preteen, and adolescent therapy, family counseling, and parent effectiveness has put her in great demand as a therapist, speaker, workshop leader, and consultant to schools and mental health agencies. She has conducted professional workshops and educational programs for psychiatrists, psychologists, school counselors, social workers, therapists, probation officers, caseworkers, school administrators, teachers, parents, and foster parents all around the United States as well as in Canada, Mexico, Russia, Croatia, and Germany.
Janet is the mother of three teenager boys herself. She also is an avid horseback rider, having competed in the show jumping divisions in almost every major horse show along the east coast. For the past six summers, Janet has returned to what she calls her favorite place on earth--Camp Forest and Indian Acres in Fryeburg, Maine--where she spent her childhood summers and nows makes herself available as a consultant. Please visit her website, janetedgette.com, for more information and to view her blog and speaking calendar.
