This book explores the true meaning of achievement in sports: having fun, developing athletic and social skills, and nurturing a healthy, positive sense of self-esteem. Drs. Fine and Sachs offer practical, research-based advice that is bound to enrich the sports experience—as well as life outside of sports—for both children and adults.

The modern day youth sports environment has taken the enjoyment out of athletics for our children. Currently, 70% of kids drop out of organized sports by the age of 13, which has given rise to a generation of overweight, unhealthy young adults. There is a solution. John O’Sullivan shares the secrets of the coaches and parents who have not only raised elite athletes, but have done so by creating an environment that promotes positive core values and teaches life lessons instead of focusing on wins and losses, scholarships, and professional aspirations. Changing the Game gives adults a new paradigm and a game plan for raising happy, high performing children, and provides a national call to action to return youth sports to our kids.

These days it seems everyone has a youth sports horror story—whether it’s about a tyrant coach obsessed with his team record that only plays the best kids on the team, or a parent who publicly berates his kid for not making a goal. But should it really only be all about winning? What about having fun, learning a sport, and developing athletic skills? Beyond Winning with Whole Child Sports offers an alternative approach to teaching sports to kids. It deemphasizes short-term goals like winning and youth championships and discourages the introduction of adult-oriented, league-structured competition. Instead it emphasizes training techniques and coaching strategies aimed at improving core strength, balance, and creativity in aspiring athletes, using an age-appropriate four-stage timeline, based on a child’s physical, psychological, and neurological development. Beyond Winning with Whole Child Sports provides frustrated parents with help in the form of advice and concrete solutions to common questions, and step-by-step instructions for helping young children develop athletic ability in an environment that’s less structured while encouraging athletic and personal growth. It also reveals how to avoid bullying, trash talk, and elitism.

Find out howand whysports can help you better understand your students Because participation in sports is an integral part of the educational experience for students in both public and private schools, it’s essential that school psychologists and counselors have a solid foundation to help ensure the well-being of student-athletes. School Sport Psychology is a comprehensive overview of this fast-growing field with guidelines for school psychologists who want to gain a better understanding of sport psychology to extend their skills and enhance their effectiveness. The book presents perspectives, programs, and procedures for working with administrators and coaches to help students develop physically, mentally, and emotionally. School Sport Psychology examines the practical interfaces between school and sport psychology, with an emphasis on parent and family involvement. Contributors representing sport psychology, school psychology, and clinical and community disciplines examine the theory, research, and practice of sport psychology and how its evolution parallels the development of school psychology. The book addresses the benefits and risks of using sport to promote the development of self-esteem, identity, and feelings of competence in students. School Sport Psychology examines: evidence-based sport psychology programs, including GOALS, ATLAS, and ATHENA a case study of the design and implementation of a sport psychology program in an urban high school the use and abuse of alcohol and other drugs among high school student-athletes the use and abuse of steroids eating disorders among high school student-athletes a systems-oriented method of school/sport psychology assessment and intervention program planning and evaluation framework the knowledge and skills needed to work in sport psychology and much more School Sport Psychology is an essential professional resource for psychologists, counselors, and health service providers.

Aretism: An Ancient Sports Philosophy for the Modern Sports World applies a robust ancient ethic to the widely-acknowledged problems faced by modern sports. Aretism—from the Greek word arete ("excellence")—draws a balance between the hard commercialism of modern sports culture and the soft playfulness of recreational models to recover the value of sport for individuals, education, and society at large. The authors' approach proposes practical strategies for athletes, coaches, and physical educators to use when facing ethical challenges in the modern world. Holowchak and Reid present Aretism as a tripartite model of athletic excellence focused on personal, civic, and global integration. They reject the personal and social separation characteristics of much of contemporary moral reasoning. Aretism creates a critical and normative framework within which athletic agents can aim for spirited, but morally sensitive, competition by seeking the betterment not only of themselves, through athletic competition, but also of their teammates, fellow competitors, and even their communities. Holowchak and Reid also present a historical overview of sport and a critique of two traditional models—the martial/commercial model and the aesthetic/recreational model. This book is most applicable to students and academics concerned with the philosophy of sport, but will be of interest to all those in sports professions, including coaches, trainers, and athletes.

From toughLOVE, a unique online community: balanced, practical advice for parents of school-age children from child psychology experts on how to handle everything from picky eating to media consumption to the homework wars. The challenges of parenting evolve as the world becomes more complex. How do we set limits on what our children are exposed to without sheltering them too much? How do we raise them to be resilient, empathetic, upstanding adults? How do we get them to put down their smartphones and have a conversation with us? toughLOVE offers advice from professors at Ivy League medical schools, New York Times bestselling authors, and top parenting coaches who have appeared on the Today show, Good Morning America, The Oprah Winfrey Show, CBS Evening News, 20/20, CNN World News Tonight, and NPR. They address all sorts of issues, from the timeless (picky eating, homework battles, how to have The Talk) to the timely (social media safety, feelings of entitlement, ways to balance schedules). Their breadth of clinical expertise and years of coaching real families will help parents build a commonsense framework for approaching all kinds of dilemmas in a way that reflects their personal values and preferred parenting styles. Combining a high level of nurture with an emphasis on boundaries and structure, toughLOVE shows parents how to help their kids become capable, responsible, and productive from the first day of kindergarten through the first day of college…and beyond.

This “hair-raising look at everything that is wrong with youth sports today”—its perils, its history, its key drivers—is a powerful call for positive change (Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights) Over the last seventy-five years, adults have staged a hostile takeover of kids’ sports. In one year alone, more than 3.5 million children under age fifteen required medical treatment for sports injuries—nearly half of which were the result of simple overuse. The quest to turn children into tomorrow's superstar athletes has often led adults to push them beyond physical and emotional limits. In Until It Hurts, journalist, coach, and sports dad Mark Hyman explores how youth sports reached this problematic state. His investigation takes him from the Little League World Series in Pennsylvania to a prestigious Chicago soccer club, from adolescent golf and tennis superstars in Atlanta to California volleyball players. He interviews dozens of children, parents, coaches, psychologists, surgeons, sports medicine specialists, and former professional athletes. He speaks at length with Whitney Phelps, Michael's older sister; retraces the story of A Very Young Gymnast, and its subject, Torrance York; and tells the saga of the Castle High School girls’ basketball team of Evansville, Indiana, which lost three-fifths of its lineup to ACL injuries in 2005. Along the way, Hyman hears numerous stories: about a mother who left her fifteen-year-old daughter at an interstate exit after a heated exchange over her performance during a soccer game, about a coach who ordered preteens to swim laps in three-hour shifts for twenty-four hours. Hyman’s exploration leads him to examine the history of youth sports in our country and how it has evolved, particularly with the increasing involvement of girls and much more proactive participation of parents. With its unique multiple perspective—of history, of reporting, and of personal experience—Until It Hurts delves into the complicated issue of sports for children, opening up a much-needed discussion about the perils of youth sports culture and offering insight into how positive change can be made.