Playing with Anger: Teaching Coping Skills to African American Boys Through Athletics and Culture (Race and Ethnicity in Psychology)

This volume presents unique, "culturally relevant" interventions that can teach coping skills to African American boys with a history of aggression. Stevenson provides the history and current events for readers to understand why these youths perceive violence as the only way to react. Interventions and preventative actions developed in the PLAAY project (Preventing Long-Term Anger and Aggression) are presented. These include teaching coping skills and anger management via athletics such as basketball and martial arts. Frustrations and strengths in those athletics illuminate the players' emotional lives, and serve as a basis for self-understanding and life skill development. This book also examines such issues as:

How parents can be empowered to help their aggressive children

What cultural socialization is and why it is necessary to help African American boys

Why novel, "non-White" approaches are needed to empower positive growth in these children and teenagers

How boys who are seriously aggressive are misunderstood as criminal, adult, or pathological.