Ringleaders & Sidekicks

by Rosalind Wiseman

When Rosalind Wiseman published her bestseller Queen Bees and Wannabes in 2001, it fundamentally changed the way that parents, educators and the media looked at the impact of girls' social dynamics and created a road map for girls to develop better relationships and higher self-esteem.

Now Rosalind turns her attention to the tricky terrain of Boy World. Drawing on 20 years of work with boys and her own experience as a mother of two sons, Rosalind will help parents understand their tween and teenage sons better. The book will cover such timely issues as video games, online identities and social networking sites. This is an essential manual that will help any parent build a stronger, more meaningful relationship with their son.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction

371 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Rosalind's career began because she noticed the same pattern underneath very different human problems: a teenager feeling alienated from friends, a parent and child caught in a power struggle they couldn't get out of, a work team derailed because people couldn't say what they knew to be true. The situations looked nothing alike, but the cause was almost always the same. Predictable social patterns created seemingly intractable power struggles and feelings of disrespect that trapped people in miscommunication, resentment, judgments and disengagement.

That is why dignity, the recognition of every person's inherent worth, is the foundation of her approach. This work is not a soft skill. Dignity allows people to exist without fear of being ignored, humiliated, or dismissed. And when we lead from dignity, conversations change, conflict de-escalates, and accountability becomes possible.

Rosalind is the best-selling author of nine books, including the New York Times bestsellers Queen Bees and Wannabes—the inspiration for the Mean Girls movie and musical franchise—and Masterminds & Wingmen, named Best Parenting Book by Books for a Better Life. She contributed to David Yeager's 2024 best-selling book 10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People: A Groundbreaking Approach to Leading the Next Generation—And Making Your Own Life Easier, and is now working on a book to be published by St. Martin's Press in 2028.

She speaks throughout the world in educational institutions, government, and non-profit organizations, and served as a senior leadership consultant at the US State Department's Office of Overseas Schools from 2020-2026.

She has been interviewed by, profiled in, or written for The New York Times, The London Times, The Atlantic, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, USA Today, NPR affiliates throughout the country, and many others.

Audiences she has presented to include South by Southwest, Microsoft, UBS, The Royal Society for the Arts, the Association for the Advancement of International Education, the United States Justice Department, the Library of Congress, the United States Department of State, the Game Developers Conference, the American Association of School Administrators, and the White House many times across administrations.

Rosalind has an honorary doctorate from Occidental College and is a board member of the Johnson Depression Center at Anschutz Medical Campus.

She is a native of Washington, D.C., a daughter, sister, wife, and mother of two young men, and lives in Boulder, Colorado, and Valencia, Spain.

Reviews

[Chloe Stam]

Good insights into group dynamics of young and teenage boys and general advice to parents that does not become too specific (as every scenario is different and every parent is different), provides examples of conversations to have with boys that are natural, and doesn't pretend that everything will work out 100% all the time. Your boys will make mistakes, but the book focuses on the fact that people are not their behaviours and so the question is how to deal with / address such times. Most importantly, words from young boys themselves are included, to let us hear their world and frustrations from their point of view. I used this book for research into how my male fictional characters would interact in a school environment.

[Koen]

Geen ontspannende lectuur, maar wel interessant voor wie probeert tienerjongens op te voeden. Sommige hoofdstukken zijn nogal geënt op de Amerikaanse maatschappij, maar dat doet zeker geen afbreuk aan de bruikbaarheid van het boek.