Giving your kids a sporting chance to avoid injury

Parents who type the words “children sports injuries” into a search engine might be tempted to keep their kids hidden under their beds until they’re grown. 

The Internet is filled with dozens of sites with scary data about sports injuries to kids.

The National SAFE KIDS Campaign and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) estimate that of the 30 million children and teens in the country that participate in some form of organized sport each year, 3.5 million sustain an injury. 

Local coaches and athletic directors like Horace Mann’s Bob Annunziata, Bronx Science’s Marion Dietrich or the South Riverdale Little League’s Ken Katzman are aware of the data and they’ve assessed and improved every piece of equipment from baseball bats to football helmets. 

But statistics suggest that the sports with the highest rates of injuries often differ from the activities causing the most severe damage.

While the highest injury rates occur “in sports that involve contact and collisions,” the most severe injuries “occur during individual sports and recreation activities,” such as bicycling or skateboarding, according to the statistics, which also appear on the Johns Hopkins Medical Library and Cornell University websites, among others. 

Concussions have become a particular concern for parents with children who play contact sports. This past July, the Concussion Management and Awareness Act became law in New York State. It requires any students suspected of suffering a concussion to be immediately removed from a game, and not allowed to return until he or she is symptom-free for at least 24 hours and given the approval of a doctor. 

These stringent precautions are applauded by school officials and parents. At the same time, however, exercise is important to children’s health at a time when childhood obesity rates are at a crisis level and continue to climb. 

So, how do parents encourage their kids to “go out and play” — on a team or in the playground — while maximizing their safety?