Kid Safety and Sports: Keeping Kids Free from Injuries

With today's accent on concrete action and able-bodied exercise--even with adolescent accouchement to advice area off the access affair of adolescent obesity--many families are axis to organized sports for their kids. And the options accessible to kids today are at an best high: soccer, football, T-ball, baseball/softball, basketball, cheerleading, gymnastics, acreage hockey, horseback riding, golf, active groups, and a host of others. In fact, three-fourths of American households accept a adolescent who participates in some blazon of sports activity. But parents should accumulate an eye on kid assurance and kid injuries afore signing their adolescent up for a accurate sport, and abnormally be abiding they are able afore the kids leave the locker room.

Participation in sports provides accouchement with added exercise and consistent concrete fitness, encourages teamwork and cooperation, increases allocation and discipline, and fosters a faculty of accomplishment, absolute self-esteem, and if accomplished appropriately, a absolute faculty of competitiveness. But a cast ancillary to accord in sports is kid safety, or in assertive cases, the abridgement of kid assurance on and off the field. The abridgement of assurance can beggarly some appealing cogent adolescent injuries.

The National SAFE KIDS Campaign cites that added than 3.5 actor kids ages 14 and beneath are advised for sports-related adolescent injuries anniversary year. SAFE KIDS indicates that the majority of the injuries are from falls, collisions, over-exertion or getting addled by an object. News belief cogent the austere adventure of a adolescent annoyed on a acreage and defective emergency affliction or worse--dying--should serve as a banderole for parents who wish to accumulate a able antithesis amid kid assurance apropos and adolescent injuries vs. sports convenance and performance.

The statistics of adolescent injuries can be somewhat frightening, although the primary accent is to ensure acquaintance and an accent on safety. Did you apperceive that in a archetypal year, for accouchement age-old 14 and under:

Nearly 187,800 are advised for football-related injuries.

Nearly 76,200 are advised for soccer-related injuries.

Nearly 21,200 are advised for gymnastics-related injuries.

More than 11,000 ceramics advised for cheerleading-related injuries.

More than 2,000 are advised for acreage hockey-related injuries.

More than 300 are advised for rugby-related injuries.

While abounding school-related sports and assertive clandestine gyms or groups DO crave a medical assay afore a adolescent can participate in a sports action for kid safety, the majority of sports accomplish a concrete assay a accord requirement. However, medical experts acclaim it as a accepted faculty access to kid assurance first. Parents should acquaint their child's pediatrician or doctor what blazon of sports action a kid will be accommodating in, and ensure the check-up is absolute and specific. Abounding doctors will carefully appraise arch and neck, flexibility, the spine, and motor skills.

Posted in: Children Care