The Best Ways to Protect Your Children from Athletic Injuries

How to keep your children safe on the athletic field and prevent athletic injuries.

Protecting our children on the athletic field should be a number one priority. Athletic injuries are common among children and most of these injuries were preventable. Simple things like maintaining fields and equipment and checking the kids for minor injuries before they play can prevent major injuries from happening. Taking the following steps before allowing your children to compete will help keep them competing far into the future.

• Always check playing fields for hazards. Poorly maintained playing surfaces, holes, rocks, bad lighting all are potential injury magnets. Do thorough walks around before the kids take the field.
• Make sure that each child is in good enough physical condition to compete at the level they are involved in. Poor conditioning is a leading cause of sprains and tears and can lead to heart problems and other more serious accidents.
• Check all the participants for injuries or excess fatigue before, during (often) and after each event. Young people will often ignore fatigue or injuries to they will not appear weak in front of their friends.
• Keep snacks and drinks on hand. Poor nutrition is a major cause of sports injury.
• NFL players may play well in a snowstorm but its not they place for your child. Wet, icy playing surfaces are not a place for adolescents.
• Make sure there is adequate supervision.
• Choose teams by age rather than size. Just because a child is physically ready to compete at a higher level does not mean they are ready to mentally compete. Younger children take more chances because they have less experience.
• And finally, stress. Winning is nice but it should never be the most important thing. Pressuring kids to win above all else is a sure way to get them hurt.

Just a few precautions can save a child from a serious athletic injury. Take the time to do it right and your children can have safe fun.

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