How do parents justify letting their kids play football?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If one of my kids gets a concussion, then yes after one I will reassess. If anyone lets their kid play after 2==they are idiots.

My son got his first concussion in 3rd grade, sports related.
His second in middle school, not sports related.
Both were fairly easy recoveries, a couple days missed school, a week of light duty, back to completely normal afterwards.
He's in high school, and he plays soccer.

Maybe I'm an idiot, but when I talk among my friends I know so many kids who have gotten concussions just from life. If the right thing to do is bench your kid after two concussions, that's a lot of kids who can't do anything anymore.

It's not easy. I have no idea if I'm making the right choice letting him play. I actually think he's safer doing his sports than the crazy horseplay that teen boys get up to. And his non-sports concussion was from simply not being fully aware of his surroundings, that happens to people all the time throughout their lives. There's really no way to protect against that.

Oh come on. I've no personal skin in this fight but do you REALLY believe this? I cannot believe it if you do.

Yes, I think he's safer in his soccer practices and playing in soccer games than pretending he's a tight rope walker walking across the top of a 4 foot tall chain link fence right next to concrete. I think he's safer with soccer than when he and his friends get up to skateboard tricks and he hopes I don't notice he's "forgotten" his helmet. His coaches don't forget safety - it's critical to the game and they enforce safe behaviors. Teenagers egg each other on and often completely ignore that they're mere mortals.

Ok soccer moms and dads, read this article.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/feb/15/footballers-could-be-at-risk-of-dementia-from-blows-to-the-head-study-suggests

The current research is showing that concussions are not the only cause of CTE; repeated, sub-concussive lows to the head appear to be another cause.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who are they justifying it to, and why?

No answer to this?

Who are the parents justifying their decisions to?

Well, themselves for one...

Nope, no need to justify it to myself.

Who else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The truth of the matter is that parents who have talented athletes have a hard time saying no to their passionate sons who LOVE the game and want to play so badly. I have a friend who said she would never let her son play, but it turns out he is supper talented at the game and now she is letting him do it.

Keep in mind there are pretty high concussion rates in other sports like hockey, lacrosse, wrestling.

Glad my honors student with a 4.1 GPA is not much of an athlete. His extra curriculars are more artistically based (theater, music, etc.), but he manages to get enough exercise to stay in shape playing rec sports and swimming in the summer. I feel bad for the jocks who have to rely on their sport to gain access to a good school.

Good grief, what a condescending post. Surely you must know that plenty of phenomenal athletes are also honors students? SMH.

Yes. She'd be sad to know my 6th grader taking Algebra 1 is an outstanding soccer player as well.

Many of his teammates are in the AAP program too.

[Anonymous]

We left DC and moved to an affluent area North of Boston. Football and all sports really, HUGE here. DS is in 6th grade and all his friends have been playing in the town Youth Football League since 3rd grade He has been begging to play and we have stood firmly against it. It is crazy, two of his good friends have parents who are doctors (one a surgeon and one an internist) and they still let their sons play. It is just not worth the risk to us. He can try out as a walk-on in college when he is too old for us to tell him what to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC, who has only ever played non-contact sports, sustained 2 fairly mild concussions coincidentally over the span of 6 months for non-sport reasons. (he's clumsy!) They affected literally every aspect of his life and it took a good while before he felt completely normal again. It could have been much worse...I imagine him playing a high contact sport and facing repeated head hits/full-on concussions and shudder, and this made it more clear to me why I could never have supported him playing football.

Or he could have played four years of football and never gotten a concussion. Just because he is a spaz does not necessarily translate to football injuries.

OK, but anecdotally to your hypothetical....I come from a football family. You don't play 4 year of football (assume you mean HS?) you play from say 8-14 first, then 14-18, so that's 10 years and pads go on young in a lot of places. Because I come from this kind of family, most of them played 4 MORE years in Division 1 schools. Not a single one has gotten off concussion free- even those who stopped after HS, and most were WR, not too many in my family built for either line.

[Anonymous]

I'll bite.

My son is relatively athletic, but not a jock. He played a little flag football in middle school, and played "tackle" from 7th grade on. He is in high school now. Has never suffered an injury, the practices are modeled on the Dartmouth program, so there is very little contact during the week. The level of the program is not D1 candidates, but rather, at best D3 and the rest just playing because the like the game.

But the life lessons of team play, relying on each other, everyone doing their part and the overall comradarie of the kids on the team is unmatched. My son knows that one head injury and he is done, regardless of how light or severe, and knock on wood, he has been totally fine so far.

For him, the life lessons far outweigh potential risks, particularly given the approach by the coaches and level of the program,

[Anonymous]

Then there is cheerleading which has one of the highest, if not the highest, concussion rate (number of occurrences per number of participants)...

[Anonymous]

Cheerleading has the highest rate of catastrophic injuries.

Any sport is dangerous. We accept a certain level of danger for benefits of many things in life. If I had a teen boy, I wouldn't encourage football, but I'm not so foolish to think other sports are safe. Baseball may be lower than basketball or football, but it's still dangerous. Playing sports has many benefits. Risk-taking is part of life.

[Anonymous]

its not just about concussions though. Concussions are brought up over and over here but the jostling associated with repeated hits seem to be a bigger factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Then there is cheerleading which has one of the highest, if not the highest, concussion rate (number of occurrences per number of participants)...

If I had a girl, particularly one that was built like a flyer, I'd never, ever put them in cheerleading, its insane. If I went in my back yard and saw my tween sons launching off essentially a ladder (but made of people) and let their buddies catch them over and over and over again, I'd tell them to stop that shit!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:its not just about concussions though. Concussions are brought up over and over here but the jostling associated with repeated hits seem to be a bigger factor.

Sub-concussive injuries, yeah that's the new buzz, its just harder to measure right now. I'm sure we will- I think that's part of the talk about limiting heading the ball in soccer. I wouldn't be surprised to see that come down at the highest levels before a lot of NFL changes, because its easier to say "no heading unless into a goal" or something that would limit use but not fundamentally change the game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Then there is cheerleading which has one of the highest, if not the highest, concussion rate (number of occurrences per number of participants)...

and paralysis. Cheerleading is by far one of the most dangerous sports. I have a heart attack when I see how high those girls are thrown in the air.