I think the only thing we said no to is swim team. We just cant make it work with our work schedules. That being said, if any of my kids wanted an activity we couldn't afford, we'd say no in a heartbeat. Not sure what I'd say to football or soccer because my kids haven't asked. But so far we haven't said no due to the risks of the sport. One of my kids is a competitive gymnast and another wants to get into competitive cheer leading and we're allowing it.

What was the response from your kids?

I would have no problem saying no to sports like football, hockey and lacrosse where injuries are common. Also, expensive sports like horseback riding, karate, etc would be out of the question too. I would also say no to sports that require too much of a commitment from me to drive/pick up like swim team.

That explains the "no" to football, which is not in contention, but doesn't explain the "yes" to soccer, especially if one is concerned about concussions. Soccer has more concussions than many other sports.

We said no to football, right from the beginning. Turned out he's a shrimp anyway, but we didn't know that would be true when we started saying so. My friend lost a child on a football field. Terrible tragedy.

As for soccer and concussions: There are certainly concussions in soccer. Many in fact. Soccer is a contact sport, which becomes increasingly clear once the kids are 12. However, in soccer there are far fewer injuries that require an ambulance than you find in football. It isn't just the concussions, but the severity and thus the recovery that matters.

"I told my sons no football - the risk of head injury is too high. Beyond that, I only set limits on how many sports they could play at one time (e.g., if you want to play travel soccer you have to drop other fall and spring rec league sports). "

That seems odd since soccer, both boys and girls, has a greater rate of concussion than many other sports.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, we said no football. DS is a big, solid, tall kid and would be put in a defensive line and hit all day long. No way.

Same with us. No way to football.

I said no to hockey because it is very time consuming and expensive. My nephews all play and I can't believe the amount of money BIL has paid for their hockey "careers."
We also discouraged martial arts for the same reason PP said above. $$$$

We are letting him play football this year. Frankly, he is small and unlikely to be on the line so giving him a chance while he's young may be the only one he has.

I said no to lacrosse because I thought it was too late to pick it up to play varsity (this was 9th grade) and would take away from sports in which he was playing varsity.

Yes, we said no football. DS is a big, solid, tall kid and would be put in a defensive line and hit all day long. No way.

Yes, karate. I told my ds he cold try it when we moved here. However, in this area for his age, all beginning karate classes have a 2 day/week commitment. This makes it much more expensive and time consuming that we had budgeted, so I told him no. He was old enough to understand.

I don't mind that commitment if he liked karate and showed promise in it, but it felt like an excessive commitment for a kid who had never even tried the sport. I know we did other sports, like baseball and soccer, with similar weekly practices but at the beginner level they are much cheaper and the season commitment is much shorter.

I told my sons no football - the risk of head injury is too high. Beyond that, I only set limits on how many sports they could play at one time (e.g., if you want to play travel soccer you have to drop other fall and spring rec league sports).

Do you not want your DC playing those specific sports or ANY sports? If one was particularly time consuming (like a travel league) or overly expensive (like equestrian riding or something) I would explain to my DC why we wouldn't do those particular sports, but I wouldn't tell my DC no sports at all.

As a child, 35 years ago, I was told that I could not play football. This was as an 8th grader, when I was 6 feet tall and 190 lbs.

For example Football or Hockey? Between getting hurt and the commitment, I don't want DC playing them. Hockey's expensive too. Did you explain it in any other way than above?