Anonymous wrote:My child broke an arm falling from the monkey bars in spring. Surgery, $30,000 medical bill, and several months later, life is back to normal. Kids at school love these things. Always hanging with their heads down. One of her friends also broke an arm recently falling from monkey bars. Everybody at the ER and the surgery room were joking that hospitals get a good amount of revenue from them.

First thing the doctor asked my kid was how far across he made it before he fell. Clearly a question they ask a lot.

Anonymous wrote:Maybe parents can choose to give their kids more calcium and vitamin D. Simple childhood falls should not result in so many broken bones.

THIS was my take from the posts as well. Jesus. Also, your kids need to learn how to fall which means they need to start climbing, hanging, falling, etc. as infants. Pre walking skills. If your kid doesnt crawl before walking they dont build the upper arm strength. If they dont hang and climb they dont build the shoulder girdle for proper play once they get heavier. That input and weight building actually stimulates bone growth.

But also, Id be asking for a dexa scan if my kid had more than one broken arm.

Accidents happen. But I think kids don’t actually know how to do the monkey bars/are weaker than previous generations.

Go and watch a 1st grade recess. It’s shocking.

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Anonymous wrote:

My kid's school has something like this. The bars spin and that's how you get from one to the next. The fall height is 8feet! How is this a good idea?

The fall height is only 8 feet if you are on top of it. We have these too, it looks fun.

No.....the website says "fall height 96"". The bottom of them is at least 2 feet over my head (I'm 5'5")

Anonymous wrote:I’ll take a broken bone over a kid who is addicted to screens any day. I broke my arm on the monkey bars back in the early 80s. It healed and life continued. I teach kindergarten and have many kids who just sit at recess because they said running and playing is too tiring. Seriously? So sad.

Are you really that dumb? There is clearly a medium between monkey bars and screens. There aren't screens at recess.

Anonymous wrote:My child broke an arm falling from the monkey bars in spring. Surgery, $30,000 medical bill, and several months later, life is back to normal. Kids at school love these things. Always hanging with their heads down. One of her friends also broke an arm recently falling from monkey bars. Everybody at the ER and the surgery room were joking that hospitals get a good amount of revenue from them.

My kid too. 30 seconds after getting to a park. It was an overhead rail where you hang on to a sliding handlebar. He dropped down and fell on his arm funny. Horrifying to me but I had played on similar equipment as a kid. When we were at the hospital, he was behind two other kids his age to get operated on. One fell off her bike.

I broke my tailbone on the stairs as an 18 year old. I stepped over my boyfriend and he pulled me down as a joke. I sat down hard on the edge of a step and fractured the tailbone. My mom always told me not to horseplay on the stairs.

My husband broke his arm snowboarding on a bunny hill. Because he was trying to do 360s.

Stuff happens.

I broke my arm on the playground in elem school. I am still a fine, mostly functioning adult except for the days my kids drive me crazy.

Breaking an arm isn't the worst thing that could happen. Its a risk worth taking.

I also have never heard of nor seen a child break an arm at my kid's recess. Their school has that slightly bouncy foam ground stuff... i wonder if it helps?

Anonymous wrote:My son fell off a stool and snapped both bones in his forearm.

Kids get hurt lots of ways, and they recover quickly. My son was in a long arm cast for four weeks and a forearm cast for two.

We still let him (once the cast was off) bike, rock climb, ice skate, etc.

I’m grateful my son’s school isn’t too protective.

Those chairs and desks at school could be death traps! Let's ban those, too!

Anonymous wrote:Maybe parents can choose to give their kids more calcium and vitamin D. Simple childhood falls should not result in so many broken bones.

It’s because kids instinctively put out their hand and catch their fall off the monkey bars. No extra calcium or vitamin d is gonna change that.

Anonymous wrote:I have heard of so many kids breaking arms and legs on the playground, mostly from Monkey Bars. Why do schools still have this equipment on their fields? MCPS just started last week and already we've had an ambulance take away a kid with a broken arm. I think MB are generally OK as long as there is proper supervision, but the ratio of adults:kids at recess is smaller than when I take my two kids to the playground.

Gotta grow up tough.

Anonymous wrote:Monkey bars don’t seem very risky to me if the child is not climbing on top of them. Used appropriately, their feet aren’t far off the ground and they won’t drop in a way that they’ll break an arm.

Teacher tho just posted about breaking my arm (it was really my wrist). I missed the last rung of the monkey bars, fell and hit my arm on the ladder you use to climb up at the ends. I remember almost passing out from the break.

I’ll take a broken bone over a kid who is addicted to screens any day. I broke my arm on the monkey bars back in the early 80s. It healed and life continued. I teach kindergarten and have many kids who just sit at recess because they said running and playing is too tiring. Seriously? So sad.

Maybe parents can choose to give their kids more calcium and vitamin D. Simple childhood falls should not result in so many broken bones.

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I would be really upset if they took away the monkey bars, my kids love those things. But yes, agree, some kids make bad choices (climbing to the top, hanging upside down, etc.). It's rare that a child using the monkey bars in the way they're meant to be used is going to break an arm.

So if you're going across the monkey bars, the way they are meant to be used, and your hands slip off is that a good choice or bad choice?

If you have sweaty hands, CHOOSE to dry them before attempting monkey bars.

What if the kid got nervous once they were that high up and panicked?

Choose to climb down. If you can't figure this out, no wonder you're kid can't either

I hope your kid is smarter than you.