How far should society go to protect the health of children in sports programs?
Posted at 5:00 AM on December 12, 2011
by Eric Ringham
(24 Comments)
Filed under: Culture, Health
Recent coverage has painted a stark image of the dangers of professional hockey. Congressional hearings have looked at the health risks of playing football, and there is even concern about the long-term effects of soccer, at least among players who do a lot of heading. Today's Question: How far should society go to protect the health of children in sports programs?
Comments (24)
I hated Gym because it was nothing but sports later on.
I do not get sports.
Playing games in ones free time is fine, but sports are a pointless activity.
Really schools should focus on physical fitness only.
Move sports outside of the schools, stop waisting the money. Do whats needed for life's needs and training.
And at that, if its outside school, its then the responsibility of the parents to pay attention.
Sports is 'fluff' and pointless.
It is disingenuous to defend a parent's authority while concurrently destroying the parent's ability.
One can argue that parents are responsible for making these health decisions without interference by society (a.k.a. The Government). But ... without valid information about the real risks and benefits, those parents are making decisions in ignorance, based upon folklore and emotional nostalgia.
Rich stated: I don't believe most parents or coaches disregard their child's or player's safety."
I agree. But, for those parents to effectively protect their children's health, they need to be given clear, valid explanations of the risks. This must avoid the panicked "oh, no, I'm going to die if I play hockey", and equally avoid the "I haven't died yet, it can't hurt you either."
It should not be society, but the parents of the children involved in sports. I don't believe most parents or coaches disregard their child's or player's safety. Accidents happen, heck I've seen spectators get hurt just by tripping and falling at an event.
As an aside, a tip of the hat to the moderator today job well done. No high sticking allowed! ;^ )
The one good thing football teaches is teamwork. However, there are other ways to teach teamwork that don't involve ritualized violence. It's curious that conservatives love football so much, given that being successful at any team sport involves suppressing one's individual ambition and working for the good of the team, which are "liberal" values. What further amazes me, Rahm, is the kinds of things right-wingers these days label as "marxist"-- the slightest regulation to address economic anarchy, or the smallest government policy designed to promote the common good. I bet you've never read a single sentence Karl Marx actually wrote. No one posting here is even remotely as extreme as that. Times have sure changed since the days when Nixon (no marxist by any stretch of the imagination) could opine with credibility that nationalized health insurance might be a good idea. When said I voted for Reagan, my liberal friends ostracized me. Now, without much change in my political views, I'm being called an extreme leftist.
Nothing says "life is cheap" more than the lack of protection for kids in sports. The notion that it's not "manly" if boys aren't allowed to commit assault and battery while playing a game is a sick and twisted notion.
KimMn - go check http://www.plannedparenthood.org/ - if you need more data on where and what they spend money on. There annual budget is roughly 1 billion/year. Roughly 1/3 of that ($363.2 million) came as Government Grants and Contracts. Essentially - they have to competitively bid for the tax funding they receive. 3% of their services events are abortion or abortion related. the OTHER 97% are for contraception, STD testing and treatment, Cancer screening and general health. ... Please... Get at least one clue.
Jason, my comment was carelessly phrased in not specifying what I meant by beating the record. I meant I hope we can go longer without rants. We've had several days when the very first post was an off-topic rant (and if any of those were mine, I've repentented of it), which is an impossible record to beat. Sadly, it appears another ranter ("Rahm") has now been recruited to copy and paste right-wing talking points to these pages.
"Hey, we got all the way to 12 comments before someone used the question as an excuse for a rant against Obama's administration. Can we beat that record tomorrow?"
I hope not. Once it happens it tends to derail the discussion. It seems like some don't even need a question since they rarely address it anyway. To me, the best way to discredit one's opinion is to start ranting on a completely unrelated topic.
Anyway, I suppose this post makes me guilty as well. Please ignore this and see my earlier post. Cheers!
A good start would be banning all public school funding of any sport entailing physical contact and teach an entirely different philosophy of fitness and recreation that's not rooted in physical aggression and competition. It's not so much about protecting the health of children as it is teaching them more appropriate skills to be productive members of society.
WE need to get more youth involved with shooting sports.
Archery, Biathlon, Target hand gun, Target long gun, Skeet, Sporting clays, Bulls eye.
Non-contact life sports.
If youth are “trained” that guns are bad…. Guess what—we have a problem.
Also the video “Games” our youth are playing….take a look.
I was conducting a shooting class and a youth asked to see how do dis-assemble a Military style ASSUALT weapon. I showed him,,, he knew A LOT about the weapon… I asked him how he knew so much… he responded “It is just the game Call of Duty - Modern Warfare”.
So I looked it up…lots of good info.
http://www.themodernwarfare3.com/mw3/weapons-list/
Anyway, The head bangers will continue to beat themselves up…. Maybe better helmets??
Maybe this is where “Dumb Jock” comes from????
∑
DTOM
We as a society need to provide safe and healthy sport programs for all kids. The reality is we glorify hard hits which cause brain injures as a maturing experience. How many times have you heard the words, "Shake it off" from an adult spectator or coach?
More importantly, I worry about the kids who don't live in the affluent areas which support violent sports like hockey and football. Instead these kids "play" with real guns, with real bullets which cause real death and pain in their community. Where are the healthy sport programs for these kids who don't have the same privilege of playing in an organized violent sport?
Hey, we got all the way to 12 comments before someone used the question as an excuse for a rant against Obama's administration. Can we beat that record tomorrow?
We should treat it like a public health and safety issue, and make the appropriate changes to programs. As we learn more about the consequences of certain actions in sports, particularly with head injuries, we should adjust our expectations of what is allowable on the field.
Just as pro football created definable rules (no facemask grabbing, no spearing, etc.) to deal with serious injuries the same can always be done in any sport. So I guess this question is sort of a no-brainer; we should do whatever is necessary for the safety and health of our children, or anyone.
When did this become a discussion of over zealous parents?
I've also seen talk that when hockey players were forced to wear masks, the hitting and rough play just got turned up a notch. Football gear is way, way better than when I was a kid. Which makes it easier to give a get as well as take one, making players more gutsy.
But this is happening in soccer too. No helmets here.
This gets talked about a lot at my son's school. I don't think kids are getting more concussions these days, I think we are just watching it a lot closer.
Easy - if partents get "over involved", give them the hockey stick or bat and let them go against each other and then the kid get to laugh at the parents.
If there is a fight - the person starting the fight is immediately sent out of the arena and his/her team loses at least one score. If their score is zero, they then have a minus one on the score board. If the teams clear the benches, both team's socres go to zero or minus what ever AND the coaches are immediately escorted from the arena/playing field and are not allowed to communitage in any maner with their team during the game.
Over zealus parents and coaches who are looking for better jobs and the media are the problem - by puting the "win" and the gore over all else. But what can one say when phrases like "kill the ump" or "kill shot" pr "it's legal if you don't get caught" and then the anti-catholic phrase of "the Hail Mary pass" are acceptable. And what can one say when cage match (so-called) wrestling and extreme boxing are shown on TV and are considered he-man "sports"? So much for a kinder generation.
And finally, when budget cuts are needed in schools, sports take the first hit followed then by other non acedemic stuff. Any parent who puts sports over acedemics are making their kid the losers no matter how many games they win.
As with everything, we can take things too far. Two examples I will give.
First, my karate school requires kids to wear headgear with a cage face mask. This has had a bad effect in two ways. First, because the child won't end up with a black eye, bloody nose, or cut lip they never learn to put their hands up to protect their head (no personal incentive). Second, the mask does nothing to stop the blunt trauma and whiplash effect, which causes the real head injuries. So now, when sparring, the kid is even more susceptible to a true head injury. Face mask = bad idea.
The second example is from when I was stationed in Germany. It surprised my when we went to a carnival with the kids and on the rides there were no safety belts or restraints on the kiddy rides. I asked about this and the operator said their kids don't fool around on it like the American kids do. They're expected to behave and, therefore, they do. They don't cater to the lowest common denominator and if by chance someone does get hurt, then everyone points that out to their kids and they simply behave.
Safety has turned into a pseudo religion in this country and I believe that too much of it is actually detrimental to us.
So far as to eliminate all of the public school and community based team and physical contact sports programs. We cut music and art programs for far less "cost" reason than this.
Which Society? The society that makes up the families of players, primarily parents, ought to be at the leading edge of ensuring that kids can learn from sports, have a good time, and be safe.
The coaches and officials need make sure that rules are in place to provide a stimulating and safe environment for kids to learn sportsmanship, develop skills and teamwork, and have fun.
And fans need to behave themselves and set a good example for the kids.
First remove athletics from schools. The schools are for education - perioid - let them focus on that. If you want a "community sports" program - run it wholly separate from the schools and the city finances. Niether public entity needs the costs or the liability. Second - eliminate the excessive parental participation - while there are wonderful coaches and other adults working in programs - we've over-professionalized the activity of being outside and running around. How will this protect kids from sports injuries - well its a much different calculation knocking into somone when the only protection is a shirt and pants and no helmet. Potential pain on both sides of the equation is mighty motivator.
Lets address the question stated.
I have a son playing high school football, they now take a test before the season to create a baseline to compare any injuries due to concussion. Which is a good thing.
The coaches are under strict orders to not play anyone that is a probable of a head injury.
I played HS football and a year of Jr. College football. I had a concussion in 10th grade which gave me a trip to the emergency room. I know I had my bell rung more than a few times since my 10th grade concussion that went unreported.
Whether it affected me or not is hard to exactly say. I killed enough brain cells in my younger days with booze and pot, so telling which one was the culprit is hard to say.
The league themselves, whether, professional, college, high school, or youth, can enforce this themselves. We don't need the nanny state micromanaging this for us. The government is too big how it is.
Shame on us if we value the excitement of violent sports more highly than raising children with healthy brains (and knees and backs and hips and elbows and so forth).
I've been tutoring some of the poorest second through fifth graders over the past six years. One of the first questions I ask in September at the beginning of each school year is "What do you want to be when you grow up." The girls have various answers, some quite ambitious, but the boys uniformly answer, "I want to play in the NBA, or the NFL, or in professional soccer." I ask the boys, "What chance do you have of playing in the NBA?" They have no clue, and I say, "There are roughly 1 million high school varsity basketball players. There are roughly 100,000 varsity college basketball players, and there are roughly 1,000 players in the NBA each season. Your odds are about 1 in 1,000 if you're a varsity high school basketball player. You'd better work on Plan B, graduate, and learn something that will get you a good job." So far, I have no evidence that any of the boys are listening.
Let me answer this in the form of a question.
"How far should society go to protect the health of children from a few of the Parents being over-involved in their children's sports programs?"
Let the kids play and have some fun. I've seen parents argue with coaches over whether their 10 yr old child is getting enough time on the field. And that their child's opportunities for a college scholarship are being diminished because of this perceived slight.
Some of these parents need to quit living vicariously though their children's activities.
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