subject: A Parent's Worry: Is Skateboarding Dangerous for Kids? [print this page] Child safety is a major concern of parents. And it is surprising how little most of us know about what is safe and what is not. Suppose your young son comes to you and says he wants to learn how to skateboard. Many parents are appalled with this idea. They think they know that skateboarding is "dangerous". All those leaps in the air and jumping off things. Wow! Can't let that happen. So they suggest that Max go outside and play softball with his friends.
Problem solved! Hurray! Wrong. According to National Safe Kids Campaign, compiled by the Sports Injury Foundation, almost three times as many kids are admitted to emergency room for injuries sustained playing softball than for skateboard injuries. Throw baseball into the mix and almost six times as many kids are injured playing ball than are injured due to skateboarding.
OK, so that was a bad choice. How about a game of basketball? Surely that is safer? Wrong again! There are roughly twelve times as many injuries to kids resulting from basketball as from skateboarding.
Well, we will simply have to find something that is safer than skateboarding. But wait, it's fairly difficult to find something that is safer than skateboarding, still a lot of fun and not astronomically expensive. Right off the bat, we need to rule out baseball - over three times more dangerous as measured by the number of injuries. Likewise bicycles (10.6X), or football, which everyone would quickly concede is more dangerous even without the data showing that it is 6.5 times more dangerous.
What is surprising is that the data also show that soccer (3.1X), exercising without equipment (2.3X), trampolines (1.7X), snow skiing (1.5X), volleyball (1.2X),horseback riding (1.2X), and weight lifting are all more dangerous than skateboarding.
Ha! You say. It's all in the numbers. Not very many kids skateboard and that's why the injury count is lower than the other sports. Well, that theory does not hold water either. Some 11 - 12 million kids skateboard versus 3 million kids who play team sports. Moreover, the majority of skateboarders skate every day. That's more than can be said for most team sports. So, the numbers look pretty good (comparatively speaking) for skateboarding.
There is something else that needs to be taken into consideration. Approximately half of all skateboarding injuries occur in the first week that a kid is learning to skate. So, you can make skateboarding much safer for your kid if you give him the right equipment and lessons.
Get a first rate skateboard and its paraphernalia and good safety equipment, a helmet (which should be mandatory), and for younger kids knee and elbow pads. And, if you really want to do it right, hire a coach - maybe an older kid, for the first few times so that your kid gets off to the right start.
Happy skating and good luck!
A Parent's Worry: Is Skateboarding Dangerous for Kids?
By: Denene Jensen
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