Sledding is Dangerous for Children!

Life is so dangerous now. Maybe we should simply not let our kids outside at all and just let them virtually sled with their Wii video game? Then again, they might pull a muscle leaning left or right in front of that large screen TV.

Okay, there is a hint of sarcasm in there. However, it begs the question of are we, as parents, doing enough to educate our children on whats good, bad, right, wrong, safe, and dangerous? Or, are we relying on others to do that job for us?

Strangely, I don't think this is a new problem. Studies have shown that we were once children, too. However, most of us would seem to be surprised to know that. Our parents were children once, too, and so on back to the roots of time.

Right now the yearly accidental death rate (for all injuries both accidental and intentional) for children ages 1 through 14 in the US is about 14 per 100,000 individuals based on data collected through the 1990s. That is about 1/2 of what the rate was in the 1970s.

A more recent study shows that rate has continued to drop even more.

All of this is a good sign. Maybe we are doing a better job than we think. On the downside, the US does not exactly lead the way in child safety.

As we in the US continually pass laws and put policies in place to protect our children from all injury, both physical and emotional, while at the same time eliminating competition, I can't help but wonder what the shape of our military will be 20 years from now.

Hopefully our adversaries will have been raised the same way, otherwise it wouldn't be fair.

Great response. Lets stops all forms of physical activity and then perhaps we can contemplate why obesity is rampant.

I almost had a heart attack when I read this article so perhaps we should also stop writing these dangerous articles.

Everything is dangerous for children.

I was once knocked out cold. I had one of those Krazy Karpets, you know, the kind with no control over speed and direction. After a fairly impressive wipeout I stood up, all groggy from the tumble and looked up the hill. A huge innertube with about 8 kids piled on top filled the viewing area. Absolutely no chance for escape. It took my feet out from under me and I proceeded to perform a lovely midair flip. I lost consciousness after landing on my head. That was 30 years ago. My friends still remember it. My kids wear helmets and facemasks.

'...I think you are better off learning how to fall than to wear armor.'

Good point. I think there is a tendency to trust the protective gear too much and try stunts that are at a level of danger beyond what the armor is designed to handle. I recently heard that there has been some study about the NFL getting rid of facemasks as they seem to cause more injuries than they prevent.

Jaxy master of the obvious :D

I remember having a few epic wrecks

never went to the hospital, I don't remember any of my peers with an injury more serious than a broken arm. Of course concussions weren't taken as seriously then...

Later in High school we would go out in the country on dirt roads & hang on to the bumper while one person spotted, dry spots sucked & would send you tumbling...

My experience with helmets & safety gear [dirt bikes] showed, the more gear I had on the more chances I could take, the faster I could go

Here is the only true statistic - Australia banned fireworks, air rifles and sling shots many years ago, adding since recorded time the total number of deaths an injuries from all of them combined, they do not equate to the deaths and injuries from drugs in Australia in one years.

Spare us from do gooder morons who have given our children nothing exciting to do and are personally responsible for the deaths and injury of thousands who turned elsewhere for exciting entertainment. Go ahead ban sledding and murder some more of our children.

Remember the title was not "is it dangerous?" the title was "it is dangerous" whoever wrote this can Go crawl under a rock with the junkies they and those like them created.

That is a damned shame! No bb guns, slingshots or firecrackers?

That same mentality is pervading the US. Like you pointed out, it's going to cost us in the long run.

It amazes me every day that we were able to come out of the cave, what with nature all aound us trying to kill us. !!!!!!!!!!!!

As a kid that grew up in CT in the 60's we reveled in the idea of sled wars with massive jumps, acorn ammo for our sling shots, home made cannons for fireworks, jumping off cliffs into deep pools in the rivers, Jarts, etc.. Sure we got hurt sometimes but somehow we learned not to repeat those behavior that caused pain and yes we survived.

Kind of like learning how to cope with life.............

It saddens me that our kids have lost that ability to explore and/or enjoy the world around them for fear of a lawsuit. .

Boy those were the days!

We also used to have massive snowball fights........with old barns and stuff to hide in. Each team would make snowballs the day before so they would freeze solid overnight, insuring maximum pain infliction. I grew up in Granby. Our most important possessions were bicycles in warm weather and sleds in winter! That was about it, and we always managed to have fun. _{And get in trouble.}

I wonder if kids these days are going to look back on their childhoods and remember the 1st generation XBox or Wii in the same way we look back on ours. Doubt it.

I grew up in Windsor and now live in N Granby (20 years) near the Cossit Library. A few more people now-a-days but still pretty rural. My kids played in the woods and creeks and they survived too. I loved it when they came home all dirty and tuckered out.

Wow it's a small world! Back in the 60's as a kid I went to Cossit library for reading group. Also used to go get cider and apples from Allens cider mill across the street.

As a small kid, we were on Muriel Dr down by the high school, then lived right up the road from you on Day St.

That was a great place to grow up! I still have friends there that never left.

I don't know if it was Jaxy's intention, but this blog has put a big grin on my face, thinking back to those days. Thanks Jaxy!

Granby is a lot more upper crust than it was when I was raised there, most of my neighbors on Day St were corn and cows back then.

Everything can be dangerous. If you take appropriate precautions, helmets, maybe some pads and the safest sledding path you can, it is no more dangerous than any outdoor activity.

Sledding through a forest, on a busy road, into a frozen creek, those are activities that may get you "Darwined" out of the gene pool.

The best sledding I ever had was on an old runner sled, down a 300 foot long, five degree slope that a farmer used as a cattle field during the rest of the year. At the bottom was a flat stretch about fifty feet long and then the fence for the field.

They have turned it into a subdivision now. That fun place is gone.

We cannot protect them all the time unless we don't let them do anything.

Just my opinion, Dragon

Things have changed...

When in grade school in the late 50's I lived in the mining town of Wallace, Idaho. (pop about 1000) The city would run the road grader through the baseball field and plow up two snow banks so during lunch hour the kids could go out and have furious snow ball fights. The worst I can remember is bloody noses. While that was allowable by the school, we would get in trouble for "hooky bobbing" which was holding on the rear bumpers of passing cars and sliding on our shoes behind them on the snow packed streets.

For high school in the early 60's, I lived in the logging town of Rose Lake (pop 100). Our favorite thing was ice skating which was fairly safe but next was our wooden plank sled (12" x 3" x12ft) which had runners with the front steered by an old car steering wheel. We would hook it to a little Fiat car with a hundred foot rope (donated by one of the log booms on the river) and travel the county roads. Almost everyone except the guy holding onto the steering wheel would be thrown off on the sharp corners. I don't know which tin-can model of Fiat that was, but 6 of us scrawny kids could get it off the top of a 4 ft snow bank when it missed the corner.

We never thought anything of any of our activities as being overly hazardous. It was just the era we grew up in and we were tough, although we didn't know it. No one ever went to the hospital because no one could afford it. We just lived with the bangs and bruises. Occassionaly, we would hear "you dammed dumb kids be careful", but that was about it. Good memories and lots of fun times but I'm not sure I would want the grand-kids doing it.

Just as a comparison; we didn't go to the Doctor's because it cost $5, now it costs $100 to take my cat to the vet's.

Thanks Jaxy for bringing up some of the old memories.

All I can say about this is "double runner"...some of you will know what that is...multiple riders...fast as heck down an ice covered road!

Yes you need to be careful out there...but have some fun!

It sure was fun. It was a form of physical exercise that provided recreational relief from schoolwork.

One of the worst sledding incident I had was when I was around 9. My dad took my younger brother and I to a state park in northern NJ where they would closed down some of their roads for sleighing. We went to the top; my brother in one sleigh I was in the other and took off. About half way down I hit an icy patch next thing I know everything is black. I had slide off the road into a un-grated storm drain opening and fell in head first about 5 feet into two feet of snow. Then was covered with another three feet from the edges of the drain. It took my dad about 15 minutes to dig me out. 10 minutes later my dad, brother, and I are at the top of the hill again laughing and making fun of each other getting ready to sleigh down the hill.

This maybe one of the reason kids today set at home and play video games! When we send them out we wrap them in so much protective armor they can't enjoy it. There is nothing better then a good thrill to get the adrenaline flowing. Once wrap in armor you take some of that away.

Next they will want them to wear helmets while play their video games they might fall off the couch in their excitement and bump their head on the coffee table. Any studies on that? Next they will be promoting some kind of protective hand wear. They might push a button too hard a sprain a finger!

You are so right! We need a balance. I find it quite interesting that my kids love going to the family on the farm. There they can ride on the quad-bikes (ATVs?), dirt bikes, horses, jump into the river, etc. (Slight lack of snow means sledding is rather unkown here!) Good fun. And yes, if I see them about to do something stupid, I warn or stop them. But we cannot do that all the time!

I so loved it when I saw on the UK version of "The Secret Millionaire" where there was a playground in a very poor area, and the couple running it had kids jumping off industrial containers, encouraging them to do flips should they want to, jungle gyms without cushions beneath, no warning signs in sight. They felt that the modern tendency to "cuddle" is not good for a child's development, as it stifles their natural curiosity.

We learn as kids that our actions have consequences, and as Brave Sir Robin states - you have to manage risk - is that rush and fun of action sport worth it? So we must allow our kids to learn, but we cannot teach them everything, some they must figure out themselves, our jobs as parents (not the state!) is to assist them in making good decisions. (Otherwise they live with us until they're 35!)

I Agree.

Problem is some parents (like some of the ones that live near me) use this as an excuse not to monitor their children. As a result they (the kids) run wild (who can blame them...FREEDOM).

Let your children make mistakes but be there to make them aware of their mistake (an how or what lead them to that mistake) then they learn the most from their errors.

Then the child isn't afraid to make mistake but also isn't reckless.....

Oh, bloody hell, here we go again. The nannies are pulling out scary factoids to control us. Again.

Lets hear about this in kpm, kids per million. Then let's have the same statistics for riding in a car, baseball, football, cycling, etc.. And let's consider obesity itself to be an injury except in the cases where it is unavoidable because of other conditions.

I believe that we, especially boys, are hard wired to take risks; that it is a developmental necessity. I see that as an artifact of our evolutionary experience, the young men were the warriors and hunters, the risk-takers of the tribe. I strongly suspect that snuffing that need is damaging in that is being replaced by unhealthy risk taking behavior.

When I was young, we used to roam as a group and when one child got hurt we all experienced, and learned from it.

Oh no! Another 'Doing something while you are still alive may result in your death' warning, again.

I grew up in the country on a farm and am very very thankful for it because now as an adult I can see the real value that has.

I know everyone and everything dies, I know that having fun can and will at times get you hurt, I know that physical and emotional pain happens and you can and have learn to live with it, I know the value of thick skin in both senses of the term, I know what survival of the fittest is and how it works, I know that I have little to no control over all of these things and it is only fools who try to change that and think they are making life better, I know that dangerous stuff is fun sometimes because its both a challenge and a learning experience at the same time, I know that danger is a relative perception to the viewer and the participant and that its seen differently from each persons point of view, I know I am not always right, I know that without experience I can not improve.

I now what sprains, cuts, bruises, stitch's, scars, broken bones, embarrassment, and hurt feelings feel like because I have lived through all of them and I know their values by what they have gained me in life through first hand experience.

So lets get those old truck inner tubes and jagged edged sheet metal sleds out and head for the big rocky snow coverd hill in the woods where only strong will come home and the weak get picked off by the cyotes when the sun goes down.

I don't know who marked you guys off topic, but I reversed them.

This blog invites a discussion about the nanny state mentality, and I think it's a discussion that should be had. We are living in times where the government is encroaching on our lives more and more every day in the name of safety. Passing laws on what we do, what we eat, how we raise our kids..........it's endless.......the worst part......with all of these rules, our kids are more unhealthy than ever.

It needs to be addressed.

Ga to you.

Miss those old days!!

Don't forget mumblypeg with what ever knife you could find. :)

Tree climbing

Riding bikes with passengers on the handle bars

Sneaking out at night and swimming in the neighbor hood pools

Jumping off of sand pit rims to see how far you couild go

Oh, yes, jumping off the edge at the sand pit. That was fun. Of course it took days before all the sand was out of my ears.

My mother would wonder why there was all this sand ending up in the washing machine but she never said much.

I did.

Because Jaxy is asking us:

Have you ever been involved in a funny or potentially serious sledding incident?

Not to whine about the state of things today. What's funny about that? If you what to whine, your as bad as the nanny state you proclaim to hate. Now stop crying and act like you say you where brought up.

Yeah, but the exclamation point in the title suggested this is a big problem. Followed with studies showing how dangerous it is. But, like I said, we can go there some other time.

It's impossible to take this trip down memory lane, and think about all of the things we did as kids, and not think about all of the things that todays kids will never experience, because of safety concerns. Kind of sad.

There are still a lot of things kids can get into today if parents would stop their whining and let the kids just do it. It's the parents fault for letting this country fall into this nanny state and not doing anything about it.

I just started a new thread where we can discuss the pros and cons of nannyism, might be interesting.

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/63750/When-does-safety-go-too-far

While I definitely think that sledding can be dangerous (especially if you do so in risky areas), I will also admit the it is probably mostly hype or parents being more sensitive to kids crying that fuels these hospital visits. Or maybe todays kids are just reckless or ignorant? Years ago (or decades ago ), when we were kids, we fell, we stumbled, we got bumps, bruises, cuts, scrapes and we didn't get babied from our parents. In fact, about 90% of the time my father laughs at me. Example: Today I got my hand stuck in a tight spot under the hood and my father laughed at me and yelled to my mother to get the camera. I finally got my hand out and vowed to never again to help him when he says "I need you, your hands are smaller than mine."

We put a bandaid on and keep on going.

This is a lesson that everyone needs to teach their kids. Making a mountain out of a molehill will only make things worse more times than not. I look forward to reading your thread, thanks for posting a link!

(For the record, I like exclamation points... they are my favorite punctuation!!!!!)

I was a "crybaby" until I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, and realized that the following cycle occurred everytime I ran to my Mom with a bump, cut, bruise, scrape, etc.

1) Get "hurt" (minor stuff. My Mom could move heaven AND earth when we were REALLY hurt!)

2) Cry to Mom

3) Get told to sit down and wait, right where I was (In view of the other kids still having fun. I learned later this last part was probably critical to the lesson!), while Mom fetched the fixit stuff.

4) After the fixit stuff was applied, get told to wait a while longer, again, right where I was, till MOM decided I was ready to go back and play

5) FINALLY, get to go back and play.

See a pattern? I took myself out of the game for imagined reasons of minor (but over blown) pain. Mom kept me out.

I finally figured out that, if it wasn't crippling, it didn't REALLY "hurt" and the cost of the minor comfort of Mom was too much higher than the cost of lost play time. Got tough quick. Realized as an adult that it was probably deliberate on Mom's part. Asked her. Yep. Did it with my kids, too. It worked. They're doing it with my Grandkids. It will still work. No Nanny Statism need apply!

Man, you DO live in tough territory!! Where is that? Central Park, NY?

Well, living is dangerous too, for all ages. What are they going to do, pass another law preventing you from that? Where does the idiocy end?

When young and living in Indiana, we used to make our younger brother wear a football helmet when sledding on the ice in the trees behind the levee along the Wabash River flood plain. He was too lightweight to steer the sled runners around the trees and would inevitably crash directly into one on every run.

Luckily for the world he never gave himself a frontal lobotomy and he eventually helped write the first computer programs for digital radio communications.

Protect the kids, you never know which one will save the world later on!