Anybody else see that commercial where everywhere the kid goes, he has a big bench stuck to his butt? And they say when you're injured in school sports, you're benched for life, and they talk about find out how to prevent sports injuries...well the answer is very simple, you don't sign your kid up for any school sports.

Let's look at some statistics, on a yearly basis, 3.5 million kids in this country are hospitalized for sports related injuries...the most common cause of death resulting from a sports injury, is a brain injury. Between the ages of 5 and 14, 75,000 kids go to the ER for soccer injuries, 194,000 kids go to the ER for football injuries, 117,000 kids go to the ER for baseball injuries (which by the way is THE sport with the most fatalities for kids), and over 200,000 kids go to the ER for football injuries...and I'm just going to go on a limb and guess that the majority of these are NOT caused by tossing a ball around in the front yard or in an empty lot.

Then you have the types of injuries to consider, sprained wrists, knees and ankles, broken legs, broken arms, eye injuries, dislocations, broken teeth, strained necks, head injuries, fractures, is this all supposed to spell fun fun fun for kids or something?

Let's face it, gone is the day when sports were about fun and exercise and team spirit and 'let's go out there and give it our best and we'll have a good time', now, especially with the psycho soccer moms and hockey dads it's win win win, kill kill kill, no options, no alternatives, no room for second best, that's their fun, win and kill, and that's supposed to teach kids something positive to help them in life?

What's everybody else think?

I think you're funny. And over dramatic as usual. Find out how many children who actually participate sports and don't get any serious injuries as opposed to the ones that do. So children shouldn't play organized sports on the account that some parents don't teach them how to have team spirit? I guess children shouldn't be on their school soccer team because they might get a sprained ankle? Anybody can get injured when you play a sport. It's the nature of the game. 200,000 kids who get injured as opposed to the millions of children who play sports and don't and it should be banned? And your notion that organized sports isn't fun for children any more and it's all about the "kill kill kill" attitude is BS too. It doesn't happen as often as you would 'like' to think. My little sister is on the soccer team at her school and they are competitive, but they hardly facilitate that attitude. So do many others. Shocking isn't it?

Quote :

Let's look at some statistics, on a yearly basis, 3.5 million kids in this country are hospitalized for sports related injuries

The full fact regarding this statistic is that Safe Kids (who published the fact sheet from where this statistic is found)defines "Sports" as what most would call "Sports and Recreation." It is NOT just organized sports. I realize it is misleading a bit on their site. But here is the truth...

First of all, 3.5 million are not hospitalized...they receive medical treatment. Big difference.

That 3.5 million includes trampolines, winter snowboards and sleds and bicycle riding for recreational purposes ((More children ages 5 to 14 are seen in hospital emergency rooms for injuries related to biking than any other sport)). It also includes non competition skateboarding and rollerblading injuries AND playground injuries.

It is OK to not like organized sports. But to imply that the amount of injury and spoil sport parents ruins it for a majority of kids is ridiculous.

^^^^ I'm glad you clarified that Red.

Nystyle709 wrote:

^^^^ I'm glad you clarified that Red.

No problem. I am 100% against the generalization that organized sports are mostly bad. Folks don't have to like them, but they should give respect for the millions of kids who do.