Dealing with Youth Sports Injuries...

When raising your children, you will deal with bumps and bruises at some point. When your child plays organized sports, you might deal with more bumps and bruises, and perhaps, broken bones or stitches. It seems to be a trend.

Well, we never "expect" our children to get injured, but we were really thrown for a loop last week when the Orthopedic cleared our daughter at 4:00 from a broken finger injury, and then at 7:00 she broke her ankle.

Let's back up--our daughter decided last month that she wanted to join the swim team for the first time. We thought this was a good idea because she tends to sprain her ankes alot. We thought swimming might be a good sport for her to stay injury-free. Well, in her second race at her first swim meet, she went crooked and her hand hit the lane marker. We waited several days before we took her for an x-ray. Sure enough, she had broken a growth plate in her finger.

The finger injury healed quickly. Three weeks later she was cleared from the injury. That night, she joined a friend at a recreational gymnastics class, (three hours after returning home from her doctor's appointment). While walking across a mat, she twisted her ankle. Yes, she broke her ankle. Bummer!

As sports parent, we take it all in stride.

Emily Wyffels: Former Cornell University Soccer Player

Emily Wyffels is a former member of the Women's Cornell University Soccer Team. Currently, Emily is a Communications Associate for the Positive Coaching Alliance based at Stanford University.

Last week, our nine-year-old daughter was invited to play on a travel soccer team. I had one huge concern - there was only one coach for the team. When my older children played on travel soccer teams, they had a coach and an assistant coach.

Knowing that Emily had played college soccer, I asked her to share her youth soccer experience with me. Here's what Emily had to say: (Posted with her permission.)

Thanks for thinking of me regarding your soccer question.

U10’s was about the time I started playing travel soccer, too. I first started as the only girl on a boy’s travel team because our town was so small and no one was really all that interested in soccer. In one of our league games, we played the only girls travel team the area. I ended up getting recruited to play for that team, and subsequently, played with the same team for eight years.

Granted, I grew up in a very rural area in Illinois, so my parents had to start driving fifty miles one way so I could continue playing with this team. Under those circumstances, there were not a lot of coaches in the area who were coaching travel soccer, let alone girls, so I had only one coach to start off with. He was the father of one of the girls on the team and did a great job of being very fair and consistent with all the players, and didn’t show favoritism towards his own daughter. He also had a great reputation as the club president, and it was always known that he had the best interest of the club and our team in mind at all times.

As we progressed through the years, we eventually had a few parents volunteer to assist, but they served more as the adult presence when our coach couldn’t be there for games.

It seems like just yesterday I was playing club and my parents were there learning about the whole process right along with me.

Thanks for sharing, Emily! It's helpful to hear what's worked for others.

-Kim

Sports Parenting: General Observations

We had a fairly easy weekend. Since we weren't racing around from one place to another, (like we usually do), I enjoyed watching several youth lacrosse games and observed some interesting sports parents. I'd like to share some general observations, along with a review of our weekend:

Friday:

• Game one of the Ohio Cup Lacrosse Tournament (sixth graders).
• Thirty minute drive to tournament.
• Friday rush hour in Columbus.
• Two team members arrived twenty minutes before start of game. (Most of the team arrived at least one hour early.)
• Approximately 100 degrees. (Yuck!)
• Kids showed up ready to play hard.
• Player with very little playing time scored goal. Hooray! (Credit the team for great teamwork--the kids trusted their weaker teammate and passed the ball.)
• Ref without a doubt was calling the game with a preference for the local team. (That's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.)
• Our team won.

Saturday:

• Games two, three, and four of the Ohio Cup tournament.
• We arrived at fields at seven a.m.
• Game two was against a very strong all-star team. We lost.
• Game three was against a team that won in over-time. This team got no break between that game and playing us. Not fair. We won.
• Game four was against the same team that we beat in game one. This was our third game of the day and their second game of the day. Again, this was unfair. (Kids who played three games will be more tired that kids who played two games.) We lost.
• Ref got angry at parent. The parent backed off immediately, but the ref dug a little farther--he kept asking if the parent really understood that he had to stop yelling. How many times should the parent have to agree?
• Husband took oldest child to play in evening pond-hockey game.
• Child decided to play goalie, (he has never played goalie in his life), because the real goalie forgot to bring his skates. The entire team had a lot of fun cheering on their rookie goalie!

Sunday:

• No games.
• Took our middle child to lacrosse camp.
• Drove two hours to Akron for nephew's graduation party.
• One parent arrived late due to child's all-star-team baseball practice.
• One parent commented that she doesn't allow sports for her children on Sundays--it's her day off.
• One parent came alone because her son and husband were playing in a golf tournament.
• One parent made his daughter run the fields (next to the party) as punishment for not working hard in the child's last soccer game. (Ridiculous.)
• Drove two hours home.

This was a fairly easy and fun weekend. Thought you might enjoy the observations. There's always something interesting happening in the world of youth sports!

-Kim

Missing a Practice or Game...

The other night our daughter had a soccer practice with me, (Kim), as the coach, our son had a lacrosse practice, and our oldest son had a lacrosse game. In the scheme of things, this was a fairly simple night--each child had only one place to be and only one of us was coaching. (There have been nights that both of us had to coach and the children had multiple activities, such as Brownies, Religion Class, and two sports practices.)

The problem was that I don't often watch our oldest son's lacrosse games because I'm coaching another sport or driving the other two kids to practices. So...this week I was determined to watch his game.

After a long day of worrying about how I was going to get each child where he or she needed to be, I managed to drop my daughter at a teammate's house an hour before her soccer practice. I told my middle child that he had to ride his bike to lacrosse practice and that I would pick him and his bike up at the end of his practice. (It is possible for him to ride his bike two miles to practice, but we have to be careful in case of rain.) Last, I drove across town in rush hour and managed to watch our oldest son's game. Hooray!

In this case, it was me who missed coaching; however, a co-coach covered for me. Each day I juggle and figure out how I can get each of my children to their activities. I do my best, but sometimes one of us has to miss an activity, especially when Ed is out of town.

This is youth sports, and I'm human. Let's face it--it might be difficult, but sometimes we have to just say "no."

-Kim

Are You Over-scheduled?

We are over-scheduled sports parents. I recommend taking a deep breath before reading my schedule from last weekend:

Friday:

• Husband and Child #1 drove to Toledo for hockey camp through Sunday.
• Missed Child #1's lacrosse game because Child #1 was in Toledo.

Saturday morning:

• Child #2 was picked up by friend's parents for weekend lacrosse tournament in Cincinnati.
• Child #3 played in local soccer game and I coached (in pouring down rain).

Saturday late morning:

• Child #3 and I drove to Cincinnati (two hours) for Child #2's lacrosse tournament. (Due to congestion in tournament parking lot, we missed Child #2's first game of the day.)

Saturday afternoon:

• Child #3 and I watched two of Child #2's lacrosse games.

Saturday evening:

• Child #2, Child #3, and I met relatives for quick dinner and to discuss possible speaking engagement.
• Child #2 went home with my sister-in-law for the night.
• Child #3 and I drove back to Columbus (two hours).

Sunday morning:

• Sister-in-law drove Child #2 to lacrosse tournament (three more games).
• Child #3 and I drove to Akron (two hours) for my sister's baby shower.

Sunday afternoon:

• Friends drove Child #2 back to Columbus (two hours).
• Husband sent Child #1 to Akron (two hours) with friends so I could pick him up and drive him back to Columbus.
• Husband drove somewhere in Ohio for work. (Yes, we have jobs to earn money.)
• Child #3 and I left Baby Shower and picked up Child #1 at friend's house in Akron.

Sunday evening:

• Child #1, Child #3, and I drove home to Columbus (two hours).
• I picked up Child #2 at friend's house.

Sound familiar? Are you confused? I'm confused, but this is typical for most sports-parents. Do you agree?

-Kim