Protecting Your Teen Athlete

Teens and sports just plain go together. Every Jr. High and High School has sports teams for teen to join. The lure of sports for this age is more than the pure love of the...

Teens and sports just plain go together. Every Jr. High and High School has sports teams for teen to join. The lure of sports for this age is more than the pure love of the sport. Teens participate in sports for social reasons, and because participation looks good when applying for colleges. Your teen will still need your supervision and guidance when it comes to participating in sports at this level in order to stay safe and to prevent sports injuries.

What can you do to help your teen stay safe while playing sports?

There are many things that you can do to protect your teen while he/she is playing sports. The first thing to do is to be sure that your teen is participating in a sport for the right reasons, in other words that they are matched for the physical, mental and emotional challenges of that particular sport.

Prepare your teen by making sure that they have the proper equipment to play with including the proper shoes, uniform, and safety gear such as shoulder, wrist or kneepads, helmet, athletic support and mouth guard when appropriate. They also need to know how to use this equipment correctly too so spend some time getting them used to the equipment before they have to use it for the first time for real.

Make sure your teen knows and understands the rules of the sport he/she is playing. The rules are there to keep playing the sport fun and so no one get hurt unnecessarily. Quiz him/her on the rules, but make it fun.

Make sure you go over safety issues such as what equipment to use, how to care for the equipment, and rules of fair play. Tell them to stay clear of any rough housing on the field and to report any injuries to the coach immediately.

Explain to your teen that it is NOT cool to play through the pain. Pain is the body’s way of letting you know that you have an injury. Playing with an injury can worsen the injury and increase the time needed to heal. If your teen plays through the pain and makes the injury worse they will miss more game time than they otherwise would have.

Make sure that the coach agrees with your philosophy of not playing through the pain. The coach should be able to detect when a player is injured. The coach should also know how to give first-aid. Make sure that the coach knows these things before the first practice!

Be aware of your teen as he/she comes home from practices and games and look for signs of injury.

Make sure your teen knows to drink water before, during and after each practice, training session and game. Send water or other sports drinks with your teen to insure that they will stay well hydrated. Staying hydrated is another way of avoiding sports injuries. Staying hydrated is especially important if they are practicing, training or playing a game outdoors in hot weather.

Make sure that you know the age level of the others on your teen’s team. If you teen is in with older players he/she is at a higher risk for injury. It is common for younger teens to get injured when they are playing with or against teens that are older and more experienced.

Stay involved in your teen’s sports because an involved parent or other caring adult can be quicker to pick up on things that go wrong and will be able to pick up on a coach that is not being effective at protecting teens on the team or when equipment is faulty. Make sure that the coach is well trained for the position and has experience with teens.

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