Will you allow/direct your children to play football?

[DomerInHappyValley]

I let my son make the decision.
Around here they do flag football unitl 8 so the kids get used to running plays. He loved to play that.
He was fine with full contact the first 3 days when they were doing heat acclimization. First day of tackling drills he tried to pull a juke move in Oklahoma and got blown up he decided full contact wasn't for him after that.

Myself I guess I was lucky my youth coach was very very very concerned with proper technique.
We spent the first hour of practice every day doing tackling drills and if you didn't do it right he was all over you pulling you aside to make sure you could do it right.

I believe I had one concussion playing through HS and I had a compressed spinal column my sophmore year that Mom shut me down over.

 

[IrishLax]

On topic -- https://www.npr.org/sections/health...Oo24LJEUYEDGf_GgSNdCIhAXJ8V5Z3oN3gB9pY89mfW_c

 

[vinnymac2402]

I was nervous when I left my Autistic son play football this year as a Tiny Mite. Before we let him play I talked to his dr. and he said to go for it that it would be good for him to make friends and to harness his spirt in a sport. My son absolutely loved it and wants to play again next year. He made a ton of friends and his coaches were Outstanding. The first thing they did was ask me about my sons issues and how to best deal with them. Then they taught him how to play and tackle. The heads up for pop warner is awesome. I've seen games were the ref's will throw a flag if the kids didn't use a safe form of tackling. Side note: My son autism is not as bad as most kids and for the most part if you talked to him you wouldn't even know he had it.

 

[BleedBlueGold]

I need to read more into this topic, but my "feels" on the subject is that if my kids want to play organized sports (w/ contact) at young ages, I'm ok with it. But once they reach teenage years, I think it's important to re-evaluate the situation and steer them towards non-contact sports or other extracurricular activities. I come from a family of golfers and I'd more than happy if that was the sport in which both of my kids wanted to focus their time.

Sports played a huge role in my life and there are a ton of positives you can take from participating in them. But as we're learning, there are also some serious long-term negatives that need to be considered as well. I'll definitely give the Gladwell podcast a listen.

 

[phork]

On topic -- https://www.npr.org/sections/health...Oo24LJEUYEDGf_GgSNdCIhAXJ8V5Z3oN3gB9pY89mfW_c

So they found....Something. Not sure what it means. Were these kids monitored all season for repeated head blows? Why weren't other sports included? So many questions. What positions did they play. Was safe tackling being taught in this league.

I cannot accept this study as anything but fear mongering. The fibers grew longer and shorter. Don't know what it means. Is it good or bad?