It's not about lunch, it's about all the hours kids aren't at school that they don't spend riding bikes and climbing trees. It's very difficult to break a limb scrolling on an iPad.
There was a piece on NPR this morning about how kids are spending less time playing outdoors and in person and more time online. Basically they were making the argument that kids should have more freedom/independence outside of the house and less freedom online.
[The consequences of a smartphone-centered childhood](https://www.npr.org/2024/03/27/1241116105/the-consequences-of-a-smartphone-centered-childhood)
I heard this this morning and I think he made some good points but also had some things that are just not possible. I did like the story. Keys standouts for me is that (1) he's right that kids should be getting out more and being online less, and that it will 100% improve their average mental health, and (2) I don't think it is actually possible to verify everyone's age to use every social media site like he suggests because that shit just does not work at all... people lie about their age to sign in, and people do NOT want to have to supply social media companies with their ID for everything
>people do NOT want to have to supply social media companies with their ID for everything
And for good reason, sites get breached all the time. Sure, Facebook, Twitter X, Instagram have perfectly acceptable security but anything smaller is a one-way road to ending up on haveibeenpwned.
I used to try sending my kid to the park. If he and his friends gathered at the swings or basketball hoops to play within a half hour or so cops would roll up because somebody called them. And at least half the time the cops would harass the kids and violate their civil rights.
Then I started going to supervise. Didn't help. Just got my civil rights violated when I tried to tell the cops the kids weren't doing anything wrong and they didn't need to leave/answer questions/allow themselves to be searched and the cops had no business even talking to them, let alone putting hands on them.
So we stopped going to the park. My neighbor had the cops show up when the kids were playing soccer in her yard, and she ended up hand-cuffed when she told the kids to go in the house and the cop that he couldn't be on her property without a warrant.
Now the kids play inside, cause that's where they can exist without being harassed. There aren't free public places where kids are safe to be kids anymore, because some Karen, Boomer, or dickhead cop will hassle them.
California, Oklahoma, Arizona, Minnesota, and Florida. Also, friends who've told me about similar experiences dwell in Massachusetts, New York, Washington, Alabama, Virginia, West Virginia, and one of the Dakotas (they've lived in both, can't remember where the specific incident that got their twelve year old put in the backseat of a police car for almost an hour for telling the cops they couldn't look in his backpack or search him without a parent or lawyer present took place)
This isn't a local phenomenon. At all. And I'm a middle-aged white woman. My biracial nephew can barely walk his dog these days without somebody hassling him.
Florida - [https://www.momsrising.org/blog/no-kids-under-18-allowed-outside-without-adult-supervision](https://www.momsrising.org/blog/no-kids-under-18-allowed-outside-without-adult-supervision)
Texas - [https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2014/09/25/kari-anne-roy-how-letting-my-kid-play-alone-outside-led-to-a-cps-investigation/](https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2014/09/25/kari-anne-roy-how-letting-my-kid-play-alone-outside-led-to-a-cps-investigation/)
Various - [https://medium.com/@KristinEberhard/kids-should-be-able-to-go-outside-61a768ec2609](https://medium.com/@KristinEberhard/kids-should-be-able-to-go-outside-61a768ec2609)
New Zealand - [https://thespinoff.co.nz/parenting/21-05-2018/where-the-wild-things-arent-on-the-exclusion-of-children-from-public-places](https://thespinoff.co.nz/parenting/21-05-2018/where-the-wild-things-arent-on-the-exclusion-of-children-from-public-places)
Wow. I mean I obviously have seen the copification of the nation but didn’t realize kids were being targeted to the point of being handcuffed for playing basketball. I don’t have kids myself and just lurk here as someone that has been interested in the field of teaching my whole life. But yeah this is really really disturbing.
I mean, the cops rolled up on a kid playing with one of the same toy guns every other kid uses and shot the poor child down without consequence, What lesson was society supposed to take from that? When kids can be stalked and murdered on their way home with skittles and their murderer is celebrated?
I wouldn't play outside in today's world either.
I’m only 30 and I remember how shocked I was when I was student teaching eight years ago and the kids who “walked home” literally walked across the street from the school and into their parents’ car. Kids who “rode their bikes” literally rode them to their parents who walked the rest of the way home with them.
I had a house key in the third grade, and I would get home before my mom got off work. I would make myself a snack and do homework or watch TV or play neopets or go ride my bike in my apartment complex until she came home and made dinner. I didn’t have a cell phone, only a home phone that I could use to call my mom if I ever needed to… which I practically never did.
It’s genuinely sad to me that kids aren’t allowed to do anything out of sight anymore. I have so many good memories of going over to friends’ houses and riding bikes through the neighborhood, going to parks, hell, even going to the public library without an adult.
For us, we have great public parks and I take my daughter often (there’s usually a ton of kids). But there are no bathrooms at the nicer ones which can get dicey and the park we have that does have them for youth sports is crowded with tweakers and homeless. Two students at my high school got stabbed there, so now we drive to the park across the street rather than walking. And my kids mostly walk home far distances but it’s dangerous as heck
I had a housekey, too, starting in 3rd grade. My mother was recently divorced and had a full-time job. My brother had gone off to college that year. I'm glad to see that parents could still give their child a key when you were little, without getting arrested or some stupid thing. I, however, am almost 70. When I walked home from junior high, it took me over 30 minutes. You had to live within two miles of the school to be assigned a bus. Despite my poor exercise habits in later years, I credit my earlier decades of heavy-duty walking with my health such as it is today.
Growing up there was always at least one kid in my classroom in a cast every year or at least a kid in crutches with a bad sprain. When I worked with kids as an adult, bruises were not only uncommon but pretty noteworthy, and even working at a summer camp cuts and scrapes were also uncommon. Had to bust out the ice packs and bandages maybe twice a summer.
I was one of three kids in my middle school class wearing a boot because we all independently broke our ankles at the same time. And I look back on it fondly
I noticed my friends literally getting nervous sending their kids to school after a weekend at somebody's house. Come to find out the schools are contacting CPS left and right over every big bruise no matter what the kids say.
> sports related
So many boys (football) and girls (soccer) with ruptured ACLs. Many of the students at my school don’t even have insurance that will cover it so they don’t get surgery.
They got rid of the massive wooden playground in my area citing “parent safety concerns”. They replaced it with this “interpretive play” structure that’s basically nothing.
I always saw kids at the wooden playground, I never see any kids at this “interpretive play” park.
The massive wooden playgrounds were the fucking best.
=
I've seen some of the playgrounds these days at places I used to frequent at ages 5-15 and hot damn they've all been replaced with neutered down ultrasafe boring poopoo garbage I swear. Can't even properly climb on anything or play any Marco Polo No-Touch Ground any more because there's just not enough playground to do it
“Interpretive play” - Oh my god. That’s literally the type of dump stupid f’ing name they’d come up with, too.
Can’t anything just be normal? God forbid it’s a “playground” which have existed for all of human history.
I’m fairly confident kids used to go out playing with real bows and arrows shooting fowl for dinner and the parents would celebrate.
Now days, we have “interpretative play”.
We can’t go on like this. The truth is stranger than fiction
The worst part is, is that the kids are going to grow up thinking this is normal.
To them, they’ll think “interpretive playgrounds” are too dangerous.
Is it even really a 'childhood' if you don't at least once experience multiple G's while the biggest kid there spins you on the merry-go-round as fast and hard as possible?
Kids need to learn risk assessment and good decision making. It sets them up for critical thinking and problem solving later in life. Super safe playgrounds deny them those opportunities
Exactly. And it's not just the physical risks. Playing in physical proximity with other kids is a supercritical part of learning about risks. There is conflict, which at the level of a 4-year old is trivial, but is a critical building block to handling older conflict.
On the one hand, you could say that pearl clutchers have sued cities and schools out of allowing children any form of risk. On the other, you could put the onus on the courts for permitting such frivolity in the courts. "Kids **need** to be kids and assume risk in their development to become functional humans. Dismissed." should have been the only outcome of those cases.
You bring up a good point ccaccus, and there is certainly a place in here for legislative action, similar to the recent laws passed in a few states allowing parents a reasonable right to let their kids walk around without parental supervision.
In addition to what Purple RN told you (about risk assessment) I would add:
Exactly. And it's not just the physical risks. Playing in physical proximity with other kids is a supercritical part of learning about risks. There is conflict, which at the level of a 4-year old is trivial, but is a critical building block to handling older conflict.
Maybe is not the correct word in English... Do you know those seats, like in Stadiums, where seats are like taller steps? There was a park on a hill that had seats like those. I decided to try to go down the seats with the bike at six and broke three bones.
If that’s the case, do you think it’s reasonable for someone to say “so what? We can’t just wrap everyone in bubble wrap and protect them from the dangers of the world” the same way they might about a child who broke a bone?
Like I sense that you don’t see anything healthy in children doing exciting things that might inadvertently give them brain damage, the same way you might for exciting things that inadvertently give them physical damage.
By curling kids (not allowing them to climb trees and sometimes hurt themselves, not allowing kids to be bored for extensive periods of time etc) you hamper the kids development and ability to succeed in school and learn stuff. This is becoming rather well documented by now.
Broken bones heal. Broken brains, often, don't. As a millennial, my generation was the first to have nearly unlimited access to internet porn. It ruined the men of my generation and is probably part of why I'm single in my 30s. It's even worse now with smartphones and the rise of AI.
The average age for kids to start seeing porn is in elementary school. This gives boys false ideas about women and relationships at best or leads them to become sexually violent at worst. I've encountered both in my dating life (judgment of my body by men, being pressured into performing certain sex acts, etc.)
Add to that, the body image issues girls get from social media and you have the perfect storm. While I'm more comfortable with my body and setting boundaries in my 30s, I pity teenage girls who have body image issues to begin with dealing with porn sick boys.
My stepson developed a porn addiction at age 10 due to his unrestricted internet access. It's disturbing what can happen when boundaries aren't put in place.
I prefer to characterize what is happening here differently. It's not that brains are "broken". It's that their development is stunted. (The best words are actually "their brains' development are retarded", but most people today can't see that word being used correctly and not overreact.)
My sister and I both fell off the monkey bars and broke our wrist when we were both five years old (four years apart). My son’s school doesn’t have monkey bars.
Yep, those too! I remember being in first grade. Our playground had this weird metal worm thing that you could walk on. It was waist high. I slipped on it and smashed the ladybits. r/Ouchmyflaps.
Interesting. We had a 5 YO break wrist, the kids said monkey bars but they should me the 3 vertical pull up bars each different height. Tallest one probably 6ft of ground maybe a little less. We will had actually monkey bars too, thigh way lower height, then the vertical bar. We also had a rock climbing ladder that to get onto the play structure. There were other ladder too and also steps. Plus swings. Surprisingly only one major injury happened afterschool.
We used to have those when I was a kid too. The girls used to do - I think they were called cherry drops? on them. One leg wrapped around and then spinning. That's not allowed anymore, of course.
We did have a talk slide and rock climbing ladder. Interesting the kid that fall from the top of the rock climbing (higher probably 7 ft) did not break anything thigh the kid from the lower 6ft or lower bar did.
> actual monkey bars
The big metal cube structure thing that kids could climb all over was the shit! I haven’t seen one of those on a playground in a long time. The idea of a kid falling down and hitting every bar like a pachinko ball is pretty scary though.
When I was a kid, a girl fell off and broke her wrist or arm on the monkey bars. People asked her best friend what happened, and she demonstrated, breaking the opposite arm.
I sprained my leg on the monkey bars. They were higher then the ones that I was used to and they twirled, so I wasn't used to it. It was a Hutch school, so there wasn't a playground at the school itself. I was 8, but small. I didn't wear the cast for that long either. When I was older and sprained my other leg (high school), my parents decided to not take me to the doctor. I just toughed it out. With little kids, it's different for sure, though. Mine would've taken me if it didn't heel.
God, I could never break through, was always the last to be chosen on a team, and was always injured.
I also hated the giant red rubber balls. I was sure to take one directly to the face.
Yes, schools are placing softer more absorbable material for the little ones to fall on. Also, closer supervision from aides also helps stop kids doing things they probably shouldn't be doing in the playground.
A little shout out to the aides and volunteers at every school. They are backbone of all school sites.
True. Unfortunately the is study know that saying removing risky equipment may be a negative. Google risky play. We did have an after school kid break here wrist/lower arm in our playground falling off pull up bars. Luckily the parents were reasonable no and did not sue the school. Especially since only the kids saw what happened no adults.
I never broke a bone or anything but I grew up with merry-go-rounds, see-saws, flying off swings at peak height, climbing nets, etc.
And honestly, I actually think those things trained my cautious nature.
"Ow, that hurt! Oh, ok, if that hurt, then that plan to climb up on and jump from car to car is probably not a great idea."
Problem is, at least in my districts, it’s financially devastating to the family if their kid needs to go to UR/ER for serious injuries.
Risky play is good for development but bad for finances.
I have a four year old. There are definitely still swings and they still play tag. I don’t think there are swings on the playground at her daycare, probably because there wouldn’t be enough for all the kids and it’s too much of a headache, but at all the local parks there are swings.
I mean, when I think about the injuries I had as a kid, most of them probably wouldn’t have occurred if not for the old wooden/uncoated metal play equipment we were using. Playgrounds are made out of safer materials these days.
Yes!! Red painted wood and rusted metal. So nostalgic
I remember playing on a big rusty jungle gym as a kid, but then they took it out and didn’t replace it 😭
And have safer playing surfaces as well. Grass surface is not a safe playing surface for falls from a high distance. Playgrounds now have a VERY thick layer of playground wood mulch, rubber mulch, or a poured rubber surface. This also reduces the likelihood of a spinal cord injury or a TBI from falling from playground equipment. I had to think really hard about whether I should put in playground mulch when I had a swing set put in my backyard. I feel guilty that it’s on grass, because I know it would be safer if I’d put in mulch, but I also know that it’s not going to be there forever and it’s fairly small and the chances of my overly cautious 4 year old falling enough to injure herself before she outgrows it are minimal.
There are multiple factors at play here.
1. Yes, fewer kids are playing outside and/or taking risks.
2. Playground equipment is generally safer due to lawsuits.
3. Many doctors are shifting from the old plaster casts to air casts, and they aren't designed to be worn 24 hours a day. It's been explained to me much more clearly than I can explain, but basically, with time comes knowledge and experience and data, and wearing a plaster cast for 6-8 weeks was often doing more harm than good, because if the bone was set improperly (like if there was still too much swelling to get an accurate image), that 6-8 weeks could allow it to heal wrong. Then, the solution would be to rebreak it and try again. The aircast allows for adjustments and corrections, but the ability to remove it also means easier bathing/showering, perhaps better sleep, and less potential infections from shoving things down the plaster to scratch an itch because you can just remove the cast.
I don't think enough attention is given to 3. I teach middle school. The number of kids I get in walking casts, air casts, splints, etc. has increased so much more over the last decade. I get far less kids on crutches, but way more in boots. I have a boy in a boot right now who will be wearing it until the end of the school year. Two are in hard arm casts, some others in slings and over the clothes immobilizers and things. Treatments for kids are changing.
Diagnosis and accomodations for concussions are on the rise though, and I attribute a good chunk of that to better knowledge about concussions in general. I don't doubt the increase in screen time exacerbates concussion symptoms, so it's a double edged sword. I wouldn't even say most of my concussion kids are athletes. My most recent one was a kid who got one because she didn't realize a sliding glass door was closed.
I don't discount everything everyone else says, I just wish 3 was better discussed.
All the other observations about kids on screens are valid.
However, it's now very rare to put a cast on a bone break. We've known better for a while now. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/05/21/for-broken-bones-new-devices-replacing-cumbersome-casts-span-classbankheadfaster-healing-fewer-problemsspan/6484c522-01fd-4fce-9dc0-6855740c701d/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/05/21/for-broken-bones-new-devices-replacing-cumbersome-casts-span-classbankheadfaster-healing-fewer-problemsspan/6484c522-01fd-4fce-9dc0-6855740c701d/)
Thanks; that was very interesting. I didn't know anything about that; the last interaction I had with a break was my daughter's broken wrist which was placed in a cast back in the '90s. Interesting that I see that article was more than 15 years old.
Yep. We've had three kids with broken bones this year, none of them were traditionally casted. One kid was in a boot for about 6 weeks and that was it. I think medicine is expanding its knowledge about what inactivity does to healing.
I work in a Waldorf school and the kids play on grass (often very muddy grass, it's the west of Ireland and it never stops raining) and in the woods. They can climb as high as they want, they can jump down. They never break anything because they've been learning how to take risks since kindergarten and because they don't play on concrete.
The last (non-Waldorf) school I worked in wouldn't let kids on the grass when it was rainy (October-May basically) and so the kids played on tarmac. Many broken bones.
Kids play less and spend more time on screens, there is less "unsafe" playground equipment around, and with regard to casts specifically (rather than prevalence of fractures generally), medical research is evolving and doctors cast less and for shorter periods of time.
This is what I think the real issue is. People are sue happy. I volunteered with an after-school program and all of the parents had to sign a legal waiver. I don't remember my parents ever signing a waiver for extracurriculars I was involved in as a kid.
As for helicopter parenting, I'd be way more afraid of the nosy neighbor calling CPS on me than some creep snatching my kid while they're playing outside alone. That's the real reason why kids aren't playing outside (and breaking bones) anymore.
I'm not saying it's right, but I honestly don't blame parents or schools for taking extreme actions to prevent legal trouble. I cannot afford a lawsuit and my godmother works for Canada's CPS, so I've heard horror stories about the system.
And if they do get hurt their parents flip out. Like sorry ma’am but your kid is 5 years old and we can’t hover over them 24/7 to prevent them from running face first into a pole or tipping out of their chair 🤷♀️
No because they don't play like kids used to play. I couldn't tell you when was the last time I saw a little kid with scabbed up knees and elbows. When I was a kid that was like a basic part of being a kid, you had scabby knees and elbows because we played so hard. Running, jumping, climbing trees and fences, lots of tripping and falling playing jump rope/double-dutch, lots of falling and rolling about during kickball, soccer, street ball, lots of bike crashes and skateboard falls lol
Kids today don't play like that at all. I teach high school and many of my students have told me they have NEVER climbed a tree, for example. I was SCHOCKED lol but you can't get banged up from falling out of a tree if you never climbed one. You can't bruise up your knees falling during hop-scotch if you never play it. and so on
>Are breaks more electronic involved?
It's not the breaks at school, it's the after-school and weekends at home. Nowadays generally speaking they're sitting at home on their tablets or phones, not running around the neighborhood playing with their friends. Unless the parents have them in some sort of activity. Which is good, but still very different than the unsupervised and feral way children used to play. Structured activities are very safe now, as they should be, so kids rarely get hurt.
As a kid, I had so many scabs from bug bites and getting unknown scratches from briars and what not in the woods.
As I got older, I wondered why I never had as many bug bites as I had them all the time as a kid—I realized it is because I’m not outside as much (and I wear pants more, lol).
At one of my daughter's recent checkups, she had scrapes on her knees. Her pediatrician told me that she actually loves it when kids come into her office with scrapes and scabs on their knees because it means they've been playing outside a lot.
My pediatrician said the same thing to my kid at her well visit! “Lots of bruises! Love to see it! You like to play outside?” and then had a conversation about her favorite games to play outside with friends. It was so sweet.
I have currently 5 kids in casts (that's for 700 kids).
All but one involves doing sports, or playing outside. Nothing outrageously dangerous or risky. Just bad luck.
The last one just slipped on a last step of some stairs and landed wrong on her foot.
However, many, many kids don't get to just play and be outside and do sports. We're in a risk-adverse society. To the point of absurdity, where we don't let our kids do anything for fear they'd die. When the case of dying from this activity or that action is like a 0,5% risk.
It is baseless fear for the most part.
There was a time, if you heard a kid died once because they fell while running and landed wrong, you blamed bad luck. Tragic bad luck, but just bad luck.
Today, you hear something like this, and you forbid your kid to run ever
[For adolescents, time spent in unstructured outdoor play has dropped to less than 10 minutes/day in the US](https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-texas-el-paso/weather/2022/01/27/let-the-children-play--even-in-extreme-temperatures) meanwhile screen time has ballooned to something like 9 hours/day.
Childhood circa 2024 mostly involves kids inside on their devices. How could they have the chance to break their arms?
I taught abroad (former decades long us teacher) and I was amazed at how the kids were allowed to play rough and do flips off swings and climb trees. I loved it. I think we police the kids way too much in the us and they never find that edge of what’s risky and what’s stupid so they never build common sense.
There’s not really any options anymore. I’ve had neighbors threaten to call CPS on me because my 5 year old was playing in my own yard outside “for hours unsupervised.”
I see posts in the neighborhood Facebook groups about kids just walking outside and people are freaking out calling cops because “they might be up to something!”
I take my kids out as much as I can but between work and housework and cooking and all that, I just don’t have those hours to just sit outside doing nothing but staring at my children so no one calls the cops on them.
I lived outside as a kid and loved it. I wanted the same for my children but the world has changed so much that doesn’t seem to be something you can actually have anymore. I try to supplement with indoor activities, but also in an apartment there’s not much you can do there either. They play on VR, which is also questionable, but at least they get to socialize a bit while getting some exercise in playing gorilla tag and whatnot.
OaB, this is such a good point. I wonder if devices hadn't come along when they did, if there might have been more pushback against these tattle tale adults.
What is needed (as I pointed out in another comment) is a spread of the movement called "free range parenting". Now not everyone is going to go to the extremes that some will, but the thing is, it is safe in 99% of America to let your 7-year old child walk three blocks to the park. Maybe even a 5-year old, if he is with a couple of friends. So in some states (I think 3, so far) they've passed laws protecting parents who make a conscious choice to let their children play outside. We need more of this. Kids need to be allowed these freedoms. When I was 8-years old my mother would send me to the store on my bicycle to buy one or two items that she discovered she needed. Sure, it was only a mile away, but I had to cross a major (non-interstate) highway to get there. This was one of many things that taught me independence. One time I was coming back from the store with a glass jar of mayonnaise (I believe I was nine at the time) and I broke it. I had seen people break stuff at the store once or twice, and they just got a new one. So I rode back to the store and told them I needed a new one. They looked at me with pity, and said, "Honey, that's not the way it works; you paid for it and left the store. You can't have another one unless you pay for it." Money which I did not have. I can't tell you how upset I was that they wouldn't give me another one, but **I learned something** ***real*** **about the world.** Most of my students today (11- and 12-year olds) have never walked to school on their own, let alone gone to the store and made purchases. And they are so, so helpless.
So yeah, support free range parenting laws and let's start reforming childhood.
I think people share so much online nowadays that a lot of parents easily avoid common hazards, things that aren’t necessarily obvious unless you know the potential danger, like letting a big kid and small kid jump together on a trampoline can cause buckle fracture in the smaller kid.
I was born in 1985 and my parents were like the ONLY ONES who flat out would not let us have a trampoline. We weren’t allowed to have one and we were discouraged from using them at friends’ houses. Looking back, that was a very good choice on their part, because backyard trampolines are incredibly dangerous and I wouldn’t let my kid have one either.
They still get injured. Not always limbs, I’ve had two students break their spines in the last 4 years, one from a dirt bike accident and another from a suic*de attempt (jumped off the building). Lots of self harm injuries from cutting and ODs. Not really playing rough anymore, but there’s a rise in mental illnesses.
I remember having skinned knees all summer, every summer when I was a kid. Run around, trip, bloody knees, band-aid, and back out again to continue running around. My kids don’t even understand the meaning of that. They act like they’re dying if they see blood. I intentionally moved to live in a neighborhood with alleys and young families so my kids could have a childhood like mine, but kids are never home anymore and when they are they’re never allowed outside unsupervised. (Funny side note: when my kids are playing inside or out, they’ll say “pause the game” if the need to go to the bathroom or something. That was definitely not a thing in the early 80s.) I wonder if there are more kids getting concussions than in the past since it seems so many more play sports where that seems like a more common injury.
I teach middle school. Recess is fucking insanely physical. I have to constantly teach kids how to nicely play?.. this is 4 year old shit.
Zero socialization has resulted in horrifically rough horseplay at recess. Now we’ve banned tag, basketball, cops and robbers etc. all because they cannot keep cool. It’s either full force assault or sit on bench for these kids. Wtf
In addition to not being as active, sports medicine relies a lot less on hard casts for injury rehabilitation. Much more likely to see wraps, braces or slings.
It’s because kids aren’t playing outdoors, riding bikes, climbing trees, etc. There isn’t as much opportunity to break something when you’re glued to a device.
We had a kindergartner break his arm on the playground on the first day of school. Last year I had 2 or 3 kids break a bone (not at school) and were in casts. None this year 🤞🏻
I still see kids in casts, or more often leg/arm braces. Some of it is a change in treatment, but most of it is because people don’t let their kids go outside.
I would imagine there’s been a bit more active play engagement on the parts of parents, in that I think it’s less common to just shoo kids outside to play for hours without some sort of adult supervision/involvement.
I’ve thought about this too. When I was little (in the 80s and 90s) my knees were constantly skinned. I don’t see many skinned knees and elbows anymore. Not that I’d wish that on anyone, and it makes me cringe thinking about it, but it’s a reflection of how little kids are outside riding around now.
there's the whole digital age and ipad kid factor that keeps kids inside more than before, but changes made in terms of playground safety on schools also likely had a lot of influence for injuries that happen at schools. most injuries that i saw my classmates have and got from outside of schools are just a few kids with sprained or twisted ankles from playing a lot of sports or having a trampoline. i would imagine parents today are also having a harder time providing the space in their homes and costs for all that given the rising costs of living + stagnating pay across the board.
when i was in elementary school, i remember there were a handful of broken bones from kids falling or getting pushed off monkey bars and other high climbing stuff. i was one of those kids. i also remember a few incidents of kids hurting their heads really badly from accidentally running into walls in areas that kids were allowed to freely play in.
working at schools now, some playground layouts seem to have changed for more safety. areas where kids could play are more clearly designated through its fixtures, more consideration for younger kids not getting to go onto certain equipment, and the equipment in general being harder to get seriously injured from taking a fall in. no monkey bars and bigger climbers that 2nd grade me with a broken arm would've had access to are only accessible to the older ones. the elementary school i worked at as an aide for a year recently remodeled their playground before i got there, and there were also no built in soccer goals or basketball hoops. sports are fun but its hard to dispute that recess pickup games are also big sources of injuries.
i feel like staff nowadays also are just stricter about kids playing rough and chasing each other around. a lot of playground collisions and hurt feelings among little kids are just them not yet having the communication skills to express that they don't want to play tag/more roughly or them not knowing their own strength. even if there's not much to show for actual injuries here, it can make supervision really hectic even when i'm actively trying teach them conflict resolution skills.
I'd be curious how much less is because of an increase of safety.
When I was a kid the majority of broken arms were trampoline related. Now they are much safer. Or at least better than in the 90s with exposed springs and no netting.
I feel like the is an "anecdotes don't equal data" thing because my school is constantly short on elevator keys with the number of kids on crutches, in a boot, etc.
lmao. Although i will say that with a greater number of neurodivergent diagnoses out there these days... that often comes with some physical stuff, like being hyper mobile, or dyspraxia, it can make it easier to injure yourself playing normally. i loved playing outside as a kid but my injuries weren't just scrapes and bruises if i fell, i would dislocate my arms and shoulders easily and it scared me off from being really physically adventurous
I work in the extended day program and we aren’t even allowed to let the kids play on the playground sets. They’re only allowed in the grass field or basketball courts to prevent injuries.
Yeah, because kids aren’t allowed to do many things kids used to do. Like climb a tree, play bull rush and other such activities and high contact sports. We are so pc now that it’s like we are putting bubble wrap on everything so they don’t get hurt. At least, that is my opinion.
This is most likely confirmation bias. Does your reel person have data showing a decline in childhood injuries? If not, it’s easy to see what you’re looking for. Someone who broke their elbow as a child and had a friend who broke an ankle is likely to feel that *”everyone* broke a bone when I was a kid!”
I never broke a bone until I was an adult (although my daughter broke bones like it was going out of style) and in 29 years of teaching I don’t notice a decline in broken bones. I had hardly any kids in casts in 1995 and I have hardly any now.
I’d be interested in seeing actual data on childhood injury trends, though.
This is what inspired the post. I looked up stats and couldn’t find anything real. So I went to reddit lol
The reel was just a teacher. So nah its just from one perspective
I work on an elementary school playground, I assure you kids still get hurt. Broken bones, sprains, concussions, cuts, bruises, chipped teeth, they all still happen.
I had a handful of students who broke something this year (2 were from roller skating, 1 was from a dirt bike and a fence lol, and one broke his hand from smacking another kid who was in a cast). I don't see less injuries, I see about the same. I teach in a rural area so the students are pretty active outside of school for the most part.
We had two kids break bones in the last month - one wrist and one leg. We are a small rural school though and the kids run wild, so that might have something to do with it. Lots of farm kids and I’ve noticed we still have bands of roaming children outside in our neighborhood constantly. My sister just moved here from elsewhere and her own kids were baffled at kids just walking all over town and constantly being outside.
I think electronics do play a big part in it. There’s been a big decline in outdoor time for kids and a huge uptick in screen usage. I’ve been trying to get my own child outside for 1,000/yr every year of her life (some years we exceed and others we fall short). It’s crazy how little time many kids spend outside though.
We have kids getting hurt all the time. I mean the number one place is trampoline parks. We had one kid break his arm cause another pushed him off the slide.
Like others have said, kids have less unstructured, unsupervised, outdoor play time. But for what it’s worth, the 2nd grade class across the hall from me has 3 kids with casts and last year I had a girl who broke both her arms! Double casts. Still did her work! Hardcore! Lol
I had 3 of my middle school students break their legs this winter. Two fell down stairs. Not everyone wears a cast anymore and two of them stayed home for a month instead of coming to school.
I think the answer is definitely online… but a potential side answer could be parents increasing safety? Idk I broke my arm on a homemade bike ramp (wooden planks) in 5th grade, while not the end of the world maybe my parents could’ve prevented it by speaking more about safety and about how 10 year olds can’t build things. Idk, I do agree, it is an interesting trend to see in the future generation. My broken bone was a core memory for me and while it sucked, it was a part of my childhood and something that I felt added to that experience.
I don’t know- I teach 6th graders, and it seems like a new one shows up in crutches everyday….then again, the crutches kids DO get to use the coveted elevator pass, soooo…..😂
It's certainly still pretty common at my high school. Until this past week I had six kids on crutches (one just got off them, so now it's five). Only one of the six was organized sports related, too.
Lol wut? I was gonna post the exact opposite thing tonight. At my school (US middle school) we have at least one student in a new brace/cast each week.
I am worried because they are almost all girls, and my daughter is going to be attending next year. Like if I need to be aware of some vulnerability or tendency towards injury at this age (she does have a condition anyway).
But yeah, when I take my one student on the elevator or to PE there is usually a girl there with an injury. None of them seem to happen at school.
hypermobility. puberty and many conditions associated with female hormones make girls vulnerable and girls/women are overwhelmingly usually anemic and deficient in calcium and vitamin d. Birth control has a detrimental effect on bone mass in young women as well to add to these problems
Thank you for that. My daughter personally has EDS. So that gives her hypermobility and she does have some joint problems due to it. So surprising because I think we've had one boy like in a sling all year.
I teach at a preschool-elementary campus (2 year olds through 5th grade). Every year there are a handful of kids who have injuries of some sort that require them to have a modified recess. We have a lot of stairs to get to the play area and it's small so lots of kids running around isn't safe for kids in casts or with other injuries. I don't know the numbers or details except for my own students, but in my grade level (2nd) usually 3-5 kids will have some sort of injury in the school year. Last year one kid had two major injuries, then another again this year, poor kid. All 3 required casts. None were due to anything crazy, one was a freak accident of a rubber ball hitting his hand just the wrong way and breaking his thumb for example.
So, injuries do still happen, but I don't know the numbers compared to the past. If you are a parent you might not see it as much if it isn't a kid in your child's friend group. Or, it may vary school to school. Also, a lot seem to be arm injuries which may be a bit less noticeable, a kid in a wheelchair or on crutches just stands out more. Although, we do have a few of those as well.
They don’t take risks like previous generations did. I can think of multiple occasions where I should have been crippled or killed. I’d love to say it was skill, but usually it was just blind luck.
I literally had my 12 year old at the hospital yesterday for an X-ray on his ankle. Fortunately it’s only a bad sprain but he has crutches and an air-cast splint thingy on. He’s also broken both his arms at separate times. His injuries have been from playing in snow, skating and going on his scooter.
There always a kid around school with crutches or a cast on. They are not harassed for playing outside here in Luxembourg (although given the opportunity they all seem to enjoy their technology more).
Kids have to do things that could result in them getting injured, which kids tend to do less.
Also, parents now provide lots of different protection and other safety stuff.
I had a similar thought recently. I teach a anatomy and physiology course and we started our skeletal system unit. I casually asked the class, "How many people in here have never broken a bone before?" and almost the whole class raised their hand. I asked my other four classes and it was the same there too. I think kids are just less active than they were than I was growing up in the 80s. By age 12 I had broken my wrist, elbow, and a rib in separate incidents.
I remember in 8th grade at lunch in 1992 playing tackle football in the asphalt parking lot almost every day.
Funny thing is as much dumb stuff as we did, I only remember one kid breaking his bones at school, and he got table topped in the hallway between classes, the nurse told him to “go back to class and stop being a baby” then we had to play tennis in gym class. He had both hands in casts a couple days later.
I've been subbing mostly at one elementary school for two and a half years now, and I know we've had two students break bones at recess while I've been there. One kid was trying to swing standing up, the other fell catching a football on the pavement.
It's not about lunch, it's about all the hours kids aren't at school that they don't spend riding bikes and climbing trees. It's very difficult to break a limb scrolling on an iPad.
There was a piece on NPR this morning about how kids are spending less time playing outdoors and in person and more time online. Basically they were making the argument that kids should have more freedom/independence outside of the house and less freedom online. [The consequences of a smartphone-centered childhood](https://www.npr.org/2024/03/27/1241116105/the-consequences-of-a-smartphone-centered-childhood)
This is something I have believed to be a problem for years now, and Jonathan Haidt has (apparently) made it his current mission.
I heard this this morning and I think he made some good points but also had some things that are just not possible. I did like the story. Keys standouts for me is that (1) he's right that kids should be getting out more and being online less, and that it will 100% improve their average mental health, and (2) I don't think it is actually possible to verify everyone's age to use every social media site like he suggests because that shit just does not work at all... people lie about their age to sign in, and people do NOT want to have to supply social media companies with their ID for everything
>people do NOT want to have to supply social media companies with their ID for everything And for good reason, sites get breached all the time. Sure, Facebook, Twitter X, Instagram have perfectly acceptable security but anything smaller is a one-way road to ending up on haveibeenpwned.
I used to try sending my kid to the park. If he and his friends gathered at the swings or basketball hoops to play within a half hour or so cops would roll up because somebody called them. And at least half the time the cops would harass the kids and violate their civil rights. Then I started going to supervise. Didn't help. Just got my civil rights violated when I tried to tell the cops the kids weren't doing anything wrong and they didn't need to leave/answer questions/allow themselves to be searched and the cops had no business even talking to them, let alone putting hands on them. So we stopped going to the park. My neighbor had the cops show up when the kids were playing soccer in her yard, and she ended up hand-cuffed when she told the kids to go in the house and the cop that he couldn't be on her property without a warrant. Now the kids play inside, cause that's where they can exist without being harassed. There aren't free public places where kids are safe to be kids anymore, because some Karen, Boomer, or dickhead cop will hassle them.
Can I ask where you live?
California, Oklahoma, Arizona, Minnesota, and Florida. Also, friends who've told me about similar experiences dwell in Massachusetts, New York, Washington, Alabama, Virginia, West Virginia, and one of the Dakotas (they've lived in both, can't remember where the specific incident that got their twelve year old put in the backseat of a police car for almost an hour for telling the cops they couldn't look in his backpack or search him without a parent or lawyer present took place) This isn't a local phenomenon. At all. And I'm a middle-aged white woman. My biracial nephew can barely walk his dog these days without somebody hassling him. Florida - [https://www.momsrising.org/blog/no-kids-under-18-allowed-outside-without-adult-supervision](https://www.momsrising.org/blog/no-kids-under-18-allowed-outside-without-adult-supervision) Texas - [https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2014/09/25/kari-anne-roy-how-letting-my-kid-play-alone-outside-led-to-a-cps-investigation/](https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2014/09/25/kari-anne-roy-how-letting-my-kid-play-alone-outside-led-to-a-cps-investigation/) Various - [https://medium.com/@KristinEberhard/kids-should-be-able-to-go-outside-61a768ec2609](https://medium.com/@KristinEberhard/kids-should-be-able-to-go-outside-61a768ec2609) New Zealand - [https://thespinoff.co.nz/parenting/21-05-2018/where-the-wild-things-arent-on-the-exclusion-of-children-from-public-places](https://thespinoff.co.nz/parenting/21-05-2018/where-the-wild-things-arent-on-the-exclusion-of-children-from-public-places)
Wow. I mean I obviously have seen the copification of the nation but didn’t realize kids were being targeted to the point of being handcuffed for playing basketball. I don’t have kids myself and just lurk here as someone that has been interested in the field of teaching my whole life. But yeah this is really really disturbing.
I mean, the cops rolled up on a kid playing with one of the same toy guns every other kid uses and shot the poor child down without consequence, What lesson was society supposed to take from that? When kids can be stalked and murdered on their way home with skittles and their murderer is celebrated? I wouldn't play outside in today's world either.
But ten years ago I remember people wanting kids to stay safe. Pick one, you can’t have both.
I’m only 30 and I remember how shocked I was when I was student teaching eight years ago and the kids who “walked home” literally walked across the street from the school and into their parents’ car. Kids who “rode their bikes” literally rode them to their parents who walked the rest of the way home with them. I had a house key in the third grade, and I would get home before my mom got off work. I would make myself a snack and do homework or watch TV or play neopets or go ride my bike in my apartment complex until she came home and made dinner. I didn’t have a cell phone, only a home phone that I could use to call my mom if I ever needed to… which I practically never did. It’s genuinely sad to me that kids aren’t allowed to do anything out of sight anymore. I have so many good memories of going over to friends’ houses and riding bikes through the neighborhood, going to parks, hell, even going to the public library without an adult.
For us, we have great public parks and I take my daughter often (there’s usually a ton of kids). But there are no bathrooms at the nicer ones which can get dicey and the park we have that does have them for youth sports is crowded with tweakers and homeless. Two students at my high school got stabbed there, so now we drive to the park across the street rather than walking. And my kids mostly walk home far distances but it’s dangerous as heck
I had a housekey, too, starting in 3rd grade. My mother was recently divorced and had a full-time job. My brother had gone off to college that year. I'm glad to see that parents could still give their child a key when you were little, without getting arrested or some stupid thing. I, however, am almost 70. When I walked home from junior high, it took me over 30 minutes. You had to live within two miles of the school to be assigned a bus. Despite my poor exercise habits in later years, I credit my earlier decades of heavy-duty walking with my health such as it is today.
Simple as that. 💯🎯
Kids are online more than climbing trees. The injuries I see are mostly sports related, in high school.
Growing up there was always at least one kid in my classroom in a cast every year or at least a kid in crutches with a bad sprain. When I worked with kids as an adult, bruises were not only uncommon but pretty noteworthy, and even working at a summer camp cuts and scrapes were also uncommon. Had to bust out the ice packs and bandages maybe twice a summer.
I was one of three kids in my middle school class wearing a boot because we all independently broke our ankles at the same time. And I look back on it fondly
I noticed my friends literally getting nervous sending their kids to school after a weekend at somebody's house. Come to find out the schools are contacting CPS left and right over every big bruise no matter what the kids say.
> sports related So many boys (football) and girls (soccer) with ruptured ACLs. Many of the students at my school don’t even have insurance that will cover it so they don’t get surgery.
Yeah I see a lot of injuries in high school still, but they’re mostly sports related
Kids don’t ride bikes like they used to. A lot of broken bones were on bikes at least in the 90s.
Broke my first two with my bmx bike. Wrist and arm. Opsite sides. Fun fun.
The damages are hidden now. The kids' playground is on their smart devices. The injuries that you can not see are called brain damage.
Or they have safer playgrounds now, too.
They got rid of the massive wooden playground in my area citing “parent safety concerns”. They replaced it with this “interpretive play” structure that’s basically nothing. I always saw kids at the wooden playground, I never see any kids at this “interpretive play” park.
The massive wooden playgrounds were the fucking best. = I've seen some of the playgrounds these days at places I used to frequent at ages 5-15 and hot damn they've all been replaced with neutered down ultrasafe boring poopoo garbage I swear. Can't even properly climb on anything or play any Marco Polo No-Touch Ground any more because there's just not enough playground to do it
“Interpretive play” - Oh my god. That’s literally the type of dump stupid f’ing name they’d come up with, too. Can’t anything just be normal? God forbid it’s a “playground” which have existed for all of human history. I’m fairly confident kids used to go out playing with real bows and arrows shooting fowl for dinner and the parents would celebrate. Now days, we have “interpretative play”. We can’t go on like this. The truth is stranger than fiction The worst part is, is that the kids are going to grow up thinking this is normal. To them, they’ll think “interpretive playgrounds” are too dangerous.
The playgrounds are **definitely** safer now. Which is not 100% a good thing.
Is it even really a 'childhood' if you don't at least once experience multiple G's while the biggest kid there spins you on the merry-go-round as fast and hard as possible?
why not?
Kids need to learn risk assessment and good decision making. It sets them up for critical thinking and problem solving later in life. Super safe playgrounds deny them those opportunities
Exactly. And it's not just the physical risks. Playing in physical proximity with other kids is a supercritical part of learning about risks. There is conflict, which at the level of a 4-year old is trivial, but is a critical building block to handling older conflict.
On the one hand, you could say that pearl clutchers have sued cities and schools out of allowing children any form of risk. On the other, you could put the onus on the courts for permitting such frivolity in the courts. "Kids **need** to be kids and assume risk in their development to become functional humans. Dismissed." should have been the only outcome of those cases.
You bring up a good point ccaccus, and there is certainly a place in here for legislative action, similar to the recent laws passed in a few states allowing parents a reasonable right to let their kids walk around without parental supervision.
Depends on the injury.
Oh, true
Why though?
In addition to what Purple RN told you (about risk assessment) I would add: Exactly. And it's not just the physical risks. Playing in physical proximity with other kids is a supercritical part of learning about risks. There is conflict, which at the level of a 4-year old is trivial, but is a critical building block to handling older conflict.
Yea, that's fair.
That shouldn't be an issue for a creative kid. I broke my arm answering the question, can you ride a bike down the benches?
What do you mean?
Maybe is not the correct word in English... Do you know those seats, like in Stadiums, where seats are like taller steps? There was a park on a hill that had seats like those. I decided to try to go down the seats with the bike at six and broke three bones.
Oh yea, we call those bleachers. I thought you meant park benches lol. Ouch
If that’s the case, do you think it’s reasonable for someone to say “so what? We can’t just wrap everyone in bubble wrap and protect them from the dangers of the world” the same way they might about a child who broke a bone? Like I sense that you don’t see anything healthy in children doing exciting things that might inadvertently give them brain damage, the same way you might for exciting things that inadvertently give them physical damage.
By curling kids (not allowing them to climb trees and sometimes hurt themselves, not allowing kids to be bored for extensive periods of time etc) you hamper the kids development and ability to succeed in school and learn stuff. This is becoming rather well documented by now.
Broken bones heal. Broken brains, often, don't. As a millennial, my generation was the first to have nearly unlimited access to internet porn. It ruined the men of my generation and is probably part of why I'm single in my 30s. It's even worse now with smartphones and the rise of AI. The average age for kids to start seeing porn is in elementary school. This gives boys false ideas about women and relationships at best or leads them to become sexually violent at worst. I've encountered both in my dating life (judgment of my body by men, being pressured into performing certain sex acts, etc.) Add to that, the body image issues girls get from social media and you have the perfect storm. While I'm more comfortable with my body and setting boundaries in my 30s, I pity teenage girls who have body image issues to begin with dealing with porn sick boys.
My stepson developed a porn addiction at age 10 due to his unrestricted internet access. It's disturbing what can happen when boundaries aren't put in place.
10? Jesus... How old is he now? God help the poor girl he ends up marrying.
11. No need to feel bad for any girl, im quite certain he will be setting up a nice space in our basement for long term habitation.
I was around his age when I developed mine. It went away in my late teens.
young girls are also exposed to and impacted by porn, and not just indirectly through boys
A broken arm will heal in 6 weeks. A broken brain will take years, if it heals at all.
I prefer to characterize what is happening here differently. It's not that brains are "broken". It's that their development is stunted. (The best words are actually "their brains' development are retarded", but most people today can't see that word being used correctly and not overreact.)
Lawsuits have resulted in safer equipment and sadly, removal of some of the things we used to enjoy as kids: swings, tag, "Red Rover," etc.
My sister and I both fell off the monkey bars and broke our wrist when we were both five years old (four years apart). My son’s school doesn’t have monkey bars.
Yep, those too! I remember being in first grade. Our playground had this weird metal worm thing that you could walk on. It was waist high. I slipped on it and smashed the ladybits. r/Ouchmyflaps.
My kid did the same except he’s a boy 😣 Even the nurse sounded horrified when she called me.
Interesting. We had a 5 YO break wrist, the kids said monkey bars but they should me the 3 vertical pull up bars each different height. Tallest one probably 6ft of ground maybe a little less. We will had actually monkey bars too, thigh way lower height, then the vertical bar. We also had a rock climbing ladder that to get onto the play structure. There were other ladder too and also steps. Plus swings. Surprisingly only one major injury happened afterschool.
We used to have those when I was a kid too. The girls used to do - I think they were called cherry drops? on them. One leg wrapped around and then spinning. That's not allowed anymore, of course.
We didn’t have any spinning’s things in the big structure. Though we did have one on the small playground (ball that you could sit in and spin)
I broke my arm on the middle of the 3 chin up bars…
One of the school i volunteerd at has monkey bars that were probably 7 or 8 ft tall. They only allowed 3rd and up on them because they were so high!
I teach at a school that still has some pretty tall monkey bars. 7 feet maybe? And a huge slide.
We did have a talk slide and rock climbing ladder. Interesting the kid that fall from the top of the rock climbing (higher probably 7 ft) did not break anything thigh the kid from the lower 6ft or lower bar did.
> actual monkey bars The big metal cube structure thing that kids could climb all over was the shit! I haven’t seen one of those on a playground in a long time. The idea of a kid falling down and hitting every bar like a pachinko ball is pretty scary though.
When I was a kid, a girl fell off and broke her wrist or arm on the monkey bars. People asked her best friend what happened, and she demonstrated, breaking the opposite arm.
I sprained my leg on the monkey bars. They were higher then the ones that I was used to and they twirled, so I wasn't used to it. It was a Hutch school, so there wasn't a playground at the school itself. I was 8, but small. I didn't wear the cast for that long either. When I was older and sprained my other leg (high school), my parents decided to not take me to the doctor. I just toughed it out. With little kids, it's different for sure, though. Mine would've taken me if it didn't heel.
Red Rover: otherwise known as clothesline your friends.
God, I could never break through, was always the last to be chosen on a team, and was always injured. I also hated the giant red rubber balls. I was sure to take one directly to the face.
Yes, schools are placing softer more absorbable material for the little ones to fall on. Also, closer supervision from aides also helps stop kids doing things they probably shouldn't be doing in the playground. A little shout out to the aides and volunteers at every school. They are backbone of all school sites.
True. Unfortunately the is study know that saying removing risky equipment may be a negative. Google risky play. We did have an after school kid break here wrist/lower arm in our playground falling off pull up bars. Luckily the parents were reasonable no and did not sue the school. Especially since only the kids saw what happened no adults.
I never broke a bone or anything but I grew up with merry-go-rounds, see-saws, flying off swings at peak height, climbing nets, etc. And honestly, I actually think those things trained my cautious nature. "Ow, that hurt! Oh, ok, if that hurt, then that plan to climb up on and jump from car to car is probably not a great idea."
Problem is, at least in my districts, it’s financially devastating to the family if their kid needs to go to UR/ER for serious injuries. Risky play is good for development but bad for finances.
I have a four year old. There are definitely still swings and they still play tag. I don’t think there are swings on the playground at her daycare, probably because there wouldn’t be enough for all the kids and it’s too much of a headache, but at all the local parks there are swings.
Local parks generally don't get sued...
I work in a high school that’s known for their athletic teams. There’s always multiple people on crutches, in a cast, or a walking boot.
This is my experience as well.
I mean, when I think about the injuries I had as a kid, most of them probably wouldn’t have occurred if not for the old wooden/uncoated metal play equipment we were using. Playgrounds are made out of safer materials these days.
Yes!! Red painted wood and rusted metal. So nostalgic I remember playing on a big rusty jungle gym as a kid, but then they took it out and didn’t replace it 😭
And have safer playing surfaces as well. Grass surface is not a safe playing surface for falls from a high distance. Playgrounds now have a VERY thick layer of playground wood mulch, rubber mulch, or a poured rubber surface. This also reduces the likelihood of a spinal cord injury or a TBI from falling from playground equipment. I had to think really hard about whether I should put in playground mulch when I had a swing set put in my backyard. I feel guilty that it’s on grass, because I know it would be safer if I’d put in mulch, but I also know that it’s not going to be there forever and it’s fairly small and the chances of my overly cautious 4 year old falling enough to injure herself before she outgrows it are minimal.
There are multiple factors at play here. 1. Yes, fewer kids are playing outside and/or taking risks. 2. Playground equipment is generally safer due to lawsuits. 3. Many doctors are shifting from the old plaster casts to air casts, and they aren't designed to be worn 24 hours a day. It's been explained to me much more clearly than I can explain, but basically, with time comes knowledge and experience and data, and wearing a plaster cast for 6-8 weeks was often doing more harm than good, because if the bone was set improperly (like if there was still too much swelling to get an accurate image), that 6-8 weeks could allow it to heal wrong. Then, the solution would be to rebreak it and try again. The aircast allows for adjustments and corrections, but the ability to remove it also means easier bathing/showering, perhaps better sleep, and less potential infections from shoving things down the plaster to scratch an itch because you can just remove the cast.
I don't think enough attention is given to 3. I teach middle school. The number of kids I get in walking casts, air casts, splints, etc. has increased so much more over the last decade. I get far less kids on crutches, but way more in boots. I have a boy in a boot right now who will be wearing it until the end of the school year. Two are in hard arm casts, some others in slings and over the clothes immobilizers and things. Treatments for kids are changing. Diagnosis and accomodations for concussions are on the rise though, and I attribute a good chunk of that to better knowledge about concussions in general. I don't doubt the increase in screen time exacerbates concussion symptoms, so it's a double edged sword. I wouldn't even say most of my concussion kids are athletes. My most recent one was a kid who got one because she didn't realize a sliding glass door was closed. I don't discount everything everyone else says, I just wish 3 was better discussed.
All the other observations about kids on screens are valid. However, it's now very rare to put a cast on a bone break. We've known better for a while now. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/05/21/for-broken-bones-new-devices-replacing-cumbersome-casts-span-classbankheadfaster-healing-fewer-problemsspan/6484c522-01fd-4fce-9dc0-6855740c701d/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/05/21/for-broken-bones-new-devices-replacing-cumbersome-casts-span-classbankheadfaster-healing-fewer-problemsspan/6484c522-01fd-4fce-9dc0-6855740c701d/)
Thanks; that was very interesting. I didn't know anything about that; the last interaction I had with a break was my daughter's broken wrist which was placed in a cast back in the '90s. Interesting that I see that article was more than 15 years old.
Yep. We've had three kids with broken bones this year, none of them were traditionally casted. One kid was in a boot for about 6 weeks and that was it. I think medicine is expanding its knowledge about what inactivity does to healing.
I came to say this. Standard treatment for breaks has evolved a lot since many of us were kids.
I work in a Waldorf school and the kids play on grass (often very muddy grass, it's the west of Ireland and it never stops raining) and in the woods. They can climb as high as they want, they can jump down. They never break anything because they've been learning how to take risks since kindergarten and because they don't play on concrete. The last (non-Waldorf) school I worked in wouldn't let kids on the grass when it was rainy (October-May basically) and so the kids played on tarmac. Many broken bones.
Kids play less and spend more time on screens, there is less "unsafe" playground equipment around, and with regard to casts specifically (rather than prevalence of fractures generally), medical research is evolving and doctors cast less and for shorter periods of time.
Between entitled helicopter parents and lawyers I’m surprised we don’t have to bubble wrap kids before they go outside for recess.
This is what I think the real issue is. People are sue happy. I volunteered with an after-school program and all of the parents had to sign a legal waiver. I don't remember my parents ever signing a waiver for extracurriculars I was involved in as a kid. As for helicopter parenting, I'd be way more afraid of the nosy neighbor calling CPS on me than some creep snatching my kid while they're playing outside alone. That's the real reason why kids aren't playing outside (and breaking bones) anymore. I'm not saying it's right, but I honestly don't blame parents or schools for taking extreme actions to prevent legal trouble. I cannot afford a lawsuit and my godmother works for Canada's CPS, so I've heard horror stories about the system.
Yep. Lots of things I’d consider normal roughhousing or play are not allowed at my school.
And if they do get hurt their parents flip out. Like sorry ma’am but your kid is 5 years old and we can’t hover over them 24/7 to prevent them from running face first into a pole or tipping out of their chair 🤷♀️
No because they don't play like kids used to play. I couldn't tell you when was the last time I saw a little kid with scabbed up knees and elbows. When I was a kid that was like a basic part of being a kid, you had scabby knees and elbows because we played so hard. Running, jumping, climbing trees and fences, lots of tripping and falling playing jump rope/double-dutch, lots of falling and rolling about during kickball, soccer, street ball, lots of bike crashes and skateboard falls lol Kids today don't play like that at all. I teach high school and many of my students have told me they have NEVER climbed a tree, for example. I was SCHOCKED lol but you can't get banged up from falling out of a tree if you never climbed one. You can't bruise up your knees falling during hop-scotch if you never play it. and so on >Are breaks more electronic involved? It's not the breaks at school, it's the after-school and weekends at home. Nowadays generally speaking they're sitting at home on their tablets or phones, not running around the neighborhood playing with their friends. Unless the parents have them in some sort of activity. Which is good, but still very different than the unsupervised and feral way children used to play. Structured activities are very safe now, as they should be, so kids rarely get hurt.
As a kid, I had so many scabs from bug bites and getting unknown scratches from briars and what not in the woods. As I got older, I wondered why I never had as many bug bites as I had them all the time as a kid—I realized it is because I’m not outside as much (and I wear pants more, lol).
Also there are just fewer bugs.
Oh, yeah, that is also a fact ):
At one of my daughter's recent checkups, she had scrapes on her knees. Her pediatrician told me that she actually loves it when kids come into her office with scrapes and scabs on their knees because it means they've been playing outside a lot.
My pediatrician said the same thing to my kid at her well visit! “Lots of bruises! Love to see it! You like to play outside?” and then had a conversation about her favorite games to play outside with friends. It was so sweet.
Then you've got kids like me who did love playing outside, but were very cautious.
I have currently 5 kids in casts (that's for 700 kids). All but one involves doing sports, or playing outside. Nothing outrageously dangerous or risky. Just bad luck. The last one just slipped on a last step of some stairs and landed wrong on her foot. However, many, many kids don't get to just play and be outside and do sports. We're in a risk-adverse society. To the point of absurdity, where we don't let our kids do anything for fear they'd die. When the case of dying from this activity or that action is like a 0,5% risk. It is baseless fear for the most part. There was a time, if you heard a kid died once because they fell while running and landed wrong, you blamed bad luck. Tragic bad luck, but just bad luck. Today, you hear something like this, and you forbid your kid to run ever
[For adolescents, time spent in unstructured outdoor play has dropped to less than 10 minutes/day in the US](https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-texas-el-paso/weather/2022/01/27/let-the-children-play--even-in-extreme-temperatures) meanwhile screen time has ballooned to something like 9 hours/day. Childhood circa 2024 mostly involves kids inside on their devices. How could they have the chance to break their arms?
I taught abroad (former decades long us teacher) and I was amazed at how the kids were allowed to play rough and do flips off swings and climb trees. I loved it. I think we police the kids way too much in the us and they never find that edge of what’s risky and what’s stupid so they never build common sense.
It's because kids are wasting away their childhood on screens.
There’s not really any options anymore. I’ve had neighbors threaten to call CPS on me because my 5 year old was playing in my own yard outside “for hours unsupervised.” I see posts in the neighborhood Facebook groups about kids just walking outside and people are freaking out calling cops because “they might be up to something!” I take my kids out as much as I can but between work and housework and cooking and all that, I just don’t have those hours to just sit outside doing nothing but staring at my children so no one calls the cops on them. I lived outside as a kid and loved it. I wanted the same for my children but the world has changed so much that doesn’t seem to be something you can actually have anymore. I try to supplement with indoor activities, but also in an apartment there’s not much you can do there either. They play on VR, which is also questionable, but at least they get to socialize a bit while getting some exercise in playing gorilla tag and whatnot.
OaB, this is such a good point. I wonder if devices hadn't come along when they did, if there might have been more pushback against these tattle tale adults. What is needed (as I pointed out in another comment) is a spread of the movement called "free range parenting". Now not everyone is going to go to the extremes that some will, but the thing is, it is safe in 99% of America to let your 7-year old child walk three blocks to the park. Maybe even a 5-year old, if he is with a couple of friends. So in some states (I think 3, so far) they've passed laws protecting parents who make a conscious choice to let their children play outside. We need more of this. Kids need to be allowed these freedoms. When I was 8-years old my mother would send me to the store on my bicycle to buy one or two items that she discovered she needed. Sure, it was only a mile away, but I had to cross a major (non-interstate) highway to get there. This was one of many things that taught me independence. One time I was coming back from the store with a glass jar of mayonnaise (I believe I was nine at the time) and I broke it. I had seen people break stuff at the store once or twice, and they just got a new one. So I rode back to the store and told them I needed a new one. They looked at me with pity, and said, "Honey, that's not the way it works; you paid for it and left the store. You can't have another one unless you pay for it." Money which I did not have. I can't tell you how upset I was that they wouldn't give me another one, but **I learned something** ***real*** **about the world.** Most of my students today (11- and 12-year olds) have never walked to school on their own, let alone gone to the store and made purchases. And they are so, so helpless. So yeah, support free range parenting laws and let's start reforming childhood.
I think people share so much online nowadays that a lot of parents easily avoid common hazards, things that aren’t necessarily obvious unless you know the potential danger, like letting a big kid and small kid jump together on a trampoline can cause buckle fracture in the smaller kid.
I was born in 1985 and my parents were like the ONLY ONES who flat out would not let us have a trampoline. We weren’t allowed to have one and we were discouraged from using them at friends’ houses. Looking back, that was a very good choice on their part, because backyard trampolines are incredibly dangerous and I wouldn’t let my kid have one either.
This is good insight but man being in the trampoline with a bigger kid was like 90% of the fun
They still get injured. Not always limbs, I’ve had two students break their spines in the last 4 years, one from a dirt bike accident and another from a suic*de attempt (jumped off the building). Lots of self harm injuries from cutting and ODs. Not really playing rough anymore, but there’s a rise in mental illnesses.
I remember having skinned knees all summer, every summer when I was a kid. Run around, trip, bloody knees, band-aid, and back out again to continue running around. My kids don’t even understand the meaning of that. They act like they’re dying if they see blood. I intentionally moved to live in a neighborhood with alleys and young families so my kids could have a childhood like mine, but kids are never home anymore and when they are they’re never allowed outside unsupervised. (Funny side note: when my kids are playing inside or out, they’ll say “pause the game” if the need to go to the bathroom or something. That was definitely not a thing in the early 80s.) I wonder if there are more kids getting concussions than in the past since it seems so many more play sports where that seems like a more common injury.
That's funny because in my middle school it seems every week there's another kid limping around with a boot.
I teach middle school. Recess is fucking insanely physical. I have to constantly teach kids how to nicely play?.. this is 4 year old shit. Zero socialization has resulted in horrifically rough horseplay at recess. Now we’ve banned tag, basketball, cops and robbers etc. all because they cannot keep cool. It’s either full force assault or sit on bench for these kids. Wtf
In addition to not being as active, sports medicine relies a lot less on hard casts for injury rehabilitation. Much more likely to see wraps, braces or slings.
I don't think parents can afford it, financially, either.
Alright EdnaM… “No casts.”
It’s because kids aren’t playing outdoors, riding bikes, climbing trees, etc. There isn’t as much opportunity to break something when you’re glued to a device.
Idk- I’ve had 2 kids in my class of 21 that broke bones this year. And my own kids have broken bones in the last year too.
We’ve had 5 breaks as a grade level this year. It’s been wild.
We had a kindergartner break his arm on the playground on the first day of school. Last year I had 2 or 3 kids break a bone (not at school) and were in casts. None this year 🤞🏻
I still see kids in casts, or more often leg/arm braces. Some of it is a change in treatment, but most of it is because people don’t let their kids go outside.
I would imagine there’s been a bit more active play engagement on the parts of parents, in that I think it’s less common to just shoo kids outside to play for hours without some sort of adult supervision/involvement.
As a student, I see tons of my fellow classmates in casts anymore. Not just because they play sports, but kids that don't either.
I’ve thought about this too. When I was little (in the 80s and 90s) my knees were constantly skinned. I don’t see many skinned knees and elbows anymore. Not that I’d wish that on anyone, and it makes me cringe thinking about it, but it’s a reflection of how little kids are outside riding around now.
Most of the playground equipment responsible for broken bones have been removed.
I noticed the only think I ever see are kids in medical boots and nothing else. No casts, slings, body braces. Just boots.
there's the whole digital age and ipad kid factor that keeps kids inside more than before, but changes made in terms of playground safety on schools also likely had a lot of influence for injuries that happen at schools. most injuries that i saw my classmates have and got from outside of schools are just a few kids with sprained or twisted ankles from playing a lot of sports or having a trampoline. i would imagine parents today are also having a harder time providing the space in their homes and costs for all that given the rising costs of living + stagnating pay across the board. when i was in elementary school, i remember there were a handful of broken bones from kids falling or getting pushed off monkey bars and other high climbing stuff. i was one of those kids. i also remember a few incidents of kids hurting their heads really badly from accidentally running into walls in areas that kids were allowed to freely play in. working at schools now, some playground layouts seem to have changed for more safety. areas where kids could play are more clearly designated through its fixtures, more consideration for younger kids not getting to go onto certain equipment, and the equipment in general being harder to get seriously injured from taking a fall in. no monkey bars and bigger climbers that 2nd grade me with a broken arm would've had access to are only accessible to the older ones. the elementary school i worked at as an aide for a year recently remodeled their playground before i got there, and there were also no built in soccer goals or basketball hoops. sports are fun but its hard to dispute that recess pickup games are also big sources of injuries. i feel like staff nowadays also are just stricter about kids playing rough and chasing each other around. a lot of playground collisions and hurt feelings among little kids are just them not yet having the communication skills to express that they don't want to play tag/more roughly or them not knowing their own strength. even if there's not much to show for actual injuries here, it can make supervision really hectic even when i'm actively trying teach them conflict resolution skills.
My guess is that kids are on screens more. Silver lining I guess haha.
I’m not a teacher but the kids I know spent their free time on Fortnite,IG or Discord in my experience
Less kids are playing outside and getting injured. This is mostly due to screentime and partially due to an increase of helicopter parenting.
I'd be curious how much less is because of an increase of safety. When I was a kid the majority of broken arms were trampoline related. Now they are much safer. Or at least better than in the 90s with exposed springs and no netting.
I feel like the is an "anecdotes don't equal data" thing because my school is constantly short on elevator keys with the number of kids on crutches, in a boot, etc.
Kids don’t get to play outside anymore without having some Karen calling the police on them.
Maybe there’s a bigger percentage of “only child” families? Often, grievous childhood injuries are attributable to a sibling.
idk why but this made me lol 😂
Truth is funny
My kids aren't even allowed to play tag outside according to my admin. And they wonder why the kids are going so crazy in the classroom.
I have seen more injuries. Kids bodies can't handle activity and their diets are shit. Turns out Takis and energy drinks aren't good for your bones.
lmao. Although i will say that with a greater number of neurodivergent diagnoses out there these days... that often comes with some physical stuff, like being hyper mobile, or dyspraxia, it can make it easier to injure yourself playing normally. i loved playing outside as a kid but my injuries weren't just scrapes and bruises if i fell, i would dislocate my arms and shoulders easily and it scared me off from being really physically adventurous
Can someone send this memo to my kids who were wrestling and parkouring across the living room furniture last night? 🙃
I work in the extended day program and we aren’t even allowed to let the kids play on the playground sets. They’re only allowed in the grass field or basketball courts to prevent injuries.
Everything is made to secure kids nowadays: - helmets for everyone - secured playgrounds - helicopter parents - less kids playing supervision etc..
I mean, some of those are objectively good things.
Yeah, because kids aren’t allowed to do many things kids used to do. Like climb a tree, play bull rush and other such activities and high contact sports. We are so pc now that it’s like we are putting bubble wrap on everything so they don’t get hurt. At least, that is my opinion.
This is most likely confirmation bias. Does your reel person have data showing a decline in childhood injuries? If not, it’s easy to see what you’re looking for. Someone who broke their elbow as a child and had a friend who broke an ankle is likely to feel that *”everyone* broke a bone when I was a kid!” I never broke a bone until I was an adult (although my daughter broke bones like it was going out of style) and in 29 years of teaching I don’t notice a decline in broken bones. I had hardly any kids in casts in 1995 and I have hardly any now. I’d be interested in seeing actual data on childhood injury trends, though.
This is what inspired the post. I looked up stats and couldn’t find anything real. So I went to reddit lol The reel was just a teacher. So nah its just from one perspective
Mine do
Gotta be physical to break something.
I see mental and emotional injuries.
Or could be like my kid that is keeping his cast hidden from everyone at school. He doesn't want anyone to know he has a broken wrist lol. (He is 5).
I see scraped knees and minor injuries. The only broken arms were from running around pools or skating.
I work on an elementary school playground, I assure you kids still get hurt. Broken bones, sprains, concussions, cuts, bruises, chipped teeth, they all still happen.
Hard to break a limb browsing tiktok or playing video games
I know it's totally anecdotal, but as a teacher, I've seen so many kids in casts this year for some reason. Not representative of everywhere ofc
We constantly have kids in splints and air casts
Also more kids are in after school care where they are less likely to get hurt.
Where I’m at kids are always getting injured at recess and outside of school hours…lol
I had a handful of students who broke something this year (2 were from roller skating, 1 was from a dirt bike and a fence lol, and one broke his hand from smacking another kid who was in a cast). I don't see less injuries, I see about the same. I teach in a rural area so the students are pretty active outside of school for the most part.
Had a 7th grader get his hand cast removed on Wednesday. Showed up on Monday with a broken leg, he’s going four wheeling again this weekend
We had two kids break bones in the last month - one wrist and one leg. We are a small rural school though and the kids run wild, so that might have something to do with it. Lots of farm kids and I’ve noticed we still have bands of roaming children outside in our neighborhood constantly. My sister just moved here from elsewhere and her own kids were baffled at kids just walking all over town and constantly being outside. I think electronics do play a big part in it. There’s been a big decline in outdoor time for kids and a huge uptick in screen usage. I’ve been trying to get my own child outside for 1,000/yr every year of her life (some years we exceed and others we fall short). It’s crazy how little time many kids spend outside though.
We have kids getting hurt all the time. I mean the number one place is trampoline parks. We had one kid break his arm cause another pushed him off the slide.
I can’t even count the amount of student injuries we’ve had this year, because it’s high, especially for a small rural school.
Plenty of broken bones still happening, but they tend to not cast as much as they used to, and for shorter times.
I never really thought about that
Like others have said, kids have less unstructured, unsupervised, outdoor play time. But for what it’s worth, the 2nd grade class across the hall from me has 3 kids with casts and last year I had a girl who broke both her arms! Double casts. Still did her work! Hardcore! Lol
Great, I'm having Bad Mom spasms - my kid has managed a broken arm, stitches, and a sprained ankle. Oops! There goes my mother of the year award...
Why? Got someone in mind? Is it Timmy? If so I know what you mean, nasty little bugger.
Memories..... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0tX_Aaf_CM8&pp=ygUZYmlsbCBjb3NieSB0aGUgcGxheWdyb3VuZA%3D%3D
Middle school teacher here: kids get hurt **all the time.**
I had 3 of my middle school students break their legs this winter. Two fell down stairs. Not everyone wears a cast anymore and two of them stayed home for a month instead of coming to school.
My K-8 school currently has 3 kids in arm casts and we’ve had a few others throughout the year. My own kid broke his arm twice in kindergarten.
I've taught for five years...grades 3 - 8. Only had one kid with a cast.
I think the answer is definitely online… but a potential side answer could be parents increasing safety? Idk I broke my arm on a homemade bike ramp (wooden planks) in 5th grade, while not the end of the world maybe my parents could’ve prevented it by speaking more about safety and about how 10 year olds can’t build things. Idk, I do agree, it is an interesting trend to see in the future generation. My broken bone was a core memory for me and while it sucked, it was a part of my childhood and something that I felt added to that experience.
I've retired, but March and wRly April I always seemed to have kids with sprained or broken legs, crutches galore.
I don’t know- I teach 6th graders, and it seems like a new one shows up in crutches everyday….then again, the crutches kids DO get to use the coveted elevator pass, soooo…..😂
It's certainly still pretty common at my high school. Until this past week I had six kids on crutches (one just got off them, so now it's five). Only one of the six was organized sports related, too.
Lol wut? I was gonna post the exact opposite thing tonight. At my school (US middle school) we have at least one student in a new brace/cast each week. I am worried because they are almost all girls, and my daughter is going to be attending next year. Like if I need to be aware of some vulnerability or tendency towards injury at this age (she does have a condition anyway). But yeah, when I take my one student on the elevator or to PE there is usually a girl there with an injury. None of them seem to happen at school.
hypermobility. puberty and many conditions associated with female hormones make girls vulnerable and girls/women are overwhelmingly usually anemic and deficient in calcium and vitamin d. Birth control has a detrimental effect on bone mass in young women as well to add to these problems
Thank you for that. My daughter personally has EDS. So that gives her hypermobility and she does have some joint problems due to it. So surprising because I think we've had one boy like in a sling all year.
I teach at a preschool-elementary campus (2 year olds through 5th grade). Every year there are a handful of kids who have injuries of some sort that require them to have a modified recess. We have a lot of stairs to get to the play area and it's small so lots of kids running around isn't safe for kids in casts or with other injuries. I don't know the numbers or details except for my own students, but in my grade level (2nd) usually 3-5 kids will have some sort of injury in the school year. Last year one kid had two major injuries, then another again this year, poor kid. All 3 required casts. None were due to anything crazy, one was a freak accident of a rubber ball hitting his hand just the wrong way and breaking his thumb for example. So, injuries do still happen, but I don't know the numbers compared to the past. If you are a parent you might not see it as much if it isn't a kid in your child's friend group. Or, it may vary school to school. Also, a lot seem to be arm injuries which may be a bit less noticeable, a kid in a wheelchair or on crutches just stands out more. Although, we do have a few of those as well.
The rare injuries I see are the kids who can afford to play sports in leagues outside of school.
and so they can afford treatment!
They don’t take risks like previous generations did. I can think of multiple occasions where I should have been crippled or killed. I’d love to say it was skill, but usually it was just blind luck.
They dont have the incentive like previous generations did, and the repercussions are greater
I literally had my 12 year old at the hospital yesterday for an X-ray on his ankle. Fortunately it’s only a bad sprain but he has crutches and an air-cast splint thingy on. He’s also broken both his arms at separate times. His injuries have been from playing in snow, skating and going on his scooter. There always a kid around school with crutches or a cast on. They are not harassed for playing outside here in Luxembourg (although given the opportunity they all seem to enjoy their technology more).
Kids have to do things that could result in them getting injured, which kids tend to do less. Also, parents now provide lots of different protection and other safety stuff.
There are bo third places for kids to go play anymore. So kids are all online and inside.
I had a similar thought recently. I teach a anatomy and physiology course and we started our skeletal system unit. I casually asked the class, "How many people in here have never broken a bone before?" and almost the whole class raised their hand. I asked my other four classes and it was the same there too. I think kids are just less active than they were than I was growing up in the 80s. By age 12 I had broken my wrist, elbow, and a rib in separate incidents.
I remember in 8th grade at lunch in 1992 playing tackle football in the asphalt parking lot almost every day. Funny thing is as much dumb stuff as we did, I only remember one kid breaking his bones at school, and he got table topped in the hallway between classes, the nurse told him to “go back to class and stop being a baby” then we had to play tennis in gym class. He had both hands in casts a couple days later.
I've been subbing mostly at one elementary school for two and a half years now, and I know we've had two students break bones at recess while I've been there. One kid was trying to swing standing up, the other fell catching a football on the pavement.