Kids on wheels: How to keep yours from rolling right into the ER
As school winds down for the summer, the number of injuries kids experience from wheeling around on things like skateboards, scooters, bicycles and inline skates tends to go up.
At Emerus 24 HR Emergency Room facilities, we see more injuries to kids’ arms and wrists, including breaks and sprains, this time of year. We also treat children who experience unnecessary head trauma because they are not wearing protective gear.
Here’s how to help keep your child from rolling into the ER.
- Make wearing a helmet mandatory for children participating in wheeled activities. Before they can roll, their heads must be protected.
- Ensure that the helmet fits snugly, is not tilted back when worn, and does not wobble side to side. Always buy a properly sized helmet, not one for a child to “grow into.” Note that helmets for bicycle riding and skateboarding offer different protection, so it’s important to have one of each for any child who engages in both sports.
- Invest in wrist guards and kneepads to help protect other injury-prone areas, and ensure your child wears them correctly.
- Leave the iPod or other MP3 devices – anything listened to via headphones – at home. Kids should never wear headphones when riding or rolling.
- Model good behavior. If you want your child to wear a helmet, you need to wear one, too. If you tell your child no headphones while riding, that means you, too. Safety first!
- Treat wheeled shoes with the same rules you would a skateboard or inline skates: always ensure your child wears protective equipment. Using them as everyday, casual footwear rather than sports gear can easily lead to injury.
- Keep kids under 10 on the sidewalk rather than in the street when they’re riding their bicycles or scooters. They can lose control much more easily at that age, and their cognitive reasoning and impulse-control skills are not yet developed enough to interact with regular traffic.