Should you worry about your children getting hurt? Do I?

I know it will happen. Heaven knows my son comes home with things all the time. One day he even came home after some older kid hit him in the face with a base from the baseball field. Kid just picked it up and slammed ‘B’ in the face.

The kid was fortunate. You see the kid is a little taller, but ‘B’ is one strong kid, and his first instinct is not to come out swinging . . . yet. His first thought is, “Why in the world did you do that, you idiot?” He has a reputation that is such the other kid was in serious trouble even though no teacher saw it. Yeah, it’s a school where a teacher has to witness things, but not this time. It was a bit obvious what had happened, and my son isn’t known to be a liar about things like this. He actually never complains.

Am I overprotective?

I’m the kind of dad that says to his 10 year old son, okay he was 9 at the time, “Okay, get on your bike and ride as fast as you can off the end of the porch.” I figure if he falls, he’ll be fine and he’ll see it is just a fall. Okay, so it isn’t but like a foot off the ground, but he thought it was like huge. He was always worried about falling on his bike because of the whole protective mother thing. Having been a boy and knowing that even running into a tree with my bike didn’t kill me, I am of the mind to let the boy go and fall and get back up and have fun. In fact they have more fun then because they can take a little more of a chance knowing that a fall is just a fall. This past summer was great for ‘B’. Bikes, chopping through vines to clear away Grandma’s hedges, climbing ladders. Oh, the ladder? I’ll get to that ladder, I mean later. (Anyone want to shuck some corn, cause I got lots more where that came from.)

So what’s my deal with ‘B’ and football?

I put out an article yesterday about my son not playing football and included information about concussions and a certain football team and the actions of the coach and trainers. Well, here is the problem I have with the way football is, it’s the coaching and the staff I have a problem with. I got hurt playing football, baseball, and basketball. I got hurt riding my skateboard. I got hurt picking a book up off my bed. Okay so that last one was in my 30s, I think, and I already had back problems, but you get where I am coming from here.

Hurts happen, but there are degrees of things that can be avoided if a coaching staff does their job properly. The quarterback should not have been allowed to continue the game. He was in a condition where he could have been hit again and permanently damaged. That’s the problem I have. A fully aware quarterback has a difficult enough time as it is avoiding 300 pound monsters, a badly shaken up, glassy eyed one could end up in the hospital.

My college football team is UGA, The University of Georgia Bulldogs. Last year we had a great quarterback, broke all kinds of records. What did he do to end his time at UGA as a member of the team with no more than like 3 games left? He tore an ACL and didn’t leave the game. He kept playing one or two more plays. That wasn’t the coaching staff  because all he did was limp. The quarterback had this mindset that can come into play in some competitive sports. UGA isn’t one of those ‘push the player while they are hurt’ schools. I’ve taught the Head Coach’s kids. My son interacts with another coach’s kids. In other words I know the products of the people behind the scenes.

Am I overprotective?

I don’t mind my son getting hurt. It happens. I even let him climb a ladder to get his ball off the edge of the roof, of course with me below him and holding him. He thought that was the coolest thing ever. And yeah, I had to stop him from trying to climb on the roof. He’s crazy like that at times. And he has learned to hit the brakes on his bike and slide it around, he calls it drifting. Thank you The Fast and The Furious. Wait, he hasn’t seen that. Maybe it was Cars. Disney us evil. I am the one the encourages taking the calculated risks.

So, am I overprotective?

I am a ‘protect my child from a bad situation if I can help it’ dad. I have a great kid who has obviously been brought up nicely. Great grades, very courteous and respectful to his teachers, knows reality versus fake, and is just really very mature in many ways and also very much a kid in many ways. He can play for hours with various toys he has. Awesome kid, so I guess something is being done right. I am most proud of him at church during his Sunday School class or when they have children’s time during service he stays quiet, letting everyone else have a chance. Then either one of two things happens, if no one is giving a right answer the person will then look at ‘B’ and say, “Tell us, ‘B’.” And he gives the answer. Or if time is running short they will just go straight to him.

Are other sports safer?

I was going to mention other sports yesterday but instead I stuck with football to make the article short and to the point. A little league kid was hit in the chest with a fast ball pitch while up to bat. The pitch hit right over his heart and stopped it. He died. Pitches also have line drives hit back at them to the head. Basketball has ACL problems, broken noses, and all sorts of things going on. Golfing has back problems and shoulder problems. A man died in a short dirt track race not long ago when he was run over. He had been smoking marijuana prior to the race and then got out of his car to confront the other racer who was actually still driving around the track. Another driver’s father died several years ago in a crash. Divers hit there heads on the side of the pool or the bottom or even the platforms or boards.

I could go on and on but I think you see that I know about other sports.

One of my favorites sports I played in college was racquet ball. I don’t know if you’ve ever played the game but it is not an easy sport. There are these things called walls that tend to want to stop a body running stupidly after a bouncing rubber ball.

Oh and I have to tell you this one, it’s funny, in a way, but maybe it explains a few things about me. I guess I was in High School when this happened or just after. I went golfing with my Dad. He was showing me a few things and said, “Stand right there and watch what I do.” He actually put me in a spot to watch from. Either his arms were longer or his club was longer than he thought. His follow through ended up with the flat part of the club, fortunately it was a driver, square in the center of my forehead. We could not have rehearsed it better. I simply gave it no thought, although he freaked out big time. I think mostly because he was afraid I was gonna tell my Momma on him. (Tiger can’t believe my Dad did that to me.)

My son starts basketball in a few weeks, and then baseball in the spring.

So my question to you is this:

Am I overprotective or just taking into consideration what things are like for real?

Ronovan

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