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Playground Peril: Going Down a Slide With Your Child
Filed under: In The News, Weird But True, Alerts & Recalls, Research Reveals: Toddlers & Preschoolers
Quick: Do you think it's safer to ride down the slide with your toddler or allow the little one zip down alone?
If you said that sliding in tandem with you is safer, you'd be wrong, according to a New York doctor.
Dr. John Gaffney has seen a lot of broken shinbones at Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. Digging a little deeper, the pediatric orthopedist found that all of the slide-related injuries he treated were the result of a toddler "riding on the lap of an adult or an older sibling." That's right. All of them.
According to a story on the "Today" show, Gaffney said that the "greater velocity and momentum" created by the weight of an adult or older sibling makes it harder to stop, potentially leading to an injury. He published his findings this month in the Journal of Pediatric Orthopedics.
On the surface, this sounds overwrought. We all love to play around with our kids and, let's face it, slides are fun for big people, too. Riding down with the little ones is much less embarrassing than doing so alone. Still, the doctor does appear to have science on his side.
What do you think? Will you think twice the next time you hit the playground?
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
9-19-2009 @ 2:47PM
SKL said...Hmm, I've never felt the need nor the urge to go down the slide with my kid. Maybe in the good old days when the slides were pretty big and scary, but nowadays, they make the slides so "safe," any kid who can walk should be able to slide down alone.
Reply
9-19-2009 @ 4:09PM
Breana said...When my son turned 1, I went down a slide with him (it was a big, steep, fast slide) thinking I was helping him. When we hit the bottom, the impact of my feet hitting the ground propelled him into the air. Luckily, I caught him before his head hit the ground. I will NEVER slide down with a child again, I shudder to think what would've happened if I hadn't caught him and he had hit head first.
Reply
9-20-2009 @ 10:34PM
Ivy said...I've gone down the slide with all 3 of my children more times than I can count, and only my oldest has ever had a broken bone. Wrist fracture from falling off a Ripstick. If an adult goes down a slide, yes it means more momentum due to more weight, but doesn't it also mean that you have longer legs to stop?
I am sure that this occurence has to be smaller compared to the amount of parents who go down the slide with their children. Accidents happen, always have, always will. Will we stop our children from having fun? Will we stop ourselves from having fun WITH our children?
I hope not.
9-21-2009 @ 2:26PM
KN said...This is EXACTLY what happened to my son when he was 18 months old riding down the slide with his dad. It was AWFUL!!! It hurt him so bad, and the worst part was that because he was so young X-rays at the ER didn't show anything so they sent him home with a lame wrap thing telling us to wait a week! Finally we took him to another Dr. because he was still not able to walk and the X-rays still did not show anything. He decided to cast his whole leg for 3 weeks! Finally when he got the cast off, the X-ray showed a small crack! I can honestly say that at 2 and 1/2 yrs now he still favors that leg. He really has just started jumping again too, which he had started to when it happened (last Thanksgiving)! We learned a lesson there!
Reply
9-21-2009 @ 5:15AM
Natasha said...I have always encouraged my girls (3 and 4) to go on the playground equipment they are capable of going on by themselves, and not rely on me for help. When I was a child, a man climbed up a tall slide at a holiday park we were visiting to give his daughter assistance; he actually fell off the top, hit the ground on his head & died that day., may God rest his soul. Not sure if this is why I have taken this route with my children though!
Reply
9-21-2009 @ 1:55PM
sara said...i would never have believed this if someone told me this a few months ago. but this past May my son broke his leg by going down the slide on my lap. when we went to the doctor i was surprised to find out how common it was for a child to break a leg by going down the slide on someone's lap
Reply
9-21-2009 @ 7:19PM
Sabrina said...What I can't figure out is how the leg breaks. I've gone down the slide with my kids before. They're on my lap, and I hold them with both arms. My legs are out in front, and when we get to the bottom, my legs hit the ground. Theirs don't hit anything. At all. I can't figure ouut what the kids are hitting that breaks their legs in this situation. Can anyone explain it to me? I must be dense.
Reply
9-23-2009 @ 10:12PM
Sandyone said...Sabrina,
The kid's foot can get wedged in the slide and the weight of the older person keeps forcing the body down the slide. I think this makes it twist, which cracks the bone.
My little guy is newly wearing shoes and he has crocs...they stick to the slide like glue and he can't slide down without getting his foot stuck. Since it's just him, he gets a little turned around, but there isn't enough body weight for the foot to get stuck and him to keep sliding.
9-27-2009 @ 8:57PM
Valerie said...Just to add a slightly different flavor to the conversation, instead of my toddler getting injured, I severely fractured my ankle going down a slide with my child on my lap. It was a very tall slide, and I tried to plant my fee to avoid running into another child who was sitting in front of the bottom of the slide (even though I gave a verbal heads up that we were coming). I think the main issue, as with many things, is to be as thoughtful and careful as possible. That said, accidents happen, and some things are out of our control.
Reply
10-29-2009 @ 7:09AM
ME said...Valerie, talking about being as thoughtful and careful as possible... maybe you should have made sure the child left the bottom of the slide before you decided to shout a warning, and go ahead anyway.
Reply