Concussions in Children - The role parents should be playing

i think it's just very important that parents really understand the impact of their child's concussion i've seen a number of families in my office that although their child is the number one priority the bigger picture is they want the scholarship they want the child to do the best they want the child to be that trophy child and i think that parents need to understand that whenever there's an issue um no matter how small it is that the parents if they if there is two parents to come together on the benefit of that child to say we need to stand our ground and say absolutely no return to play until we're comfortable that he or she has returned to somewhat normal baseline and i don't see that enough out there i see parents arguing with one another i see um i see a lot of dads saying it's okay for him to return i know it's okay to return i would have returned if this were me and i think that the kids who are coming out now are more apt to say wait a minute because of the concussion laws and what we're teaching so if i can impress upon anything it's to know your child and it's to really be aware and if they need to be pulled it's okay to be pulled would the parents have to divulge if the child's had a concussion before is there a lot of information available for the parents because a lot of people don't realize that a simple headache can be a result of a concussion well that's an excellent point and that's why we're pairing uh... that with the training piece so ideally people have been trained to understand what can a concussion can really look like but the way the questions are asked really has a child ever had a head injury have they ever had these kind of symptoms and if so you when did that happen and how long did it last so we're trying to to get at that uh... until everyone really you know really understands what a concussion is but we feel like that's important information uh... for the coaches and the athletic staff to have so they know uh... who they need to look out for can't the trainer or coach overrule the parent they can overrule the parent to a degree but when you're talking about children you can team shop um you know this can follow you if you're in a more structured um sport absolutely then the trainer can follow but there are parents who will team shop until they get the answer that they want and they'll pull their child from the school so you think not just coaches and trainers but maybe all pediatrician should be trained in concussion awareness absolutely i think it's critical we're going to see more and more with the concussion law these children will have to have a go to to return to sports so somebody is going to have to answer these questions there's a lot that parents should do and most of it they are not doing and you know one of our goals is to really turn parents into advocates for their own kids you know they're advocates for 'em in so many things but they really don't pay attention when it comes to sports and the environment that coaches create now we know you know and i'm a firm believer that coaches are out there cuz they care about the kids they want them to succeed but they also don't like people telling them what to do they don't like restrictions and because they're mostly volunteers they don't have the time to invest to learn this information so um... what parents should be paying attention to is you know it's a long list are their coaches educated on concussions at a minimum are they doing the c_d_c_'s online certification which is thirty minutes and free if they're not you shouldn't be sending your kid there because there's no reason they shouldn't be doing that you know there are larger ways to to uh…do uh to teach and to educate in you know uh... we provide a lot of that through the sports legacy institute but at a minimum the free online stuff is there a pre-season meeting for the athletes and the parents so that they understand what's going on especially now maybe we won't need it in ten years because everyone will get it by then but now no one gets it we're always walking into cold rooms where no one you know i i i gave a talk to five hundred coaches in chicago and i said okay how many coaches here have had first-aid training everyone's hand went up how many coaches here have had CPR training everyone's hand went up how many coaches here have had concussion training at any point in their career three hands went up out of five hundred like let's let's let's wake up here so it starts with education that that needs to happen uh... then you know you have to look at your your programs policies does you know all the guidelines now say and it's now state laws in over thirty states no return to play same day of a suspected concussion required medical clearance to go back does your league require that most laws don't actually touch the low the youngest kids so if you have a seven-year a seven year old out there playing a collision sport you better be sure they have those policies in place and they're educated enough to use them does the program commit to re a reduction of repetitive brain trauma 'cause we're realizing now that concussions aren't the only problem every hit to the head may be damaging and what we're certain of is every hit after a concussion is really damaging and if we're only diagnosing ten percent of concussions we should not be opening the door to every ninety percent of those kids taking another hundred hits to the head every week uh... and so uh... you know are the coaches hitting a lot in practice are your soccer coaches paying attention at all to how many times kids are heading the ball in practice you know we have pitch counts in youth baseball to protect athletes elbows and we never ask a soccer coach or a football coach to even consider counting how often they hit your child in the head so that should be a question parents ask they should be looking at the equipment are they using newer helmets have they been reconditioned you that's that's part of it it's lower down the list but that's still part of it and you know there's there's there's more but i think i would say at a minimum minimum if your coaches have not been certified an educated by the cdc don't sign up your kids because you know they could end up being one of those kids in our brain bank this excerpt is brought to you by the massachusetts school of law