Last updated on December 2nd, 2023 at 09:06 am
When we started taking our twin boys to the playground, it wasn’t long before they wanted to tackle the slide. Since they were little we would go down the slide with them. But then my husband noticed that when he went down with them he had to be extremely careful that their foot didn’t get caught on the slide; especially the enclosed slides. And even with extreme caution there was no way to prevent his foot getting stuck 100%.
One time his foot got caught and he had to react quickly to not injure our son seriously. His leg hurt for a while but was eventually able to walk it off. It was then we we decided not to go down the slide with the children anymore. Then with further research we found that we did have a legitimate reason for concern and that doctors are taking notice at how common children are getting injured in this way.
At Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y., there was a study of pediatric leg fractures over an 11-month period that found nearly 14 percent (8 of 58) of fractures involved toddlers (average age of 20.6 months) playing on the slide. Of those 8, ALL of them were sliding down with a parent. When a child slides down himself his foot can still get caught, but what breaks the child leg is the force of the adult’s weight when going down the slide. A leg fracture is a very painful injury and requires a child to wear a cast for 6 weeks. This is emotionally painful for the parent as well, knowing that they broke their child’s leg.
Kids are going to get hurt on the playground; we can’t protect our kids from every injury and nor should we. But we also need to be educated so that we don’t put our kids at elevated risk for injury, especially when we think we are adding protection. If the child is unable to use the slide independently, then you should encourage him to choose another activity.
I am glad that in our case our son was not seriously injured, and I hope that this warning will save other parents and children the pain of a serious injury of something so simple as sliding down a slide.
Jill Marcum – Twiniversity Community Manager
