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Protect Your Young Athlete from a Concussion – Germantown, MD Patch
Not sure if your child has a concussion? Look for signs of disorientation, dilated pupils, stumbling, wooziness, and memory loss. “If you have to evaluate, chances are there is a legitimate concern,” says Siegel. Always err on the side of caution to avoid risking a more serious and permanent injury. Have the player sit out and seek the opinion of a health care professional immediately for an evaluation. “It generally takes two full weeks or more before a concussion fully heals,” says Siegel. “Head injuries are very serious and can cause severe damage to a child’s brain. It is much better to sit out a day or a few weeks than risk a serious and possibly permanent brain injury.”
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Elite travel baseball and basketball teams make for a youth sports industrial complex – ESPN
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This is the age of the youth-sports industrial complex, where men make a living putting on tournaments for 7-year-olds, and parents subject their children to tryouts and pay good money for the right to enter into it.
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There are buzzwords in this business, sure to coax the gullible parent. The big three terms are “elite,” “select,” and “travel ball.” Oh, the power of those words. Waving the prospect of “travel ball” under the nose of the ambitious father of a talented 9-year-old is like wafting a steak under the nose of a sleeping dog. After all, the more you travel and the farther you go to play a sport, the better you must be at that sport, right?
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These are 9- and 10-year-olds, which raises a question: What the hell are we doing?
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We’re creating a class of kids who are being labeled with terms such as “elite” and “competitive” and “best of the best.” They’re being worshipped by their parents and coaches, who keep statistics to post online and send photographs to the local paper. It’s organized insanity.
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New focus on concussions is altering prep athletics – chicagotribune.com
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A report last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that from 1997 to 2007, the number of emergency room visits for sports-related concussions had doubled for children ages 8 to 13 and more than tripled for high school athletes. And it’s not just football, but soccer and even cheerleading.
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Are Youth Sports Good For Kids? – Coronado, CA Patch
Dr. Jim Taylor, a psychology professor at the University of
San Francisco, put it best when he wrote in the Huffington Post about parents and their roles in developing or supporting a child’s athletic prowess.“If your objective is to turn them into champions, the odds are that you’re wasting your money and time and your children’s happiness. Sports are metaphorically littered with the scarred psyches of children whose parents tried and failed to do what Earl Woods and Richard Williams succeeded at doing. Your goals as parents are for your children to have fun, learn life skills to succeed later in life, value health and fitness, and develop a love of sports. If by some freak chance you give them world-class athletic genes, they love the sport enough to work incredibly hard, and they get the right kind of support from you, and they become professional or Olympic athletes, then
that’s just icing on the cake.”-
Dr. Jim Taylor, a psychology professor at the University of
San Francisco, put it best when he wrote in the Huffington Post about parents and their roles in developing or supporting a child’s athletic prowess.“If your objective is to turn them into champions, the odds are that you’re wasting your money and time and your children’s happiness. Sports are metaphorically littered with the scarred psyches of children whose parents tried and failed to do what Earl Woods and Richard Williams succeeded at doing. Your goals as parents are for your children to have fun, learn life skills to succeed later in life, value health and fitness, and develop a love of sports. If by some freak chance you give them world-class athletic genes, they love the sport enough to work incredibly hard, and they get the right kind of support from you, and they become professional or Olympic athletes, then
that’s just icing on the cake.”
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Posts 08/30/2011
The Gregarious Phat Man 