6 Of The Most Dangerous Kids’ Activities, According To ER Physicians

One sun-lit September evening, my 8-year-old daughter was romping about the lawn with her classmates after school. I remember musing that it would be lovely to keep her outside like this every evening: playing with friends, at a safe distance from the pull of her iPad.

Then she came barreling into my lap, howling, bright red blood running down her lips. Her friends explained that they had all been spinning around while holding onto a hula hoop and then someone slipped, causing a sudden pile-up, during which my daughter had gotten kicked in the mouth.

I felt regret sink in my chest. I should’ve been supervising more actively and put a stop to this game before they crashed. After rinsing off her mouth and examining the damage, I was confident that the wound wasn’t bleeding so much that we needed to go to urgent care for stitches. I brought her home, handed her an ice pack (and probably her iPad, too), and made an appointment for the dentist to examine her injured gums.

At the dentist’s office the next day, I was called into the exam room almost immediately. The X-ray revealed the little black dagger of a fracture in her front tooth.

“An adult tooth,” the dentist winced. “You hate to see it.”

I described how the accident had occurred, reliving my own failure to prevent it. The dentist mentioned that she had seen similar injuries when kids knocked their teeth against the monkey bars at the playground.

“Monkey bars?” I thought. Now I was supposed to keep her away from the monkey bars? Should I just shut her in her bedroom with her iPad all day, then?

It wasn’t the first time that I felt pulled in opposite directions trying to keep my kids safe and healthy. If play and playground equipment are dangerous, but being