What are Parents thinking sometimes?

[SoftSocDad]

I wasn't there, so I don't know the situation, but if another parent is working with their kid, then whatever they're doing has nothing to do with me or my DD.

We're going to mind our own business, finish her workout, and then go for cocoa.

 

[chinamigarden]

My wife is a Physical Therapist. She once has a patient who was/is a pitcher who had an injury, not caused by pitching. But pitching caused it to hurt and was delaying its healing. (I don't know what the injury was) My wife recommended they stop pitching for a few weeks. Dad not only insisted she practice, he took her out of school early once a week so she could make it to her pitching lesson.

12u and this was in the winter, so no games were being missed either.

 

[jinjet95]

Tears probably werent caused by pain, they usually are caused by emotion.

No one knows a child better than their own parent. Kids cry, and exxagerate injuries and pain for sympathy from the parent for various reasons. The more you push them and show them indifference to it, the worse it usually becomes, even if its really a minor thing.

You are presuming you know the kid better than her own parent. Thats quite an assumption. You should ask questions and talk to the parent and show concerns why the child is crying, but dont tell them what they should do. You could easily be flat out wrong.

All players play with pain at some time. If you arent willing to, hang the cleats up now, they have no future. Its true of all competitive athletes from 10yo to professionals. The trick is to know what a SERIOUS pain is, and what isnt serious. Many , many player play with chronic tendonitis, muscle strains , etc during season because they cannot afford to take the time off required to heal. They survive on ibuprofen or aleve. Thats reality.

Pain in a child is never okay. Whether it's serious pain or pain increased by the child's reluctance for the activity. You always err on the side of caution. Maybe this parent (and you) need to examine why the child is pitching. For the child or the parent?

 

[livingontheroad]

I knew Id get flamed for that.

I have a 12yo , plays competitive football. Hes limping around on the field at practice, obviously in pain, and I tell him to suck it up.

To an onlooker I might look like a horrible parent.

What they wouldnt know is that we spent $1000 on MRI's, doctor visits, physical therapy, time in a boot, on crutches, treating his Sever's disease, which causes horrible burning pain in his heels while his foot is growing fast. In the end, there is nothing that can be done, it will go away when his foot quits growing. In the meantime, we both both know that if he wants to play, he has to endure it and use Aleve before playing. And he wants to play, so he endures it.

If you dont think kids play with pain, you are naive. All competitive athletes do.

Had a 14yo girl on team that played with pulled groin for 6 months. She would almost cry after running bases it hurt so bad. It only got to finally heal when she took 4 mo off dec-march (skipped first half of school ball)

Plenty of girls play with tendenitis, stitches, horrible large raw areas on knees and butt from sliding on abrasive field toppings. Ive seen pitchers that slap thier leg limping from the basketball-size bruise they have after a weekend of pitching.

We had a catcher catch at nationals with an injured hand, she cried between innings it hurt so bad, but she wanted to play. Other fielder with broken finger, taped two together and kept out back of glove.

A health care professional cannot recommend they continue playing. Neither will a coach, both must err on the side of cautious conservatism. However, a kid and thier parent are able to make a better more logical decision when to continue playing. Ive never even heard of anyone hurt further by the parent and kids decision to continue to play thru minor injury.

The only place Ive ever even heard of a parent that didnt seem to have their kids best interest, or be capable of making the best decisions for them, is here on this forum. Theres a whole lot of "that other parent is a horrible parent" in threads here.

 

[quincy]

Sever's disease

DD has this and limps around like you mentioned. Need to pay attention to her because her tolerance to pain is off the charts,

 

[chinamigarden]

The only place Ive ever even heard of a parent that didnt seem to have their kids best interest, or be capable of making the best decisions for them, is here on this forum. Theres a whole lot of "that other parent is a horrible parent" in threads here.

You need to read the paper more because parents have done some things that strangers would never think to do to a child, all the time and every day it happens.

Does this incident in the OP amount to child abuse, probably not. But to say that parents always have the kids best interest is not true. I have been around sports a long time, I have seen more then one bad parental choice about a kid playing with an injury, often times at that moment the parent is making that choice think it is in the childs best interest.. I probably have been guilty of it myself. It happens, you learn from it, you move on. But it happens, it happens all the time. To say it never happens is just not true.

 

[jinjet95]

I knew Id get flamed for that.

I have a 12yo , plays competitive football. Hes limping around on the field at practice, obviously in pain, and I tell him to suck it up.

To an onlooker I might look like a horrible parent.

What they wouldnt know is that we spent $1000 on MRI's, doctor visits, physical therapy, time in a boot, on crutches, treating his Sever's disease, which causes horrible burning pain in his heels while his foot is growing fast. In the end, there is nothing that can be done, it will go away when his foot quits growing. In the meantime, we both both know that if he wants to play, he has to endure it and use Aleve before playing. And he wants to play, so he endures it.

If you dont think kids play with pain, you are naive. All competitive athletes do.

Had a 14yo girl on team that played with pulled groin for 6 months. She would almost cry after running bases it hurt so bad. It only got to finally heal when she took 4 mo off dec-march (skipped first half of school ball)

Plenty of girls play with tendenitis, stitches, horrible large raw areas on knees and butt from sliding on abrasive field toppings. Ive seen pitchers that slap thier leg limping from the basketball-size bruise they have after a weekend of pitching.

We had a catcher catch at nationals with an injured hand, she cried between innings it hurt so bad, but she wanted to play. Other fielder with broken finger, taped two together and kept out back of glove.

A health care professional cannot recommend they continue playing. Neither will a coach, both must err on the side of cautious conservatism. However, a kid and thier parent are able to make a better more logical decision when to continue playing. Ive never even heard of anyone hurt further by the parent and kids decision to continue to play thru minor injury.

The only place Ive ever even heard of a parent that didnt seem to have their kids best interest, or be capable of making the best decisions for them, is here on this forum. Theres a whole lot of "that other parent is a horrible parent" in threads here.

Yes, competitive athletes will sometimes try to play through pain. My DD played an entire tournament with a torn meniscus. We didn't get MRI results until the following week. She made herself run without limping, so we let her play. There is a big difference between an athlete not letting on they hurt, playing through a minor known issue and a parent either disregarding the child's pain or forcing them to continue through it. It doesn't sound as if the pitcher and her parent in the first post knew why there was pain. Until they knew why and could make an informed decision, they should stop.

 

[Izzy's Dad]

14 YO DD played in a tourney 2 weeks ago. She was playing first base and got crashed by the runner. She was laying flat on her back with her glove in the air, ball still inside, and her hip out of place. I was coaching 3rd, and did not know her hip was out of place. She did not cry, limp, or say she was hurt.

I had to put her in pitching to close that game, and she pitched the 2nd game, and did the best she's ever done. After the 2nd game, we discovered her hip was out of place. Put it back into place 5 times the rest of the day. In the 3rd game, 2 of our other pitchers were getting hammered, and she came up to me and said "dad, you've got to put me in so we can get out of this mess". I told her no, but after another inning, she insisted. She pitched the 1st game on Sunday, and threw better than the day before.

She knew it was her last tourney until next spring, and was getting ready to go on 6 week break. She probably would have quit the team if I wouldn't of let her pitch after I found out about the injury.

I think she did it because A) She loves to play, and B) She has played up with bigger/tougher girls all season.

BTW - within 5 days, she was 100% again.

 

[chinamigarden]

14 YO DD played in a tourney 2 weeks ago. She was playing first base and got crashed by the runner. She was laying flat on her back with her glove in the air, ball still inside, and her hip out of place. I was coaching 3rd, and did not know her hip was out of place. She did not cry, limp, or say she was hurt.

I had to put her in pitching to close that game, and she pitched the 2nd game, and did the best she's ever done. After the 2nd game, we discovered her hip was out of place. Put it back into place 5 times the rest of the day. In the 3rd game, 2 of our other pitchers were getting hammered, and she came up to me and said "dad, you've got to put me in so we can get out of this mess". I told her no, but after another inning, she insisted. She pitched the 1st game on Sunday, and threw better than the day before.

She knew it was her last tourney until next spring, and was getting ready to go on 6 week break. She probably would have quit the team if I wouldn't of let her pitch after I found out about the injury.

I think she did it because A) She loves to play, and B) She has played up with bigger/tougher girls all season.

BTW - within 5 days, she was 100% again.

Your dd dislocated her hip? And you put it back in place 5 times in one day? Is that what happened?

 

[chinamigarden]

Sparky Anderson once said "pain don't hurt you" translated from Sparky to English what he was saying is. Some times an injury might be painful but to play with that specific injury will not cause you further harm.

Parents are generally not knowledgable enough on sports medicine or orthopeodics to make the call on which kind of injury you have. Instead the playing through pain mentality has put many young athletes at risk. One previous post that I would love to have some clarification on possibly points out just how ignorant we parents can be about the danger of certain injuries. Some years back a HS football player dislocated his hip. The coach helped him out by pulling on his leg and popping it back in. Traping the femoral artery in the process, the kid bled to death in about 3 minutes. If that happened to our child, what would the ramifications to the coach be? If we did it to our child would we be willing to live the rest of our live with the knowledge that we killed our own child, so she could play more softball that day?

Sometimes we need to be prudent and let a doctor make the call. No tournament is so important to risk your childs health and well being. Jim Leyland was asked this past playoff season if he was going to pitch Justin Verlander on 3 days rest, and he emphatically said no. The future of Justin Verlander's career was more important then winning one tournament. Even if that tournament was the World Series.