11 minute read
HEALTHY LIVING
Avoid sports injuries in kids
LYNN U NICHOLS
If your elementary-aged child is growing like a weed or playing a demanding sport, it’s time to be extra vigilant about sports injuries.
Kids who play explosive sports tend to get hurt more often, especially during growth spurt years. Growth spurts typically occur between ages 7 and 12 for girls and between 10 and 14 for boys. Explosive sports is anything that involves fast stops and starts, sprinting, or jumping. Good examples are football, soccer, basketball, track, volleyball, and gymnastics.
During growth spurts, kids go through a relatively tight phase where their muscles and tendons become inflexible, making them more prone to injury. That’s because bones grow first, followed by muscles and tendons. Muscles and tendons are stretched tight until they catch up to growing bones.
STRETCHING, CORE EXERCISES, AND ROTATING SPORTS HELP
A great way to avoid injury is warming up beforehand. When kids go from zero to 60, it can result in muscle strains and pulls, because cold muscles don’t absorb shock or impact as well as warm muscles. That means planning ahead and getting to practice early so your child can stretch at least 5 to 10 minutes before and after practice. While not all experts recommend stretching, Harvard Health says it keeps muscles flexible, which kids need to maintain range of motion in their joints.
When core muscles are strong they support the spine, pelvis and shoulders and ready them for impact during sports. Encourage your kids to do core exercises to keep their cores strong. Draw a line from your belly button around your back: these are your core muscles.
By getting your kids involved in a variety of sports, you help them develop their whole bodies and avoid the overuse of any one muscle. Kids who come in with the most injuries are the ones playing the same sport in both a club and at school. Consider having your kids play different sports each season and not get too carried away— at least during the growth spurt years.
Knees tend to get injured without stretching. If your daughter is in track and field, be extra aware. Running without stretching can cause knee pain, particularly IT band injuries. The IT band runs from the hip to the knee along the outer thigh. It easily tightens up and without stretching, tugs at the knee joint, causing pain. Other common sports injuries in kids are twisted ankles, chronic tendonitis, sprained wrists and ruptures of the Achilles tendon.
When injury happens
Here are some tips for dealing with injuries and when to call the doctor: • If your daughter twists an ankle while running, have her stop immediately, sit down and take pressure off of it. If it feels better within a few minutes, she can run again but she shouldn’t ever try to run through the pain. • If your son falls and twists an ankle, see a doctor if he has extreme pain. If he is unable to bear weight on it, that’s a warning sign. He might have a fracture.
Hearing a pop or snap at the time of the fall is a sign that he might have broken it. Yet if he can bear weight and it gets better each day, it’s most likely a sprain. • Treat swollen or bruised muscles with the PRINCE technique: Protection (ankle brace), Rest (crutches, if severe),
Ice (for the first 24 to 72 hours), NSAIDS (acetaminophen for pain), Compression (ACE bandage) and Elevation (keep it raised). Depending on the severity of the sprain it will heal in a week or two. If it gets worse, not better, see a doctor. • With shoulder, arm or hand injuries, if your child feels numbness, tingling or weakness, get it checked out by your family doctor or a sports medicine specialist.
GOAL High School Excited for Graduates and Community Growth
To learn more
BY JACOB DOYLE
At the end of this school year, GOAL High School, the largest in Colorado, graduated nearly 1,000 students across the state. Through 11 separate graduations they got the festivities going and celebrated the Seniors on stage. Chief Executive Officer Dr. Constance Jones relayed her thoughts on the celebrations, “We are so proud of our graduating Seniors and their perseverance throughout their most unusual high school careers. The fact that they have gone through this historic pandemic and did not let it become an excuse…makes their graduation even more special!”
And special it was, especially in the Greeley area with approximately 200 graduates of their own. The budding site, Greeley, has been going through a bit of an overhaul with their mainstay and Rockstar Assistant Principal Dr. Derek Staves moving up to be the Principal of the Denver region. Even so, Dr. Staves said this about the Greeley site. “The community in Greeley generally has been really, really supportive of all our students. They support us in helping move those kids forward. They are generous in giving to our kids. They’re great. This is a great community.”
GOAL has created a lot of community partnerships, not just the literal partnerships with community organizations, but a partnership that is built with the whole community. GOAL High School has committed themselves to all 37 communities they reside in. Through different programs and events that they put on, they enrich the community.
GOAL has a multitude of programs that directly lead to the success and growth of their students and the community they live in, including but not limited to their partnership with Perfect World Music, which holds concerts that students participate in, or GOAL Ventures, where students travel the U.S. while working and earning credit. All of this is to uplift the community and ensure a great education for the students. As the new Assistant Principal of Greeley says. “Our students are absolutely part of our community and world, and we’re not just educating them, we are creating productive members of society.”
Goalac.org Or call:
877-PRO-GOAL (877-776-4625)
for more information or a site tour! Jacob Doyle is a Journalism Intern at GOAL High School.
Break it up!
Solving sibling fights
Lynn U Nichols
Sibling fights happen, but they don’t have to bring down the house. Most of us are uncomfortable and even annoyed when our kids fight. Rather than thinking of fighting as something you have to always stop, consider the positive side of conflicts between your kids—learning life lessons of negotiation, sharing and conflict resolution. Sure, they might need your guidance and good direction on how to master these skills, but don’t fret. By putting in place some solid house rules, rewards and consequences, and giving them tools for getting along, you will win the day and keep the house standing.
DRAW SOME LINES IN THE SAND
Make a list of non-negotiables for your household, a.k.a house rules. Establish and share them long before any fists fly. Speaking of fists, no physical violence will probably be at the top of your list—no hitting, no pushing, no hair pulling, no breaking toys, no throwing things. You might include other items, like no name calling, cursing, or saying the hate word.
“These behaviors are problematic between adults so it’s our job as parents to help kids learn early on not to develop these
habits when in a conflict. It’s important they learn to express emotions without belittling or degrading the other person,” says Andrea Holt, Marriage and Family Therapist with UCHealth’s Family Medicine Center in Fort Collins.
Set some softer rules for promoting peace, like having to ask permission to borrow toys or go into each other’s rooms. When rules are posted and agreed upon by everyone, your kids will be less likely to argue about them.
“Also, ban the word ‘always.’ Because it’s never really always,” Holt adds.
GIVE REWARDS AND CONSEQUENCES
If your kids break a non-negotiable rule, don’t let them beg and bug you to let them out of a consequence. Instead, give a short and realistic consequence. Then, the next time they avoid a conflict, praise them. Let them know specifically what you liked. Rather than doling out a simple, “Good job,” say, “I liked how you said that you would give your brother a turn in five minutes, and then you did it. That kept the peace.” Your real praise and attention is the best reward, but you can sweeten the deal by letting him choose a game to play or a special treat.
When you witness your kids getting along, point it out and let them know how much you appreciate it. In other words, catch them at being good.
Rewards are especially important for aggressive or impulsive kids. Create a point or reward system. Say, if they don’t break a non-negotiable over four days, they earn a reward or privilege. Yet, reward systems need a good, long try—six months to a year.
“Sometimes one child demands more time and attention. Be sure to counter that with special attention to the child who isn’t demanding it. In general, it’s really important for parents to spend individual time with each child,” Holt says.
Got a tattler? Try this! If you’ve got a tattler, you might want to cover your ears and run away. Instead, try these ideas:
1. Introduce the idea of tootling, not tattling. A toot is a positive shout-out to someone rather than a negative reflection on what someone is doing. Give toots a ton of attention, and toot a lot, yourself.
2. Explore the real reason behind the tattle. Rather than shutting your daughter down, ask her what she would like to say to her toddler sister, instead. For example, if her sister tugged the cat’s tail and she tells on her, ask: “What would you like to say to your sister?” She might simply turn to her sister and say, “Don’t pull the cat’s tail. It hurts her.” Promoting direct communication can stop tattling in its tracks.
TOOLS TO SOLVE CONFLICTS
Getting along with others is a learned skill. Teach your kids to use ‘I’ statements instead of ‘you’ statements. Have them voice their needs clearly and succinctly and share their feelings. Some kids might be more naturally empathetic, but all kids can learn empathy. Initiate conversations, talk about why their fighting was not okay and encourage them to share how the conflict made them feel. Doing so teaches them the valuable skill of identifying their feelings. Finally, if your kids are frustrated, let them take a break and come back to discussing the problem or apologizing later.
Here’s another tip: pause before jumping in to fix the conflict. Let it play out and use your wisdom on when it’s escalating into something scary before stepping in. Doing so gives your kids the chance to practice those allimportant conflict resolution skills.
If you feel like you are breaking up the same fight over and over, step back and ask yourself why. Is there a pattern to their fighting, like they always fight after school? If so, do they simply need a snack or a chance to run around and blow off steam before doing their homework? Or, do fights break out when you are not giving them attention, like when you are cooking dinner or cleaning the house? When you get to the root cause, work to change up the circumstances that lead to fights.
PROMOTE RESPECT BETWEEN SIBLINGS
Early on, reinforce the value of the sibling relationship. If your kids have different personalities and like opposite things, take turns letting them share their individual worlds. Maybe it’s playing Legos, looking through hairstyle magazines or going fishing. Each gets their own time to shine and show the others something that makes them tick. Create a game out of it. Give it a name like, “What I Like” and keep it fairly short and simple to promote success. You can lessen rivalry between siblings by showing them, in front of each other, how much you appreciate their differences, never indicating that one way is better than the other. Sibling relationships are often the longest ones in our lifetimes. While friends may come and go, siblings are here to stay. Show your kids you value their unity by telling them what good brothers or sisters they are, praising them when they are kind, and celebrating each other’s victories. Having a brother or sister is a great gift. Let them know it.
