to stop my 6 year old child doing forward rolls at home?

[DiamondDoris]

My DS is a petit 6 year old, with asd traits and sensory issues. I bought a pilates ball for him to roll on but he has taken to rolling off it quickly and then trying to do a forward roll when he hits the floor. I have told him not to do it here, he must only do it under supervision at school. Am I just being overprotective?

Arse in the head ?

no, never stop watching.
join in! join in!

it's fun!

Pag - he is very bendy....tis a possibility

My MIL was v. anxious at my kids doing roly polies, she said she was worried their necks might snap. As they love a bit of roly poly bounce and tumble play, she frets a lot when she's over here. I'm sure she must think I'm recklessly disinterested, as I shrug and let them get on with it. Sometimes I'll move floor clutter out of their way, to prevent lego impact injuries [I'm also a slattern, my house is a mess].

OP is the only other person I've heard of worrying about this, I'm sure we would have heard by now if neck-snapping was a real possibility. I think this sort of play would be great for a child with sensory issues.

As an aside, the RoSPA Child safety website, which is well worth a look, has lots of good advice on all aspects of keeping kids safe, e.g. playground and trampoline safety, water safety, window blind cords etc, has info on some risks I hadn't even recognised:

www.rospa.com/childsafety/

I have the same as your DS and I LOVED forward rolls as a kid. I was obsessed! Could easily spend several hours in the garden alternately running around like a loon and doing head over heels as fast as I could. Banging headache later of course. I also did that thing where you lie down on your bed and lift your legs up as far as you can so your head is practically at a right angle to your neck. And my friend had a thing where we'd try to get all round my room just on the furniture, and we made a mattress slide from my 6 foot wardrobe to the floor.

at Betty

Nickel - no no no. I would take an eye out with my stilettos.

leave him be. He will be fine. I used to ride a tin tray down our stairs!

This can't be serious, surely? Isn't that like saying children should only ever run under supervision, or jump down steps under supervision.

Can't children just try things out?

By the time my son was 7 he could do cartwheels and flips. He taught himself in the garden.

I got paranoid about doing foward rolls around the age of 13 as I was scared I'd break my neck

Let him be, i'm the most over-protective mother in history but this would not bother me.
I was forever doing forward rolls & head stands as a child, i never hurt myself once and neither did my siblings!

Relax x

I have boy with ASD too, a sensory seeker. All the spinning/rolling/bouncing is good for them. Helps with balance, perioceptive sensory issues. Has he ever gotten Occupstional Therapy? Sounds like he'd enjoy it.

To your op, I would encourage him. Sounds like he's using his imagination to develop a game!! Watch closer or put him in a carpeted room!

I'm not judging, kids on the spectrum put themselves into harms way a lot, it's easy to lose perspective.
All the best

YABU My 7 yo is doing backflips in the lounge as I type

Unless I've read it wrong I don't think the Op has a problem with bog standard on the floor forward rolls, I think it's the fact he's doing it off a pilates ball (which iirc is reasonably large) It would make me cringe too, particularly if he's diving on, and coming off with some force.

I saw a group of boys around my age (like 17-20) doing backflips and all kinds of things near the Minster in York. They were AMAZING. Stunning. They were just hanging out, no one was really watching them. Doing roly polies is how you get to that stage!

I am afraid of the neck snapping thing too! but in my defence I went on a gymnastics course and got told that if children don't do them carefully - chin tucked in - then yep they can break their neck. It kind of stuck with me!

god, i never even thought of the neck snapping thing until you lot mentioned it!

my thought was that the OP might be worried he'd bash into the furniture.

Just to mention, I don't mind him jumping off his cabin bed, it's just the neck thing. I used to do all that stuff too as a kid, I don't know why I'm so paranoid. You've all made me see how unreasonable I am being

Last night my 10mo DS fell 3 feet off the changing table, bounced and pretty much shrugged it off.

I think they're actually pretty durable.

Just as a matter of interest (and to put your mind at ease), does anyone have any figures of he number of children who break their necks while trying to do forward rolls at home?

I suspect (though feel free to prove me wrong), that there aren't many. I've certainly never heard of it as being a major cause of death or injury to 6 year olds .

I don't know, DH has a fear of the DC neck snapping, and gets quite hysterical if they hang upside down off things.

I guess it could happen, but it's unlikely.

Unless you can't clear a safe space for him to do it in, then i don't see a problem with him doing it. Forward rolls aren't intrinsically dangerous. Even i can do them and i never achieved any of my gym badges at school, despite the best efforts of my gym teacher to belittle me :o

It's a motion that kids with ASD enjoy. DS1 stands on his head when stressed. Only problem is, he's nearly 9 and he's 4'6 and he likes doing it on chairs, where his feet go straight for the window, or wall lights or mirror, depending on the wall!

If you buy one of those plastic exercise mats, that could mark out a safe space for your DS to do his forward rolls in.

Said bitch gym teacher supervised me in her effort to stop being pathetic and accomplish a backward roll, btw. I ended up with a nice torticollis from that. She just accused me of putting it on to get out to doing PE.

Turns out, I'm hypermobile. I don't bear grudges, but...

i have taught literally thousands of kids to fwd roll and no snapped necks (yet).
However it sounds like what your DS is doing is like a dive fwd roll.There is no way 6 yo beginners would be left to do that unsupervised I would be on hand to tuck in any sticking out heads

OP, it would probably make me cringe to watch it too, but I'm another survivor of a childhood full of rolly-poly's(or 'tumbling your monkeys' as we called it).

This thread has also brought back great memories of sliding down the stairs inside the laundry bin, being put on the top of a door while my cousins swung it from side to side, getting a 'leg and a wing' (dad took hold of an ankle and a wrist and spun us round in circles, kind of like the headbanger thing on dancing on ice!), and being held upside down to 'walk' on the ceiling. We loved it!!

I'm worried about his neck snapping. It made me wince when I watched him.

I have told him not to do it here, he must only do it under supervision at school.

Lets see, one mother to one child, or one PE teacher to 30 kids in a class.

There is nothing like delegating responsibility