...to not make my 5 and 3 year old wear a cycle helmet?

[blindasabatenburg]

Am I failing to protect them sufficiently? Nobody wore helmets when we were kids and I don't recall anyonr suffering a serious head injury, though we all came off from time to time.

They could just as easily fall from a climbing frame at the park, but nobody would insist on a helmet for the park!!!

This is the type of thing you can debate until the cows Coe home without ever being able to accurately evaluate it. I deal with this type 'dilemma' by NOT giving it much thought and going along with what is generally recommended..........which is to wear a helmet.

I take this attitude with lots of things for example vaccinations and breastfeeding. It makes life easy

I really can't see why it is a problem to wear a bike helmet. It is a non issue as far as I am concerned.

Good post niminypiminy.
I don't bother with helmets for on road cycling but do wear them off road. Reason being is that the risk of coming off whilst mountain biking off road is far higher than on road.

The

The only time I've fallen off whilst road riding is when I hit a patch of mud whilst coming off a road onto a cycle path. I wasn't wearing a helmet and I was flung sideways off the bike head first. I tucked my head in instinctively, my shoulder made contact with the ground, I did a forward roll whilst twisting and ended up on my feet facing the way I had come. My head was totally uninjured as was the rest of me. If I was wearing a helmet I would not have been able to tuck my head in and most likely the helmet would have caught on something / caused increased friction and I would have suffered serious rotational injury to my neck.

I did most of my cycling as an adult in the Netherlands where pretty much noone wears a helmet. I always associated helmets with road cycling and possibility of being hit by a car. I wouldn't of thought children would need a helmet in the park/ on cycle path as there isn't any traffic?

My friends brother didn't wear a helmet when cycling on a road. Car came out of a junction too fast and he died. Serious head injury among other things.

It's up to you but if your kids get seriously hurt without wearing a helmet you won't get sympathy from me. However your kids will get sympathy from me because I pity them if their mother thinks that not wearing a helmet on a bike is perfectly fine..

Rainbowslollipops - cycle helmets do not protect against being hit by cars. The helmet or lack of was almost certainly irrelevant in your friend's brothers case.

Why can't people get that cycle helmets don't protect against a ton and a half of metal ruining over you?

It is a lot easier here in Aus where helmets are mandatory and kids just accept this as part of the status quo.

To use the ' we did not do it as kids' argument is pointless. Kids were sent up chimneys 100 years ago- perhaps I should sent my reception child out to work- after all it never mattered 100 years ago.

I agree with Tracey.

Buggerall - right so the fact that he fell to the ground doesn't have anything to do with it either? So because he wasnt wearing a helmet his head should be fine when he hit the ground? Ok....

I'm sure I read something about a study into the link between head trauma/bad whack on the head and dementia in older age. I'll have a google.

21 years ago my DS3 (aged almost 8) was allowed to play outside of the garden for the first time. I told him to stick to the pavements on our very quiet housing estate. I had bought him and his big brother a bike for Xmas but couldnt afford the helmets as well (they used to be very expensive.)

In the few minutes he was outside he had ignored what I had said and decided to have a nosey in the back of a flat back lorry delivering soft drinks. The driver started to reverse....he hadnt noticed my lad.

Within a minute I was under the lorry with him trying to stop the bleeding from his head. He did not survive. Please get your children to wear helmets everybody - the coroner said his injuries could have been survivable if he had a helmet on.

The OP's argument about olden days vs nowadays is poor but it's still a bit 50/50 whether a helmet is actually worthwhile so the question is perfectly valid.

I wear a helmet on the road and my kids wear them too but I know that studies have shown wearing a helmet can be safer. Thus it's a tricky one IMHO.

Ultimately though I'm a paranoid kind of chap/parent so would rather have one and not need it than need it and not have it.

As for the OP it's a personal choice and the only thing that really matters is that you are 100% happy with your choice.

Studies have shown that NOT wearing a helmet can be safer I mean. Sorry

I wear helmet, my DD wears a helmet when she's on the back of my bike. My DS wears a helmet when he's on his bike.

I'm not bothered if another parent chooses not to put helmets on their children, as frankly its not my child who would get head injuries in a crash.

The point about cycle helmets is that they will not protect you in a collision with a car. They protect only under certain conditions. There is some evidence that car drivers drive less safely around cyclists who are wearing helmets as they think (erroneously) that helmets protect in a crash.

I was once nearly in a collision caused by a driver screeching to a halt, blaring on his horn and putting his head out of the car window to yell 'why hasn't your baby got a helmet on!'. His actions nearly caused me to have a collision with another car which suddenly had to stop in front of me.

shabbaTheGreek, I'm so sorry about your son.

But surely the lesson from your story would (possibly) be to supervise children on bikes? I see a lot of small children riding on the pavements and up and down our road. It's a quiet cul-de-sac but there are regular delivery vehicles, as well as people's cars, and people could well make the judgement that it is too risky for them to play out.

Or not.

Either is IMO a legitimate parenting choice. People make legitimate parenting choices all the time that could have very bad consequences - but 99% of the time do not. When something bad happens you can say 'what if' and so on.

I had a major head injury from not wearing a helmet. I was cycling on a flat, well lit bike trail, hit a bump that threw me off and I landed head smash into a rock beside the path. Apparently. I have no memory and was very lucky there was a lady walking her dog who found me quickly and got me to hospital. If I'd been wearing one that day, the rock would've hit the helmet first, I may still have had mild concussion but the life changing after effects wouldn't have happened.

Each to their own when it comes to parenting, and yes, accidents can happen anywhere, but I will always make my DC wear them in the years to come.

You can't reduce and mitigate risk totally in life, but it's a very simple risk reduction measure, the same as a seat belt.

Whilst in a & e recently, my DP saw a child, about 8, come in with a head injury after falling off his bike doing stunts. It was clear the boy was known to the staff. His parents were told (DP heard this) that he should have had a helmet on, and due to the number of times he was in and out of a & e with head injuries after falling off his bike, they would consider reporting the parents to social services if it continued.

I just don't get why you wouldn't wear a helmet.

I had my front door open and only went back inside to turn the oven on to cook Sunday dinner. I turned back and my sons friends were screaming for me to help. It was 50 steps there and back. I was supervising my own child and everybody elses child.

There was only one good outcome from my poor choice of allowing cycling without a helmet. My lovely lad carried a donor card - he had done since he was about 4 and asked me what they were for. He had signed it himself. The only thing he could donate (because he had very bad crush injuries) were his corneas. Two children were given the gift of sight thanks to my lad

Shabba, please don't feel you need to justify yourself in terms of supervision. Your son was 8, not 2. I am so sorry for your loss.

YABU.

Here's my story (which I have told on here before):

When ds was 7 we were on holiday cycling. We are a family of keen cyclists and ds was a very competent rider. We were going down a wide family track in a forest . There was no obvious reason for ds to fall off where he did and nothing obvious for his head to hit. Nevertheless, fall off he did. He was in front of me and imagine my horror when he did not move or cry out when he hit the ground. I remember screaming down the track for dh and looking at the side of ds's helmet which was completely crushed, simply because of the way he had fallen. I remember feeling numb.

An hour later when the ambulance arrived, one of his pupils was blown and he was incoherent. The ambulance refused to take him and said he needed immediate transfer to a specialist head trauma unit and 30 minutes later, he was air-lifted out.

He was in a drug induced coma for days. No one could tell me during that time if my wonderful boy would come back to me.

This story ends happilly, ds was fine. However, the consultant neurosurgeon who saw him was completely clear that if the damage sustained by the helmet had been sustained by his skull, ds would have died on impact. There is absolutely no doubt that the helmet saved his life.

I didn't and it was fine when they were three and five and cycling about as fast as I could run right next to me - what was harder was making them do it when they were cycling to school along the pavement aged 7 and 9 (daughter compliant, son not so). So just as a good habit for later (see the above tragic story) if nothing else, it's worth it now. Head injuries are nasty - skull fracture myself from swinging round those round bits of scaffolding people used to use as road barriers, no long term consequence but that's just luck.

Goosey - so glad your DS was OK - I couldn't read your post fast enough, and was hoping and praying for a good outcome. I remember the 'no sound' thing so well. xx

I think helmets are a good idea. Doesn't mean I am an infallible user of helmets! I make DD wear a helmet to roller blade and scoot as she goes far too fast.