To insist that DS (age 11) wears a helmet when skateboarding?

[Tex111]

He has the usual argument, his friends don't and it's not cool. I know the other parents and I'm surprised they don't insist on helmets but I still think DS should wear one. Your thoughts please.

Our local skate park insists on it. No helmet; no skateboarding.

Dh was a skater and will still embarrass ds by showing him some tricks on his board but even he insists ds wears a helmet and he wouldn't insist if there want good reason as he's the laxer out of us both when it comes to parenting

You do realise that if you insist on this, you'll have to go with him and supervise or accept that he will be disobeying you as soon as you are out of sight?

If his friends don't wear helmets, he'll be a laughing stock if he wears one 'because my mother says I have to'.

I would never inflict that on a child.

I have never (personally) known a child to suffer a non-minor head injury while cycling or skateboarding or doing anything else.

The risk is there, of course, but it's a matter or weighing that very small risk against your son's guaranteed humilation.

Yanbu.
All the jackass folks (and they are REALLY stupid) and Tony hawks wear helmets.

Mine will do as she's told, I will check up on her and there will be consequences if she doesn't. Either she abides by my rules or she doesn't get her bike etc

That's parenting isn't it?

lol

he SO SO SO Wont ever.
we have had three broken arm/wrists

but he bloody loves it and keeps him active all day

he will just lie and say he will
and as someone else said WAY more likely to break a wrist than a head

I agree with joy and melon.

Fuck no. What sort of moron is telling you otherwise?

We have a skateboard park nearby our house. I bloody cringe at the kids there without helmets, and I judge the hell out of their parents.

god PLEASE DONT GO TO THE SKATE PARK

Two words. MICHAEL SCHUMACHER.

Yes, I know he was skiing but it would be so easy to have a similar accident on a skateboard.

Newmorning - really?

My colleague very, very, very nearly died from a cycling accident where there was no car involved, just a bird that ran into the road causing him to brake v suddenly, went over the handlebars and landed on his head.

He was wearing a helmet - but had 3 weeks in a coma, ventilated, many weeks in hospital, had to learn to swallow/walk again and is still suffering the consequences. Without a helmet, he'd have died.

So, being 'cool' or run the risk of being cold in a coffin?

They have to at the skatepark, if he's just in the garden making that god damn awful Ker-bang racket he doesn't. he's more likely to break an ankle in the garden than bang his head

Joysmum

I'm guessing your daughter has not reached her teens yet.

My son used to be a skater and would spend hours on end at the skate park, he was one of the younger ones there when he first started going at 12/13 - nobody ever wore helmets.

Back in my day, no one wore seatbelts either. babies were carried in carry cots on the back seat of the car, waiting to be catapulted through the windscreen! So that was OK then? Acceptable risk?

My children ALWAYS wear helmets when on their bikes - they are 14, 12 and 9 and have been brought up like this from toddlers so they do not even think to question it. DH cycles 10 miles to & from the station every day. In hi viz clothes & helmet. He has been in an accident once in 30+ years of cycling on the road and thank god for the helmet which was cracked in half when his head hit the windscreen and shattered it. he also had lots of bruising and cuts/grazes to ribs, arms and legs.
I never cease to be amazed by the numbers of unsteady tiny tots riding their bikes up and down curbs with no regard for their safety - no helmets. When Y6 did their cycling proficiency the school quite rightly insisted on helmets - then half the parents let them ride home with the helmets dangling from their handlebars! And the numbers of cyclists riding round dressed in black with no lights or helmets staggers and terrifies me, as a motorist.

OP, YANBU! yes he may be much more likely to break a wrist and many skaters will never have a serious injury, but a head injury has the potential to be fatal or life changing. Those parents who have never insisted on their DC wearing helmets and they have all been ok - you were just lucky.

they are quite cool near us motorbike style ones

Yes. Head injuries can have lifelong effects.

My ds2 has epilepsy - most likely acquired from a terrible fall and blow to his head as a toddler.

This isn't about bikes.

YANBU. No helmet, no skateboard. One blow to the head can have lifelong effects, and if he's doing tricks and stuff, he could be going pretty fast and could fall from quite a height.

Are any of you lot actually parents of skateboarders? Or just toddlers ?!

My son's school has one of the highest percentage of pupils (60%) who cycle to school in the country, a minority wear helmets, most don't and a significant number (mainly younger years) can be seen cycling along with a helmet hanging on their handlebars.
I'm sure most of them will have grown up wearing a helmet whenever they were on their bikes, however peer pressure becomes far more important than safety concerns.

Near us teens wear not only helmets to cycle but coats. I know!!

No one wears helmets. Specially not the ducking annoying scooter boys in their chinos.

Sorry. I should have said no one was helmets to skateboard, but they do wear them to cycle to and from school. However wearing coats and school is the most shocking!