Am I Being a Bad Parent With My Son?

[MariaRicheim75]

Hi all, I wanted to share this with you because I have a dilemma with my twelve-year-old son. I am English myself but living in the suburbs of Munich, Germany and have five children; two with my first husband; three with my second, including a boy that was only born about a month ago. My concerned son is the second - eldest and ever since he was six years old he has broken his arm six times (including breaking his arm on the first day of school) and one that occurred on the same day as the birth of my youngest child, also breaking three ribs, his big toe, badly spraining his ankle, and receiving quite a serious concussion in addition to the broken arm. Last year he suffered a severe break to his collar bone and suffered from frozen shoulder as a knock-on effect and had to have physiotherapy for five months. He has also broken his ankle and two fingers. A parent from his various sports groups etc. (he plays a LOT of sport) has told me to pay more attention to his actions and to stop being so careless, but his everyday activities are no different to any other boy of his age, such as playing football, rugby or riding his bike. The thing is , I worry every time he plays in a match or goes and rides his bike or plays football with his friends. I don't want to stop him from playing all this sport, since it is where he is at his happiest, but then again, I don't want to have to call for an ambulance for him because he's fallen and broke his leg etc. What is your advice?

If you have a second language that you speak 24/7 for over 20 years, much more than your first language, your first language becomes like your second language. I did not come on here for people to question my nationality, I came here for parenting advice. And what does it matter if my English is not what it used to be? We are all parents here, just wanting to raise our children happily. Thank you to all the parents who gave their advice without giving their opinion on my native language, because in the long run it doesn't matter.

It could just be bad luck but does sound a bit excessive. My 12 year old is sporty and has a broken ankle and a broken elbow in the last 3 years.

Good luck with the appointment 😊

Sorry I did not mean to post that message twice :)

Thank you very much :)

Concur with seeking extra medical advice as you are clearly doing.

Thats a lot of fractures for one kid even a sport mad one. Not saying it is but lots of breaks from being clumsy doing what he loves mght be dyspraxia affecting his gross motor skills. If it is physio and OT can help.

My daughters nasty fractures turned out to be caused by hidden benign bone tumors weakening her major bones. She is at greater risk from repeat fractures and has been banned from any contact or high impact sports. These showed up on x-ray's, and in great detail on her MRI's and CAT scans.

The pain from that many fractures not acting as a deterant from taking risks might indicate his neural system is not as responsive as it might be. If that is even a teeny possibility its worth checking for as that would be something your son would need to know to help pretect himself from taking the wrong kind of risks.

Hope you can get to the bottom of what is behind this for your son soon.

I’m so annoyed at the casual racism behind that question I can’t even remember why I read this thread. same here

Hi, we had the appointment last week. The doctor did not see anything wrong but he will continue to have a check-up every 6 months to see if any problems develop. Thank you for all the advice and my son gets his cast off in 5 days anyway and he is very relieved about that :)

Shit - that's scary - have there been any referrals to,social services equivalent? Glad he's being seen - but is a review in a further 6 months enough?

Do it was one very bad accident and several minor ones. I wouldn’t worrry too much but he may have issues with risk assessment or coordination. I would definitely stop the contact sports for the time being. Especially the rugby. If he goes back to it choose a different league. The children don’t sound like they aren’t being as careful as they should be, I doubt the quality of coaching. Rugby can be very dangerous if players aren’t properly trained.

Did they do any tests or scans? I’m a bit concerned that in one appointment they can dismiss any underlying concerns. How have they actually investigated this?

I think you need to push harder for this to be taken more seriously.

Haven't the doctors referred him for some checks? These breaks seem excessive.

Bit late to the thread, but caught my eye!
Our daughter had two long bone breaks from very innocuous falls, in two consecutive years, and that was enough to flag a referral for a bone density scan. She does have underlying immune issues however, but it doesn’t seem to be relevant in anyway. Her bone density was on the low side, but apparently not enough to cause potential to break that easily.
It turned out after a referral to a behavioural optometrist, having noted problems with her constant head movements and difficulty focusing when reading, that she had a lot of issues with her vision, including her peripheral vision. She couldn’t balance a bike and was always bumping into things, not to mention really struggling in school with sport. One year on and ongoing therapy, she is thankfully much better. So perhaps explore that side of things too. Good luck x