At what point should a child start to wear a bike helmet?

[StillStandingOnAMushroom]

Okay, so I know this is a contentious topic and I know there are a lot of strong feelings out there. Let me first tell you what I don't want. If you think your child should always wear a helmet from the moment they first get on a tricycle/ balance bike/3-wheeled scooter, then I know your point of view and I respect it, but it's not going to help me. Thank you very much for your thoughts, but I will very politely ignore you. So please mutter into your coffee about how irresponsible we are and leave it at that.

So our daughter is 7. She has never been one to push the physical boundaries, she's always been pretty slow and steady. We've never put a bike helmet on her, not because I don't believe in helmets - when we go mountain biking she will wear a helmet. When she goes horse riding she wears a riding hat. I think there are absolutely circumstances when a hat/helmet should be worn. But after researching helmet wearing for bikes it turns out that yes you're safer wearing a helmet if you have an accident but you're also more likely to have an accident if you're wearing one, because you think you're safer. When snowboarding, I fell so many more times when wearing a helmet because I was going faster and taking more risks. My head was safer because of the helmet, but my arms, legs, body not so much.

I want her to learn that she needs to take care of her head and her body before she gets too confident and starts doing all the crazy stuff. I think this is a really important part of teaching her safety. Kids under 12 don't really feature in head injury statistics with or without helmets. But. There is also a line where they start doing crazier stuff and going faster. At what point do you say okay they're now going fast enough that they need to start wearing a helmet?

I'm saying WEAR A HELMET. That wasn't obvious, clearly.

@Tristar15 Yes thank you for that observation. I was merely pointing out that wearing a well fitted helmet didn't stop me having 30 stitches in my face, tooth damage, a broken nose (not to mention four broken fingers). My point is, they are essential but they will not cover every injury. My son had a motorbike type helmet until he outgrew it. I'd rather have one of those. Not practical for general biking though.

Best to wear a helmet from the beginning and get them used to it,

a friends 2yo ds was spared serious injury/death when he was scooting along and hit by a car reversing out of their driveway, because he was wearing a helmet:

I’ve seen plenty of children 7 and under riding on the road (younger ones with their parents). And tbh i don’t think children much older than 7 should be riding on the pavement. As soon as you’re learning to cycle you should be learning road safety skills. Where is your child riding? Is it around a playground or something?

We started with helmets because it was easier to keep it doing than introduce it later. But for you, where you are now, I’d think “how likely are they to fall off or have someone or something collide into them”. And if that’s getting more likely, then it’s helmet time. Anyone riding on the road in the UK is better off with a helmet so work back from that.

Just in case the OP is actually serious:
Accidents will happen. It’s not dependent on how safe you feel.
If your head is protected at least your ‘control centre’ is at less risk of damage. Yes, the ‘type’ of injuries sustained in helmet wearing vs not are the same but I can bet my life on it that the number of casualties is vastly different in proportion.
Why take the risk over something so easily mitigated?
As for the post about the A&E staff seeing the small proportion who sustain injuries and therefore thinking they are more prevalent, do you not think we’d rather see less children with brain injuries due to lack of (easily accessible) protection?! Those that were being as safe as reasonably possible are heartbreaking enough, those that could have been protected by the parents with simple measures and weren’t…. That’s another level.

I know a child that died when they were hit by a car and weren't wearing a helmet. It's a non negotiable for me.

I think you can continue to bash helmets and feel like you're making some point by not getting your daughter to wear a helmet, but if she (god forbid) has an accident and injures herself (accidents can happen anywhere and anytime), then it's too late to undo the damage. You can't take it back.

Your daughters head is precious - I can't understand why you would take such a preventable risk.

I never used to wear helmet, because I never cycle on the road, only pootle around on cycle paths. Then two colleagues had separate incidents where they would have had serious head injuries if it wasn't for their helmets, both on traffic free, leisure rides. Now I always wear one, it's not worth the risk.

At what point?
I'd say about 3 years ago

This.

I work in neuro ITU.

No helmet = no wheels.

What are you trying to prove:discuss here OP?
People are commenting and you keep producing 'evidence' that wearing a helmet doesn't prevent issues.
I find this odd.
The fact is that your child should have been conditioned to wear a helmet from the day she 'got wheels'. From that age it doesn't make them more reckless or whatever you're citing. She's now 7. Educate her to the danger of falling and hitting her head with and without a helmet. It's not an option, no helmet, no wheels. Simple.

Me too.

I never put a helmet on my 2yo indoors on his balance bike. I do when he is outside though after he had a bit of an accident!!! That was a lesson we'll learnt for me. Poor baby. I felt so bad and it wasn't anything major. Thank goodness.

As soon as they were on a bike.

My kids were the type to zoom off as soon as they could and the pavements/paths are often uneven meaning that even an experienced rider could fall off.

Always wearing a helmet has meant never having to argue about wearing one.

Fatal head injuries caused by children not wearing helmets are not recorded in statistics if a collision isn't involved, so the data is flawed. You only need to Google severe brain injuries and death of children not wearing helmets to see many tragic stories of children who had small falls. Why would you take this risk?

www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/politics/parents-of-gosport-boy-leo-burton-who-died-in-bike-accident-campaign-for-law-change-1308057

Helmet is non-negotiable, same as a seat belt is non-negotiable to travel in a car. My 13 year old has been warned numerous times if I find out he has ridden his bike to school without his helmet on then he is going to have to walk to school for a long time. (Lots of local kids ride with the straps undone or with the helmet on their handlebars and there is about one serious cycle accident per year with kids from his schooll.) I agree 100% that it's easier to establish rules like that when they are young.

My rule is helmet on the road. I just don’t think the risk of falling off and hitting your head is particularly high cycling slowly on a pavement.

We had the no helmet no wheels rule, as children. Even more so after one of my cousins fell off his bike and hit his head. He was wearing a bike helmet and ended up with concussion but it could've been far worse had he not been wearing one. If I'd have worn a helmet whilst roller skating 9 years ago I could've saved myself severe concussion when the back of my head made contact with a wooden floor. The sound of my head thudding onto the floor could be heard by my Sister half way across the room over the loud music, 3 years of near constant migraines, 3 years of losing sensation in my arms and legs and even now 9 years down the line, my left side goes weak when I'm tired and I also struggle to speak properly too. Oh and add in horrendous mood swings too and vertigo.

You say you aren’t anti helmets but seem vehemently opposed to them.

helmet wearing needs to become a habit so that once they are on roads it’s second nature. It’s no good comparing us to Holland because we aren’t Holland - we don’t have the impressive cycle network they do nor the lower number of cars.

having stood at the bedside of a teenager as he was pronounced brain dead and asked if he could be organ donor, all because he bunny hopped off a curb and fell off smacking his head without a helmet, everyone should wear a helmet when on pavements. It should have been an embarrassing gaffe in front of his friends, but instead his mother tried desperately to hold it together in front of his older sister when she knew what was happening. It was one of the most upsetting things I’ve been part of. But hey, what do I know?

I genuinely thought your child was going to be a toddler on a tricycle from your title. She needs to wear a helmet!

You have got a very poor understanding of risk, statistics, injury prevention and frankly, basic parenting. The stats you quote are irrelevant to your specific situation and have no bearing on whether or not it's the safest course of action for your child to wear a helmet.

You tell a 7 year old to always wear a helmet because they don't have the ability to assess their own risk factors. 7 year olds are vulnerable to their own and other people's stupidity, they should always be wearing a helmet!

When she's an adult cycling round Amsterdam she can make her own choices.

My daughter was in children’s neurosurgery at 4 years old for a brain tumour and her surgeon was evangelical about helmets for children on bikes and scooters because he was constantly faced with trying to fix them. We were in and out of that ward for the next 6 years and there were always several children who had sustained head injuries on bikes.

Yes but you don't live in Holland and our roads and pavements are pretty shit. Hollands roads and pavements are from what I have seen much better quality and set up for bikes.

I don't work in A&E but have worked in both adult and paediatric neuro rehab and community therapies. Breaking a leg is usually easily recovered from... brain damage not so much. You're child may well end up in the 1%, one of my family members did and will now require nursing care for life. Theirs was an accident most people would just jump up from.

You don't have to do anything if you don't want to but my stance is to take all the sensible precautions you can whilst still living life. A helmet won't stop you riding a bike but a full body suit probably would so it therefore isn't sensible or proportionate to save you from a broken arm or leg!

Same goes for keeping children from behind horses and cutting up grapes etc. I have seen multiple cases of brain injuries from all three of these but lots of people will just chance it. My child still loves grapes, rides a bike and can go horse riding if he wants but whilst he's little I'll be cutting them up and a helmet will be mandatory until he's old enough to make that choice for himself.

Immediately I don't think bikes go 'Oh go on you have been good today we won't crash' it doesn't work that way

You are an idiot then. Sorry, but that is the most ridiculous rule. Even riding slowly can cause massive head injuries. What if someone crashes into your child on the pavement and they fall off and bang their head on a wall/fence/curb?