Helmets for kids while scooting- overprotective or normal??

[feistywife]

We have cycle helmets for our 2&4 yr old, which are usually deployed for scooting too- am I massively overprotective? As usually see most kids scooting w/o brain buckets. Your views? Wondering if 4 yr old is going to be laughing stock of new school chums...

I guess it just does depend where someone lives. Here, the parks are full of meandering pedestrians, dog walkers, folk pushing prams and I would not let children scooter fast there, esp not in a helmet in case they go full whack into someone.

But the pavement I have to walk down each day is nice and wide

Have to admit I am thinking now about taking the bike helmet after this thread, but still don't think it irresponsible not to do so. I's not like they are on the road.

What CYB said.

You have little control over how fast a scooter can go unless you are holding on to it in some way.

I'd say wise.

The worst injuries come from bashing heads on kerbsides. It's irrelevant the speed, but the angle is critical. Helmets come between heads and kerbsides. Easy.

Yup lougle. When I was a child, a cousin's friend was killed falling off her bike and bashing her head on the kerb. Going at snail's pace in a small village square; no car involved. Yes she was desperately unlucky, but if she'd been wearing a helmet she'd have jumped up unharmed.

Can I just play devil's advocate for a moment and suggest that a child could trip over a broken bit of pavement while walking "at a snail's pace" and smash their head on a kerb but we don't insist on helmets for a stroll on foot

That is a ridiculous comparison.

If you have a peek at my profile there is a pic of DS1's head after he fell off his scooter and landed headfirst on the pavement.

Needless to say they wear their helmets now.

Really TheOriginalFab?

I honestly cannot fathom what criteria posters are going on for helmets? Just the fact scooters are a bit like bikes? The fact they can go very fast, but oh that bit doesn't matter as they can fall off going at a snail's pace? Where they scooter exactly?

I seriously a considering putting DD in a helmet now to scooter, but also ponder exactly why I'd feel the need to? I think it's quite sensible to wonder about these things. Incidentally, my daughter did her most serious accident on a bookcase and got a whooping great bleeding head injury from that, but I am yet to put her in a helmet to go into the library.

No helmets on scooters here. And my ds's go much faster than I can run.

Scooters go very quickly and often without as much control over them as we would like. It is quite sensible to wear a helmet. It is called prevention.

Those of you who don't make your child wear a helmet, what is your reasoning? Some of you sound quite proud of your choice and critical of those with a difference of opinion.

Ds (nearly 3) is a cautious chap and has only rarely got above 1mph on his scooter - so currently I don't have a helmet for him as he hates any clothing and I want him to get better at scooting. If he turns into one of the 5yos for whom the "Don't go over 20 kph" rule on the scooter instructions is relevant, then I probably would make him wear one as I couldn't keep up to grab him in a fall.

I figure he's only an inch higher from the ground than when walking/running (when he trips over a lot), and unlike a bike he is likely to fall in a knee-scraping way like when running, as there's no bike between his legs. Whereas cycling it's harder to fall without hitting your head.

FWIW MrNC commutes by cycle, 40min each way down scary London A-roads, and no helmet, having weighed up the risks of his head being hit versus evidence that vehicles give you less room if you have a helmet. But more importantly for my piece of mind, he's done lots of martial arts and knows how to fall properly, even from a bike - he's been hit 3 times in 10 years and only damaged his knees and hands, once badly enough to go to A+E. Though that was on faster roads and a hit+run - at least the A23 rarely gets above 15mph!
On the rare occasions I cycle, I wear a helmet as I'm crap at both riding and falling and have had an accident where the helmet saved me from grazes down the side of my face being much worse (mountain scree, but at least I didn't end up in the Wye). I don't cycle in traffic.

Helmets definately on.

DH just fell off his bike the other day. Seriously damaged his cheek/eye area. Without his helmet he would have been in hospital or maybe worse. He was going slower than my kids do on either their bikes or their scooters.

Dd now likes spotting the 'sillies' who ride without helmets!

They have never questioned having helmets on for bikes or scooters, and having seen the state of Dh's face I think the message has well and truely reached home!

I think the difference between walking and biking/scooting is that if you trip while walking, you can use your hands to break your fall. If you have the scooter or bike in the way, at whatever speed, you're more likely to fall badly and hit your head.

But libelulle if you follow that same line of thought, if a child is scooting and goes a bit wrong they are already in the standing position, and can easily free their hands to break a fall, but if on a bike and go a bit wrong, trying to free up hands to break a fall is going to result in going even more wrong (like what notcitrus said). DD has fallen off both her bike and her scooter - has never had even a scrape with a scooter fall, but has banged her head, skinned knees etc from her bike (and has fallen off this much more often - maybe only once or twice when scooting).

OP - for me it's about risk assessment - at what point are you going too far. For me wearing a helmet for scooting is, but for someone else it might not be. Like someone else said, my DS has seriously cut his head running on the pavement, but that's life. I'd say do what you feel is right and don't worry so much about what other people think.

if a child is scooting and goes a bit wrong they are already in the standing position, and can easily free their hands to break a fall

They can't always as the picture on my profile of Ds1's head will testify. He was scooting relatively fast (he's 7 so probably goes much quicker than your average toddler), hit a bump on the pavement and was down, head first, in a split second. No time to react, no time to put his hands out.

If he'd had a helmet on he would have been totally unscathed.

The A&E doctor we saw said they are seeing more and more head injuries from scooter falls because parents put helmets on children for biking but not for scootering.

I have to disagree with the "already ^in a standing position, can easily free their hands" line of thought.

That has not been my experience with dd at all. On the occasions that she has fallen she has not had her hands free to break her fall ^in the same manner that she would when running. It's just not the same thing.

Young children simply do not have the same reflexes as an adult, so comparing them is a pointless exercise.

Fair enought to last 2 posts - it's not my experience but obviously is for some. But the point about risk assessment stands - each parent has to decide what to do to keep their children safe (excepting things like seatbelts which are legal requirements). The OP and many others decide to use helmets, while others, like me don't - there is no right or wrong as with so many aspects of parenting, and I just don't understand why some people feel the need to judge what other parents do so often.