Your kid and my kid are not playing in the pros

by Louis M. Profeta MD

http://www.nuvo.net/

March 25, 2014

I don't care if your eight year old can throw a baseball through six inches of plywood. He is not going to the pros. I don't care if your twelve-year-old scored seven touchdowns last week in Pop Warner; he is not going to the pros. I don't care if your sixteen -year -old made first team all-state in basketball. He is not playing in the pros. I don't care if your freshman in college is a varsity scratch golfer, averaging two under par. He isn't playing in the pros. Now tell me again how good he is. I'll lay you two to one odds right now and I don't even know your kid, I have never even see them play, but I'll put up my pension that your kid is not playing in the pros. It is simply an odds thing. There are far too many variables working against your child. Injury, burnout, others who are better, - these things are are just a fraction of the barriers preventing your child from becoming "the one."

So how do we balance being the supportive parent who spends three hours a day driving all over hell's half acre to allow our child to pursue his or her dream without becoming the supportive parent that drives all over hell's half acre to allow our child to pursue OUR dream? When does this pursuit of athletic stardom become something just shy of a gambling habit? From my experience in the ER I've developed some insight in how to identify the latter.

1. When I inform you as a parent that your child has just ruptured their ACL ligament or Achilles tendon, if the next question out of your mouth is, "how long until he or she will be able to play?" You have a serious problem.



2. If you child is knocked unconscious during a football game and can't remember your name let alone my name but you feel it is a "vital" piece of medical information to let me know that he is the starting linebacker and that the team will probably lose now because he was taken out of the game, you need to see a counselor.



3. If I tell you that mononucleosis has caused the spleen to swell and that participation in a contact sport could cause a life threatening rupture and bleeding during the course of the illness and you then ask me, "could we just get some extra padding for around the spleen, would it be o.k. to play?" Someone needs to hit you upside the head with a two by four.



4. If when your child comes in with a blood alcohol level of 250 after wrecking your Lexus and you ask if I can hurry up and get them out of the ER before the police arrive so as not to run the risk of her getting kicked off the swim team, YOU need to be put in jail.

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http://www.nuvo.net/GuestVoices/archives/2014/03/18/your-kid-and-my-kid-are-not-playing-in-the-pros