Playing with Injuries

Anyone that has ever played a sport has had to play with an injury or two. Recently, Sports Illustrated ran an article regarding kids that play injured with their parents' consent, which greatly made an impression on me, and made me question just how far would I allow my daughter, who plays in the 16 and under team of the South Dade Volleyball Club, to play knowing fully that she is suffering some type of injury in her body.

Of course, many parents would yank their child right out of the games and practices and seek medical attention so that they can be treated and subsequently work their way back into playing shape, after undergoing therapy.

But what if your child was THE best player of the team? I am not saying mine is, but I can safely say that her participation in the games do help the team, as other ladies do, and in preventing her from playing does alter the team’s cohesion sufficiently. Injured, one may ponder the “what if’ of deciding to let her play through the pain and benching her immediately.

My challenge would be just how well my daughter would communicate the pain and the extent of her injury, and how well I would emphatically listen to her. I know that she is a trooper and highly competitive, so I know that she may try to mask the pain, or even lie to me, in order to continue playing.

I have caught her after hard practices where she would not confide to me that her body was hurting. So far, she has had shoulder pain, back pain, and has had a twisted ankle. None, thankfully, were serious enough that kept her away from the courts more than a week or so. All these injuries have transpired through in six years of volleyball, and I have stressed to her the importance of communicating to me these injuries, especially if her coach has not noticed or has been insensitive to her pain, which has occurred in the past.

The article states of many examples of overtly competitive parents who again seem to place their priorities incorrectly in their lives, and try to push doctor to ‘give something’ to their injured children so that they can play in next week’s finals, etc. These parents are so focused on the short term outcomes of next week's game, that they lose perspective about an devastating injury that may prevent their child to eve r play that sport again. Also, children’s growth can be stunted by a large injury, and this may affect them for the rest of their lives.

Personally, I have always suffered from a very weak shoulder due to the numerous sprains and tears from playing so many years of volleyball while injured. There was always another tournament, or important game that came up, and I always felt that I was indispensable for the team, so I would dab a lot of Ben Gay and take to acetaminophen pills to combat the pain. I would keep this injury to myself, so I would not have known how to put ice on the injured shoulder and work on the range of motion so as to be able to recuperate better. To this day I still suffer from a weak shoulder!

All I can say that, along with the code of ethics, I believe that coaches, organizers and physical therapist that attend games, should be aware that parents that force their children to play with pain are actually guilty of endangering their child’s lives and child abuse. We must play an active role in ensuring that parents understand this and make sure that their priorities are set correctly.

With the pressures life places on our children nowadays, forcing our children to play injured, and perhaps damaging their future growth and development is not acceptable, even when the parent is thinking about the good for the team, and their self esteem. This is supposed to be a game that our children enjoy, not some personal vendetta the parents have carried with them from their own personal issues in their youths, in which they manifest through their children’s persona.

Let the kids play, and when they push themselves hard while discovering their body’s limits and invariably get injured, take the recommended time of healing, put the child through the mandatory therapy, and work their way into full recuperation. This will guarantee a healthy future full of games and growth.

This article was written by Flip who once again has shared a very interesting perspective for all parents to think about and for all players to be open about an injury with your parents and coaches and make sure to get medical attention.

Again, we invite all parents and players to become guest writers on the report. If you have a story, training tip, announcement, player profile, etc to share with the South Florida Volleyball Community we want to post it!