LaBella said children should never play through pain. "Pain is a sign of injury, and it's a sign that you need to rest," she said. If the pain doesn't get better after a couple of days, she advised that the child should go to the doctor.
Children also shouldn't start specializing in one sport until after puberty, according to LaBella, and, ideally, they should play just one sport per season and take off a month or two completely. That doesn't mean they should take two months off from all activity, she said, just from organized sports. "Go ride a bike or play soccer in the backyard," she suggested.
More information
To learn about preventing children's sports injuries, visit the Nemours Foundation.
SOURCES: Michael A. Kelly, M.D., chairman, department of orthopaedic surgery, Hackensack University Medical Center, N.J.; Cynthia LaBella, M.D., medical director, Institute for Sports Medicine at Children's Memorial Hospital, and assistant professor of pediatrics, Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago
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