All Articles by Brooke de Lench

An emergency medical plan should include an established set of actions to follow in the event of a medical emergency during a youth sports practice or game.

Parents need to be pro-active about safety by insisting that the directors of the youth sports program in which their son or daughter participates puts safety at the top of their list,

Overuse injuries have become commonplace among young athletes in the last decade (although "Little League elbow" has been a problem for decades). They are not the kind suffered by children and adolescents engaging in free play or "pick up" games, but are clearly a product of the organized youth sports boom. The damage to hard and soft tissues resulting from undetected, unreported and often untreated overuse injuries can be permanent and lead to problems later in life, such as arthritis.

It is a myth that a good athlete automatically makes a good coach. "Unfortunately, there's still sort of this belief when it comes to sports that if you've played it, you can coach it, and if you've played it really well, you'll be a really good coach," observes Karen Partlow, National Director of American Sports Education Program, one of the country's best-known training programs for coaches and administrators.

Most sports creams contain methyl salicylate, a toxic chemical which, absorbed in large enough amounts through the skin, can result in serious injury or, even in rare cases, in death from poisoning.

Parents and youth sports officials never seem to be on the same page. There always seems to be some tension between them. It often seems to parents that the person officiating must be seeing a different game than they are. Every call seems to go against their child's team. But it doesn't have to be that way.

The stresses of sports competition can overwhelm the coping skills of parents increasingly led by our winner-take-all society to believe that a child who fails at sports will fail as an adult. Given an environment in which survival virtually requires parents to become overly focused on and invested in their children's success in sports it is no wonder so many act out in inappropriate ways.

"Children learn self-control by watching you display self-control. Like a coach who remains calm and under control in tough situations, parents who exhibit good sideline behavior provide young athletes with an appropriate role model for handling the emotional ups and downs of competition."

Since it simply isn't possible to shield our children completely from bad coaches, when we feel that we have something to say, no matter how unpopular, we should speak up. If your intuition is to speak, speak. There is no dishonor in voicing an opinion; there is no dishonor in trying to protect your child.