Winter Sports Safety For Kids

It is a bliss watching your kids glowing pink with health enjoying their favorite winter sports, be it ice skating or skiing or snowboarding or a run down the hill on their sled! But it could wrench your heart to see their disappointed little faces if something happened to them due to inadequate safety measures taken, forcing them to stay inside the house, while all their friends were out on the snow!

Common Safety Measures For Winters

There are some common safety measures that apply to all winter sports. First, the children have to stay warm. This fact can never be emphasized enough infact! While it might seem like a good idea to the kids, to show a rough-and-tough attitude to their friends, it can have serious repercussions later on, like frostbites and hypothermia, if they are exposed to extreme cold conditions for long.

Second, they must put on a good sunscreen lotion, with an SPF of at least 15, on all exposed parts of the skin. Most winter sports, like skiing, snowboarding, sledding and ice-skating, reflect the sunlight off all that brightly glaring snow and ice. So never let your kids go outside without covering their faces and lips with sunscreen, even if it is cloudy.

How To Skate Safely?

Ice-skating is among the favored winter sports with kids. They just love to get that perfect figure eight on the ice with their skates! Some common tips for keeping your child safe during skating:

Get your child proper fitting ice-skates. No hand-me-downs please! The skates should be comfortable and provide good ankle support to prevent injuries.
Never let them skate on ice that hasnt been approved for skating, even if it looks strong! This includes frozen ponds and lakes. Check for cracks, holes and any debris on the ice. Never let them skate alone either.

Sledding is perhaps the most favorite of all winter sports for kids! So much so that they dont even mind sliding down the hill on an improvised sled, like pool floats and garbage-can lids, which can be very dangerous!
Never let them go sledding without adult supervision because with kids, you just simply never know what they can get themselves into!
The hill should be safe and free from obstacles. It should not end near a street, pond or a parking lot. And it should not be too steep either.
Fitted helmets and warm, layered clothing make the ride safer during falls.