​​Staying active helps children stay healthy, live well, and build strong bones and muscles. Outdoor play and participation in sports are important to your child’s healthy growth and development. Playing outdoors lets your child jump, run, climb, swing, balance, and roll. It also lets them be creative, practice skills, challenge themselves, and explore.

While these activities are good for your child’s overall health, they also have a risk of injury. Follow these tips to lower your child’s chance of getting hurt while they play sports or enjoy other outdoor activities:

• Check the environment to reduce or remove hazards.
• Wear protective gear.
• Develop skills.

Check the environment to reduce or remove hazards

To improve safety, check the places where your child plays. Look for hazards. A hazard is something dangerous that may not be obvious to your child but that can cause serious injury. Examples of hazards include thin ice on a frozen lake, hard surfaces under play equipment, broken railings, or a soccer field with holes in the grass.

A risk is different. A risk is a situation where your child can see the chance of an injury happening, think about the challenge, and decide what to do, such as climbing a tree. Risk taking in play helps children to:

• test their physical limits
• develop their motor skills
• learn to change their play in response to dangerous activities and environments

Your challenge is to reduce or remove the hazards and provide appropriate supervision while letting your child have the chance to explore, stay active, and have fun.

Wear protective gear

Wearing protective gear, like the right helmet, a mouth guard, wrist guards, elbow pads, and knee pads can lower your child’s risk of an injury. No matter what the activity, make sure your child uses the right gear and equipment. The gear should fit well. Make sure your child wears it properly every time. As an adult, wear protective gear to lower your chance of injury and to be a role model for your child. Learn about fitting helmets for different activities.

Develop skills

Practice and training help your child learn how to do an activity and get better at it. They also help lower the chance that your child will get hurt. If your child doesn’t know how to do an activity, start slowly to develop their skills. Key skills include balance, strength, and agility (being able to move quickly and easily). Think about having your child take lessons to learn how to skate, ski, bike, or play sports. Get lessons from someone who knows how to teach the skills, like a trained coach or professional.

When your child plays an organized sport, their coaches should have training in how to prevent, see, and respond to injuries, including concussions. A concussion is a brain injury that can be caused by a blow to the head, face, neck or body. Coaches should also be supportive, caring, and positive role models. Find out about the coach’s background before your child joins an organized sports team.

Special considerations

Playgrounds and play spaces

Playgrounds often have hazards that can cause injury. Following some basic safety measures can help your child have fun and play safely.

• Choose playgrounds and play spaces with a soft surface, such as sand, pea gravel, wood mulch, or rubber. These materials help absorb a child's fall.
  
• Always watch your child. How much you need to watch them depends on your child’s age and the activity they’re doing. An adult should always supervise children younger than 5  years of age at the playground.
  
• Make sure the playground equipment is the right size for your child, and they can reach it on their own.
  
• Check that the equipment has a strong handrails and barriers to help prevent falls.
  
• Use the playground checklist to check for hazards.

Trampolines

Jumping on a trampoline can lead to serious injuries including broken bones, dislocations (when a bone moves out of its normal position), and injuries to the spine. Safety nets on trampolines can prevent falls but they do not prevent injuries related to jumping. Trampolines should not be used for recreational purposes by children or youth.