8 Tips To Prevent Knee Injuries In Kids

Children are very active and hence prone to many injuries. We see parents complaining about injury caused on the knee while playing or running. We cannot stop children from having fun, but yes, we can take some measures to avoid any injury. If your child gets injured while playing sport or any physical activity, consult a sports injuries specialist at the earliest.

Here we have listed the top 8 tips that will help you in preventing knee injury in your children:

Tip #1 – Make your child wear enough protective gear whenever they are playing.

Kids tend to play a lot, which involves a lot of running and jumping at the same time. Also, kids enjoy playing some activities like skateboarding, skating, cycling, etc.

Whenever your child is doing these activities make sure that your child wears protective gear like knee guards, knee pads, shin guards, etc.

It helps your child to stay safe whenever they are involved in these activities.

Tip #2 – Make your child wear a good quality of footwear

As we mentioned that kids are always involved in the running-based activity and play-based activity, it involves a lot of wear and tear on the knee.

A good pair of play shoes assists in the proper landing of the feet when children run, jump or leap at great speed or force. The even distribution of pressure across the feet is very essential to prevent any type of foot injury.

Pay extra attention to to your children’s footwear especially when they step out to play.

Tip #3 – Make your child undergo proper warmup and cooldown

If your child is involved in some professional sport, such as football, cricket, volleyball, basketball, etc. make sure that your child does an adequate amount of warm-up and exercises before starting the play.

Definitely, coaches are there to help them out in doing this cooldown and warm-ups. But whenever your child is doing these practices without any supervision it is important that you instruct your child to do a proper amount of stretching-based exercises and warm-up exercises.  It helps the muscles to remain safe whenever they are doing this play-based activity.

Tip #4 – Encourage your child to do strength-based exercises on a regular basis.

Kids love playing but they are rarely interested in doing workouts. That is why the school has a major role in teaching physical training that helps in strengthening their body. If your child can add a little bit more extra workouts on a daily basis, it will be more helpful. These workouts do not have to be gym-based necessarily.

Some basic regular physical activity and exercises help your child to maintain good physical well-being and physique. It helps to prevent the damage to the knee joint and thus preventing the knee pain. Strength training, stretching, Yoga are some of the exercises that can help your child. It helps to maintain a good strength around the knee joint and a good amount of flexibility of the muscles that surround the knee joint.

Tip #5 – Train your child in proper landing technique while Jumping

Train your child to make sure that they land properly while jumping. It means the knee should be completely bent and the foot should be touching the floor.

This training although requires precision and a lot of repeated instruction. But when it is done it helps in the prevention of ACL tear also called anterior cruciate ligament tear. Anterior cruciate ligament mostly happens when there is improper landing while doing any sort of jumping activity.

Hence understanding the right technique of jumping and landing down is the best way to prevent anterior cruciate ligament injury.

Tip #6 – Encourage your kid to crouch with hip and knee bend while turning/twisting

If your child is having this habit of turning frequently or just walking straight and then suddenly taking a turn, sharp turn, or cuts, this might damage your child’s knee or his shin. So, instruct your child that whenever the child is trying to cut or turn make sure that they crouch and bend their knee to an extent. It helps in preventing some twist-based injuries also even ligament injuries.

Tip #7 – Incorporate regular strength-based training if your kid is involved in occasional sport

If your child is involved in a yearly activity, which means that, your child is involved in the sport where he needs to play only once in a year, make sure that he is doing regular strengthening or some sort of physical activity. This prevents fatigue that happens if a child tends to do some more physical activity after a long break.

Regular exercises help in preventing unnecessary problems and strains on the muscles. Hence make sure that they exercise regularly.

Tip #8 – Use Ice Pack Generously

It is important to make sure that you have an ice pack at home available every time. Kids tend to fall and strain their muscles. An ice pack is an emergency first aid thing that you can do for your child immediately whenever he experiences knee pain. An ice pack is much more effective it helps in reducing inflammation and redness. It even reduces the swelling that comes around the knee joint.

So, these were our 8 tips that you can keep in mind in order to prevent any related injuries or else knee pain in your child.