Confounded by Kid's Lacrosse

Young children and teen’s participation in community based Lacrosse teams is on the rise in Connecticut. It is all over the place here. I swear this is new in the last five years or something because before that the rapid expansion in popularity of soccer was all the rage. I don’t know how popular it is in other places but assume it’s on the rise in other states as when I travel I see parent’s cars with LAX stickers all over them.

I probably am going to have to put my kids into an organized sport as they are not getting enough exercise on their own at home. I have tried family bike rides, family walks, and the last effort was to try to get them to agree to go jogging with me with the end goal of running as a family in short road races that occur over the summer. I can’t get them to do anything.

Because we homeschool my boys don’t have access to sports at the public school. Connecticut does not allow homeschoolers to participate with public school sports even if a family is a property owner and pays their property taxes. Contrary to assumptions of citizens of all ages and parents of schooled kids, Connecticut homeschoolers do not get tax rebates if they homeschool, tax discounts, nor do we get educational content advice or free textbooks or educational materials from our local school or from the state or federal government. I am not asking for any of that but I’m stating it for the record as in other states some homeschooled kids can play team sports at public school.

Being a homeschooling family means we must rely on community based sports. These are prolific in the elementary grade years but start to taper off in middle school and by high school grades they are nearly non-existent.

Homeschoolers must find their own ways to be physically active.

Baseball is way too serious around here. My brother-in-law is very involved with his town’s team and the stories I hear are so insane that I don’t want my kids involved with any of that. I am talking about adults going nuts at games, screaming, parents getting kicked off the field and suspended from attending games and so forth. Baseball in my own town is not that bad, I don’t think but it super competitive. It is not primarily for fun or to play the game it is about winning. Kids who are not the superstars sit on the bench. And anyway, there is not so much exercise in baseball if you ask me.

Neither of my kids is into soccer. My younger one tried it at age five and the town’s program at that time was completely boring and poorly run. Thus he has negative memories and refuses to join a soccer team. To the defense of AYSO I’ll state I never put him on the AYSO team. I so hated being the parent at Little League in this town that I cringe at the idea of attending those soccer games. I don’t want to deal with the Nannies or the Soccer Moms or the Helicopter Parents or the overly-competitive fathers.

So I’m thinking of Lacrosse for my younger son. Now here is the thing. I have been approaching other parents asking about Lacrosse. One family is a soccer family and says that she has friends who do Lacrosse and she worries about it as the kids get so injured. They don’t wear helmets, apparently, and they not only run into each other and bash their heads together but they allowed to use the sticks to stop the other players in any way they want including bashing them in the head or face! With no helmets! I kept on asking around and spoke to parents of kids who DO play Lacrosse and they say the same thing.

Now here is the most surprising thing of all. I asked the Lacrosse parents about how their kids like it and they say they love it. Then I say I may put my son into it and they tell me NOT TO DO IT. Why? Due to the injuries and the danger. So they say their kids love it but it is dangerous and my kid shouldn’t do it. They say it is more dangerous than football as with football they were all that protective gear. When I push them to explain why their kids do it if it is dangerous they admit they didn’t know that up front and so they put them in, but the child loves it, so they let them keep doing it, all the while they are petrified their child will get hurt.

It is at that point that I started thinking indeed the parents of today have gone nuts.

First off we are an over-protective society lately and a culture that is largely driven by fear of lawsuits. Where are the lawyers on this? Why is someone not pushing the league or whoever runs this to make the Lacrosse players wear helmets, even if it is not “normal” for the college kids who play? These kids playing in my area are as young as seven years old. Sometimes perhaps it would be wise to have different rules for certain games in order to protect the health and safety of the young children in our society.

Second how can a parent be so worried of their child getting hurt yet allow them to keep doing the sport? Are those families completely running a child-driven household? I note those families use schools so they are not having a child-led experience with the child’s education such as with certain methods of homeschooling.

For the record the people I’ve been asking are all highly educated people, all have either a Master’s Degree or a Medical Doctor degree. These are not stupid people or uneducated people.

I’m scratching my head over this. If anyone can share insight to this Lacrosse thing please do, by leaving a comment. If you have an opinion on this and agree with me that something is amiss please leave a comment.

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