Great topic which makes me ponder our past sports adventures.
We have a family of musicians like @thumper1 and @tamagotchi above. So we attempted to guide our kids towards “safer” sports for their hands and mouths. To no avail.
Two of my kids swam competitively and then segued into water polo. Which is probably one of the riskiest sports for fingers and mouths. Lots of elbows to the face over the water or kicks to the face under the water. Sigh.
They loved their time in club and HS sports and had a couple more injuries than I would’ve liked. My son’s biggest injuries ironically came from swimming, his non contact sport. As a sprinter I recall at least twice he sprained a finger or two by slamming his fingertips into the touchpad at the end of a race.
But looking back, I think we wouldn’t have done things differently. They loved their sports and teammates and learned so many valuable lessons that serve them well today.
The other day my son said that the minute before he is about to play a solo in an orchestra is just like being on the starting blocks for a huge swim meet. The same adrenaline surge. And he says he uses the same strategies he used as a swimmer to calm himself and harness that energy.
As an aside (and I am guessing that many people know this) HS soccer has a very high rate of concussion. Once kids get to the age of heading the ball, the concussion risk is real. I believe second only to football.