My son’s most recent broken arm (His fourth. He’s 13. There’s some scary math for you) happened during a social gathering that I was hosting on my front porch and I MADE THE CHILD WAIT TO GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM UNTIL I HAD FINISHED MY GLASS OF WINE.

Parent. Of. The. Year.

I don’t have any broken bone stories but I will say that, in my opinion, a little boy with a broken collar bone because he was doing tricks on his bike is better than a little boy without a broken collar bone because he was sitting on the couch watching TV.

Pshht. Broken bones on boys is so…normal. Stuff like that’s just going to happen sometimes. He can ride the heck out of that bike, that’s for sure! My 9 yr old has no interest at all. I feel like parent of the year for not forcing him to learn. I don’t think I’ve ever known a child who didn’t know how to ride a bike! Don’t feel guilty.

Yes.

Jack was three when he fell off the monkey bars at school and BROKE HIS FUCKING ARM but because he’s a total badass (or he was when he was three) he didn’t tell anyone for SIX FUCKING HOURS.

Hope that helps.

When my son was 5 he broke his collar bone playing games in the yard with other kids at a social gathering we were all at with friends. And we didn’t know, we thought he was just being a bit of a fussy kid. I felt bad when it was still hurting the next day, we took him to the Dr. and it turned out to be broken. (That’ll teach me to roll my eyes when he’s fussing!) I guess its an easy bone to break. He just had a sling and the Dr. said to let him do what he wanted to do, he’d stop if it hurt too much (and kids listen to pain better then adults). SO…we went off to soccer practice for him and his brother and he wanted to play, so I let him. But felt conflicted about it.

I was babysitting a 4 year old who snuck out onto the unfinished back deck (only built out to the studs) and promptly fell and “hurt his arm.” I totally thought he was faking, and later that night his parents took him to the emergency room. Broken arm. I felt awful.

Last week my 4 year old nephew begged my sister to take the training wheels off his bike. He ended up with a broken collarbone later that day. It happens!

When we were little, me and my sister (4 years younger) and the girls down the block had a tag like game we made up called “Cookie Monster”. I have no idea what the rules were other than we ran around yelling COOKIE MONSTER and the sidewalks were streams that once crossed, rendered you safe.

We were playing and my 4 or 5 year old sister fell. The dad told her she was fine and sent her home. Not so, she had a greenstick fracture of her wrist (that earned her a GIANT TEDDY BEAR OF GUILT when he found out. Oh god he felt terrible). She spent 6 weeks in a cast and was no worse for the wear when they cut it off.

Two weeks later I fell off MY bike and ended up in a plaster over the elbow cast for the summer. And my mom totally thought they were going to call child protective services on us.

My peanut walked in front of her big sis on the swings when she was just 2 and the impact with the ground busted her collarbone. The worse, though, was me repeatedly telling my husband “She is fine, it’s just bruised.” I felt like a real asshole when I saw the X-ray. She is 6 now and no broken bones since *knocks wood*.

I broke my collar bone when I was 7. It happened when I was playing in the front yard with our neighbors. They had a daughter who was several years older. She was laying on her back in our front yard and I was sitting on her (get your mind out of the gutter) feet. She launched me several feet in the air and several feet forward. I landed flat on my front and cracked the bone.

It was a tiny fracture, but to this day you can see the difference between the two clavicles, and one of my shoulders is slightly lower than the other. I’m not bothered by it one bit, though!

Hope Dylan’s ok!

Not really, but one of my favorite tennants (sp?) of Free Range parenting is that it’s not a real childhood unless you break a bone (or two). I personally broke my arm twice: once in sports, once while being a jackass.

When I was nine, I broke my arm trying to do a cartwheel off of the picnic table. My parents made me go to school with my arm in a sling made out of a dish towel for three days before they finally brought me to the doctor. If I hadn’t been allowed to be in the “dangerous” situation that led to me breaking my arm, I would have had a much less awesome childhood. The worst part of the whole situation was that my fourth grade teacher made me do my cursive homework with my non-dominant hand. That totally sucked.

I did much bigger jumps that that on a bike when I was a kid with no helmet or any other safety devices and never broke anything. We didn’t think of that stuff back then. I was lucky. Sometimes luck runs out. You can never eliminate all risk in your children’s lives. Even if you could, that would be a hella boring life.

Totally did that when I was three. Except it wasn’t a cool bike story – I was crawling up to a cabinet where I shouldn’t have to get the gumball machine I wasn’t supposed to have and I fell (probably served me right for not listening!. I knew something hurt but couldn’t convey that since my mom didn’t believe me until the next morning when the doctor informed us it was broken. Sweet brace and all. She of course felt horrible and I got some gumballs :)

Wait, Dylan didn’t break his collarbone from the impact of coming off the bike jump onto the ground, did he? That seems so innocuous? Or did he run into something in the garage?

Ditto the person who said that a kid who breaks his arm outside riding his bike (with his helmet on like Dylan) is probably still better off than the kid inside watching TV.

And holy cow, what a bike rider! Good for you for raising active kids :)

My then-19 month old climbed out of her crib, caught her leg on the way down, broke both bones in the lower leg. NINETEEN MONTHS. Spent 2 months in a hard cast, then had a walking boot. I LOVED being asked how that happened when we were out and about, let me tell you. (She’s 3 now, and totally fine. But OY. That was a long few months.)

My brother broke his collarbone falling off his bunk bed. The awful part? My parents didn’t think he could be too hurt, so they waited until morning to take him to the doctor. He cried all night :( Same brother fell off his bike a few years later, which resulted in a compound fracture. That one required surgery. It didn’t stop him – he’s always been very adventurous and daring.

When Ella was 3, her brother took a running leap and tackled her… Ella would not stop crying and every time I’d hug her to comfort her, she’d shriek in pain. Promptly took her to the ER. I could not handle it when they put her in this X-ray contraption for small children.. Like a tourture sling or something. I lost it. Bawled and had to leave the room while they took the X-rays. Turns out Ash broke her collarbone. It healed eventually. She wore an arm sling. She didnt get this sling your son was wearing. They said it easy breaks and just heals on it own. I made them give me a copy of the X-rays so I coul show the kids why they should not rough house plus lean more about the body. I felt SO guilty but these thing happen! I still haven’t gotten over the ER incident and Ella is almost 5. My heart goes up in my throat every time I think about Ella breaking her collarbone. In fact few days ago, I screamed at the top of my lungs for Ash’s two friends to go home because one of them tackled Ella and she fell and hit her head. Visions of a broken collarbone was dancing in my head so I got really mad and told the boys to go home. They would NOT leave!!! Hence me screaming at them to go home. Haven’t seen them for several days since but hope they learned their lesson and not to roughhouse in my home. Eeep!!

Yes … my sister, at the tender age of 8, broke BOTH her arms jumping off the monkey bars at the park. And my mom was so absorbed in her conversation with a friend that she didn’t really notice until she walked up with two limp arms and a bone sticking out of the skin.

Oh, and did I mention this was on the afternoon after school let out for summer vacation? She couldn’t go into a pool all summer and was worried she wouldn’t be able to go to summer camp because she could barely wipe her own behind. (Not to mention – the bones had to be re-broken a few weeks later after they were set poorly the first time.)

Feel better?

Guilt? Just say no, darling! Kids get hurt. They run into things and get run into and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it besides sticking them in the basement forever which causes its own kind of hurt. You bear absolutely no blame for this. He’ll be fine and have a great story to tell about the time he was a little terror on his bike and broke his collar bone.

My brother broke his collar bone falling off a jungle gym when he was around four. My dad decided he didn’t need to tell my mom that he had fallen, but she figured it out pretty quickly when he started screaming as soon as he laid down in bed that night!

I agree that a good childhood comes with some injuries. Our pediatrician goes so far as to check their legs and praise their shin bruises when we’re in for check-ups. She says if there isn’t a bruise or two, that means they aren’t playing hard enough!

Most frequently broken bone in the body! Give yourself a break.

Is that Dylan? Regardless of the broken bones, he looks really badass riding that two-wheeler.

My daughter broke a bone in her foot while tumbling at the neighbor’s house. I was sitting chatting with the neighbor in the next room while our girls were pretending to be gymnasts. Worst part was I thought my daughter was “crying wolf” when she smacked her foot on the dresser – she sheds tears over a paper cut. I didn’t take her for x-rays until her foot was swollen and black and blue 2 days later. This first broken bone event also coincided with my daughter’s 5th birthday and first day of kindergarten.

My baby boy, he’s 7 now, broke is collarbone being born (show-off) and nobody noticed until his first check-up with the pediatrician.Not a wonderful way to start parenthood. I broke the baby!!!!! Poor Dylan. I wish him and you, a speedy recovery.

Yeah, I think I have everyone in this group beaten in the shitty parent department. Try this on for size: We put our 7-MONTH-OLD down for a nap in our bedroom, in her co-sleeper. We hadn’t lowered it yet and planned to do it later that night.

I’m the room next door. I suddenly hear a THUMP followed by a WAAAAAAH. I run in and find her face-down on the floor, pissed as hell. I start freaking out, worrying about a head injury. I check her pupils, doing all the stuff I learned from watching doctors on TV, while at the same time calling my husband at work to tell him to come home.

Within a few minutes, baby girl is calm and I’m thinking she’s OK, when husband walks in and notices her swollen ankle. Uh oh. A few hours later at the ER we discover she’d broken her femur. They surmise she must have landed feet-first. How the hell was that possible? She’d barely begun to sit up. How on earth did she get her legs up and over like that, unless she went head first and she somersaulted in the air.

ANYWAY.

Three weeks in a cast and she was fine. In fact, she healed so well, you can’t even tell in an X-ray that she ever broke her leg.

Still. GUILT.

Oh, nooooo! Here’s a story to make you feel better – when my oldest was 6 (a year ago, approximately), she wrecked & flipped over her handlebars while riding her bike (I wasn’t even OUTSIDE; we live on a very safe culdesac & my kids play out front on their own), AND DIDN’T EVEN HAVE HER HELMET ON. (Of course, right before this, when she told me she was going to ride her bike I asked, “With your helmet, right?” – but she “forgot” to actually put it on.) Anyway, she hit her head hard and was laying in the street and the neighbor kids carried her up to the door. Then she tells me she can’t see anything & wants to go to sleep. I AM FREAKING OUT. So I call 911, an ambulance arrives, and she is strapped onto a backboard and taken to the ER (I DO NOT recommend the ambulance ride. The scariest half hour of my life.) Thankfully, after an emergency cat scan, it was deduced that she just had a bad concussion (her vision returned on the ambulance ride) and we went home. THANK GOD THANK GOD THANK GOD. So scary. The worst. So I’m so glad your boy was wearing his helmet. We are militant about that now.

Man, I wish I could un-guilt you by saying something trite but true like “these thing happen” (because they do) or maybe by telling you about my brother who has broken bones all over the place and in his twenties had to get my Mom come stay with him in his frat apartment because he had BOTH ARMS in casts at ones. He just goes at things full force.

Me? I jumped out of a swing and my pinkie got stuck in the chain. Ouch.

And then last year, I tripped while running and broke my elbow (and was utterly embarrassed)

But, hey. Try not to feel badly. And the brace thing is, on my end, ridiculously cute!

Also? You guys are mega cool and fun parents and awesome. D’s lucky and will not be scarred by this!

Aw, poor guy:( I fell out of bed and broke my collarbone when I was three, and you can barely see my hunched shoulder now. I’m kidding. You CAN see it. (I don’t know what is wrong with me, there’s NO HUNCH!) Those collarbones heal ridiculously fast and he’ll be running around like it’s no big deal in a matter of days.

My son broke his leg when he was TWO and had to be in a full leg cast for seven weeks. This? Is life with boys. Don’t beat yourself up, lady.

When I was about 4 or 5 my parents had a barbecue. We had a tire swing in our yard and I convinced some of my parents’ friends to push me hard and high on it. My dad decides it’ll be funny throw a bucket of water at me right as I’m at the apex of my swing-through. I get water in my eyes, instinctively let go of the rope to cover them and fall, breaking my collarbone. To add insult to injury we didn’t go to the hospital for two days because at my first my dad just thought it was a sore shoulder and had me put frozen peas on it. HAH.

First of all this line of comments is terrifying and making me want to wrap my five year old in bubble wrap and duct tape. My broken bone stories:
My sister who was 7 dropped our younger sister who was 3 on the hard tile floor and she fell right on her wrist, then three weeks later that same sister fell and broker her OTHER wrist! I broke both my femur and tibia in a horse ridding accident where I fell off the horse while cantering and my leg got stuck in the stirrup, which meant I was dragged a few hundred feet along the ground until SNAP my bones broke and I dropped free. Fun times!

I broke my collarbone at his age falling off my Big Wheel. How does one fall far enough off a Big Wheel to break a collarbone, you ask? Oh, that takes a special elite Rachel level of klutzawesome. Even in preschool I knew how to bring it. (I was going downhill, watching my brother on his bike ahead of me going through a tree shadow, and I wondered if wiggling my handlebars back and forth at a high rate of speed would create that lovely lighting effect. Points for… creative attempts? I guess?)

Also, my 4yo nephew broke his radius and ulna clear across — he had what looked like an extra elbow — merely by tripping and falling while running at the park. And his mom hauled him to our picnic table, sat him down, and tried to get him to calm down and stop crying before she noticed. Because come on, kids fall down ALL THE TIME without breaking their ulnas. Who can blame her? So. The good news is that they heal crazyfast at this age, and he’ll have a great story for the rest of his life. :)

So, be honest now.. would you feel better if you never let him out in the first place? You cannot wrap a child in bubble wrap and then expect him to be happy. And a broken collarbone could have happened stepping off the curb in the wrong way.
I understand feeling guilty, but don’t beat yourself up over it..

All the best childhoods involve memorable injuries. :)

Well, I guess the worst ones, too…

YES YES YES
2.5 yr old son, playing chew chew train with his younger brother. They were sitting in a cardboard box on a bench seat outside on the deck. box tips over, boys fall off onto the decking and one son comes in with a ‘sore arm’. “There there” I say supportively giving him a wee pat on the head. It wasn’t until 5.5 hours later when I went to take his jumper off and he couldn’t raise his arm did I think “oh shit, sore arm, thats right, better get that checked out” – broken collar bone, clean snapped in two. Huge guilt trip although my guilt trip ended when I saw him later that night jumping happily on the bed. Boys !!!!! PS: it healed beautifully, the cartlidge just filled the gap – very clever little bodies we have. :-)

My adult ass husband can one up his with his collarbone story. Our golden retriever had a lot of energy so husband liked to take him for runs while riding his bike. So man on bike with dog on leash. Good plan until dog stopped to smell/pee. And neighbor had truck in the street. He swerved went head first over handle bars and broke his collarbone in two places. We are now the proud owners of a $18000 plate and ten screws in his collarbone. I could have kicked his ass if he wasn’t in so much pain. We have learned to never ride your bike with a dog on a leash from that ordeal.

My son was trying to master the monkey bars last summer and I was so proud of him for finally making it all the way across on his own…then one fateful day I was hanging out on the bench in the playground when I heard the dreaded thud…screaaaaaaam. Ran over and saw a very obvious broken arm, just below his wrist. Turned out he snapped both the radial and ulnar bones. Poor guy, in a cast just at the start of summer. But that also ended up being the summer when he learned how to swim (with one arm in a cast bag). That pretty much sums up six year old determination, right there. Oh, and I learned ER doctors really really hate monkey bars.

Yeah so we let our son play tackle football. In 6th grade he broke his femur badly just above the growth plate. 3 surgeries later (one on the leg that wasn’t even broken so his legs wouldn’t be different lengths!)and he lost an inch of his adult height. Guess what he’s doing this summer? Trying out for HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL.

My brother broke his collarbone in a similar bike accident to Dylan’s. I remember my mom was horrified but he didn’t have any problems with it. Ellie up there is right, better than playing video games.

When my brother and I were kids, we shared a room and had bunk beds. My brother broke his collarbone when I got pissed off at him and pushed him off the top bunk.

Holy crap, I’ve never seen my mother look so mad (or so guilty) in my whole life.

This happened when I was six. I just turned 40 but my brother brings it up EVERY DAMN TIME I see him.

Not a broken bone story, but perhaps it will make you feel better… At that age, my little brother had to go in for stitches three times in a six-week period. (Jumping on the bed, scaling a pointy metal fence, and horsing around in the bathtub.) My mother was convinced that child protective services would pay us a visit. (They didn’t, and my brother is now a well-adjusted adult who has outgrown most of his daredevil tendencies.)

Tell Dylan he’s a total rock star. My 4-year-old guy is still tooling around on a balance bike, so double thumbs-up from us!

When our son was ~18 months old, son and hubby were playing on a bed that was high off the ground (we were out of town). Son went tumbling down to the ground in a crazy way – it took us almost 2 days to realize that he had broken his wrist. Oops. Winter clothes covers up swelling too well.

I was babysitting my nephew when he was 7 (17 now) and he was playing in the front yard. My dad & I were standing out there talking and Zayne tells us to “WATCH THIS!” (famous last words) He then proceeds to run toward a line of low hedges. He jumps and clears them just fine but he lands with his arm under the front of his body and the arm happens to land across some metal garden edging. He begins to scream and we run over. When we roll him over and sit him up we realize that there is an ELBOW BEND right in the middle of his forearm. HOLY SHIT! That is something you don’t EVER want to see. We lived fairly close to the hospital so we put him in the car and only hit the high points of the road on the way there.

Thank goodness his parents realized that it could have happened on anybody’s watch and haven’t held a grudge against me as a babysitter. Whew!

I broke my arm (the 1st time) and my Dad who is a veterinarian was convinced it wasn’t broken. A WEEK later, he takes me to the doctor and finds out its broken. So at least you took him right away!

I don’t want to say anything about my boys cuz I don’t want to jinx it, but I’m sure I’ll feel your pain soon.

Yep. In second grade I proudly showed my mom my new trick of jumping off the swing, landing down on all fours and doing a somersault. She said great job and went inside to do laundry. I promptly did it again, botched the landing and broke my arm. These things happen :)

I don’t have broken bones stories, but last month I was a bit frazzled and didn’t realize how much so until I added up the damage. In one week my 3yo daughter stayed up past 10pm three different nights, grabbed the hot end of a curling iron, fell down the stairs, fell off the jungle gym at the park, and had a melt down in dance class because she felt lost because I didn’t make her practice her routine. Plus, indirectly she witnessed me freaking out about feeling like I didn’t have ANYTHING in my life under control at the moment.

I was pretty down on myself and my husband said to me, “Well, shit, babe, I guess when you blow your chances at Mother of the Year award, you do it big time.” Then we laughed together. It kind of put things in perspective. Stuff happens no matter how careful you are. As long as the kid is okay in the end, you can cringe for a while, then eventually laugh about it.

My daughter broke her hand in the playplace at the mall. She did it while walking. Seriously. She was walking, stumbled, and fell onto the hand. Keep in mind this was in a 100% padded area.

It didn’t bruise or swell much right away so we didn’t find out it was broken until SIX DAYS later when we took her to the pediatrician for an ear infection.

So, I let my 2 year old daughter walk around with a broken hand for a week before getting it taken care of. Stellar parenting instincts there.

If you’re interested you can read the extended version of the story and view the x-ray here:
http://testyyettrying.blogspot.com/2012/02/lesson-learned-or-how-we-called-our.html

A little younger than him I broke my collar bone falling off the couch while watching Mr. Rogers. At least he was doing something exciting!

I wonder sometimes about all our little kiddos and what breaks they have and just can’t communicate them to us. I read about a study that showed that 40% of the kids with sleep problems (I’m guessing that showed up at a pediatrician’s office) turned out to have a broken bone somewhere and that was why they weren’t sleeping well. Jeebus.
It must be an easy bone to break because I did it when I was less than 1yo falling off the bed. My parents didn’t realize the problem until the next morning when my mom came in to change my diaper and discovered a massive lump on my shoulder. And this was pre-walking phase so you can imagine how hard it was to pick me up for the next several weeks. The good news is that kids heal amazingly fast and he should be back up to speed in no time.
Hang in there, Dylan, and ask for lots of ice cream!