I broke the smaller bone in my lower leg when I was in Kindergarten. I was skipping around a cone in P.E. and fell. So yeah, totally just one of those random things. They happen. Sometimes kids just have to learn things on their own, the hard way.

Not a broken bone story, but last year my then 5-year-old was playing “mud monster” in the backyard, which amounts to her covering herself in mud and then chasing her dad and sister around the yard while roaring.

I came outside with a towel for her and was standing near the patio table when she came running at me. My husband said, “watch out!” and I instinctively stepped aside. At which point my daughter kind of tripped while running and fell full tilt into the patio table WITH HER FACE. She ended up getting 5 stitches on her eyebrow. So at least you didn’t play a very active role in your kid’s injury. Like, if I had just STAYED STILL, she would have been fine.

Anyway, I hope your little man heals quickly and painlessly! Kid hurts stink for pretty much everyone involved.

I broke my leg in two places while snow-skiing when I was in third grade. My parents did not see my epic fall. So when they caught up to me, they tried to tell me to “shake it off… you’re ok… try to stand up” — until some other skiers came over and said they’d seen me go airborne and land and I probably needed the rescue squad. My parents felt horrible. I’m 34 now and I still love to to bring it up once in a blue moon. :) My friend Alycia fell out of bed when she was pretty little. Broke her arm. Cried. Fell asleep on the floor. Woke up and cried again. Still no answer from her parents (her dad is a dr.). Fell asleep again. They found her still asleep on the floor in the morning. She loves to tease her parents a little now and then too.

At ages 5 and 8, my kids were climbing onto the “high side” of our safety-rail-less deck and jumping off, pretending to be mountain climbers. I witnessed this and did not think it was a problem — making me another Mother of the Year candidate — and just listened to them play while I futzed around in the kitchen. Cue the screaming. They had decided that Little Sis could get a bigger thrill if Big Sis picked her up and tossed her off the deck. So I spent the next 4 hours explaining why my injured child’s answer to “What happened?” was “My sister threw me off the deck.” She had a broken arm.

When my daughter was four, she broke her collar bone when she fell out of bed in the middle of the night. Seriously, at least Dylan was doing something cool!

No broken bones yet, but last March I didn’t notice the 4yo was dehydrated. We ended up in the hospital overnight. Worst parenting moment ever. I cannot be convinced otherwise.

I have two:

– son, age 12, shatters kneecap playing “touch” football, only we don’t know he broke it until he’d been walking around with a sore knee for a week or do;

– same son, age 13, is playing hockey with his dad when dad falls on him, causing him to fall and break his wrist.

As someone above said, it is far better than them never breaking a bone because they spend all their time on the vouch watching tv.

When my brother was maybe 2, my dad went down a slide with him between his legs, and my brother’s leg got pinned under my dad’s leg on the way down, and it broke. My mom said the looks they received in the ER while trying to explain that one were almost worst then the hairline fracture he had.

When I was around 10, I was playing “slide tag” (at the same park coincidentally), and I fell through an arced slide, slamming my head into the platform and cutting it wide open. My dad was at home sleeping (he worked nights), so by the time someone got him up and out of bed, it was probably close to 3 hours before I was seen by a doctor. All the while bleeding like a sieve, head wounds are scary. I had a concussion and 15 stitches. My dad is also the one that had to drive me to the ER after a dog attack to the face while I was babysitting, another super gruesome bloody mess, equating to 42 stitches and a 3 day stay in the hospital. He really got to see all of the action.

I broke my collar bone when I was 12 when I was thrown from a horse. I hated that damn brace. Because of that I couldn’t participate in archery at summer camp that year.

My son broke his wrist and I waited 3 days (THREE DAYS!!!) before taking him to the doctor. Does that make you feel better?

(In my defense, he only fell about 2 feet…in the living room…on the soft carpet…and it didn’t really look like anything…) *hanging head in shame* BAD MOMMY…

I broke a bone in my foot by simply walking out the front door. I was 19 and perfectly capable of walking, but my cute little ballet flats (this was like, 1993) slid on the step and I fell in an awkward way and boom! Broke foot and a walking cast for six weeks. During finals and Christmas. Bones break easy, is what I’m saying. He’ll be fine and will tell the story about his bad ass bike jump injury for years.

No broken bone stories, yet… However, with two rambunctious little ones I know its a matter of time.

I have to comment on how well Dylan rides his bike! Damn, isn’t he just 4 years old?!

My sister broke her arm in two places (her forearm formed an “S”) when she was 7. She was sitting on low table coloring, with her nightshirt over her legs one cool morning. When she reached over to grab a marker she lost her balance and fell on the floor. I still don’t understand how the weight of a 7 year old would break bones, but she was in a cast almost to her shoulder for 2 months.

This stuff happens; kids break bones. Plus now Dylan will have a cool story to tell during those ice-breakers about scars/broken bones.

It’s frigging amazing that CPS was never called to my house as a kid-broken arm (twice-same arm!), broken ankle,two permanent teeth knocked out, a scar under my left eye that has just now (in my 30’s) finally begun to fade. All were created trying to keep up with older brother who was a god, in my eyes.

Kids get hurt–I love that you’re allowing Dylan to try things that are diferent and fun, and not having him sit on the couch all day where it’s safe and cozy.

All our scars and broken bones are proof that we’ve lived a good life.

My mom was on a walk with my brother when he was about two – his leg got caught in the stroller. She said he was kind of whining, not really crying, so she just kept walking because she didn’t think anything was really wrong. Yeah, his leg was broken. She told the peditrician she was worried about child services – but he said not to worry because no one would make up a story like that.

I don’t have kids, but I can tell you that broken bones were a fact of life in my childhood. My sister broke my nose when I was 4. With a flour sifter. Which she whacked me with while my dad was watching the football game. And a few years later, I broke her pinky finger while we were wrestling around on the floor. My parents didn’t believe her, though, since she had a history of crying wolf, so she never got it splinted or anything. It’s still crooked today, as she reminds me every time I see her. :-) And the neighborhood boys had more broken bones than I could keep track of. I do remember a particularly traumatic trip to the ER with them after one of them jumped 15 feet out of a tree, landing on a rusty nail and impaling his foot. OWWWW. Personally, I think if kids don’t take a few trips to the ER, their parents are probably being way too overprotective!

I have an 11 year old bone breaker. First one was his arm. He was on a ‘Little Tikes’ toddler slide, on padded carpet in the living room. He fell about 6 inches, forward onto his wrists, and broke a bone in his right arm. He was 2. Since then, there have been 6 broken toes and metatarsals, most recently in January when he tripped over his shoes. 3 broken bones. And one of those broken metatarsal/toe incidents, I thought he’d just stubbed it and let him limp around for 3 days before taking him in for an x-ray. 2 broken bones! He has the pain threshold of a rhinoceros, so he doesn’t complain much, but DAMN the guilt on that one was BRUTAL!!! Mother Of The Year!

My collarbone was broken in the process of being born. No one noticed until two weeks later, when I refused to nurse from one side because it required pressure on the broken bone.

Yup, I broke mine when I was 7 or 8 when my sister and I were playing on ice (shocking that I slipped on it, right?). Only problem for me was that the idiot doctor gave me a brace that was too big, so it started to heal weirdly and they basically had to re-break it when they set it correctly with the right sized brace. That shit hurt.

My husband also broke his when he was goofing around as a kid. It was while his dad was playing soccer and his mom didn’t want to leave the game. She asked him if it really hurt all that bad, and my husband said no. She felt really bad later on when she saw it was actually broken!

You took reasonable precautions (yay for helmets!) and he got hurt. You took him for medical attention. Nothing to feel guilty about.

Two of my nephews have had broken bones and their stories sort of haunt me and I’m so glad they didn’t happen to my kid. They might make you feel better though.

Older nephew fell of a stool at 18 months and broke his arm. His parents weren’t sure, they thought he might just be fussy so they waited to take him in for more than 3 days (he’s 7 now so the actual number has faded from my memory). Sure enough, broken, in a cast for a month I think (again, it’s sort of fuzzy).

Years later, same parents, different child. Child got body slammed by a big strange kid in the playspace at McD’s while there with grandpa. Grampa isn’t phased, parents aren’t phased, figure kid is just sorta whiney. Wait days to take him to the doctor. Sure enough, broken collar bone and brace JUST like D’s.

So I’m going to say that if you took him in even sort of quickly then you win. ;)

Alisa, my brother who was 7 pushed me off our bunk beds when i was 5 and I landed on my face. Night before Xmas, two front teeth GONE. Lovely!

Linda, when I was 10 our neighbors and best buds were moving 10 states away. Hubby went first. Mom stayed home to pack with three very energetic kids. Girl age 5 and boy age 3 or so, try jumping from a dresser to the bed. Boy falls and breaks his femur. He was in a full body cast for 2 months in the heat of summer, stuck on the couch while the whole family was packing to move and had to fly to his new home in a special bed in first class. The details of it are burned in my memory because I babysat for the couch-bound toddler. At least D is mobile! :)

Can I just say that Dylan has PERFECT form on that jump? Eyes ahead (not down) and weight back. That kid’s a natural. His injury is just an unfortunate side effect of being active. No guilt allowed for you! Rock on D and keep the rubber side down!

I was triple dog dared to jump down a flight of stairs (the goal being to land on some couch cushions). Whoops. Sprained both ankles at once. One severely and now 30 years later I apparently have a jagged bone in one ankle. so I broke it at some point. Still hurts sometimes. I was such a smart kid.

My college campus has a swingset near its main building, so one of my good friends was swinging while drunk a few years ago. He swung as high as he could, jumped off the swing, and…landed on his back, breaking several vertebrae and almost paralyzing himself! FUN! What a good use of a Saturday night!

Somehow he defied all expectations and he is now 100% fine, thank god. He wore a backbrace for a while and looked like a little turtle, and when he came to visit me during his recovery, we went to a gay bar and danced on a platform together. One of my favorite memories will always be telling my mom I spent the night dancing on stage in a gay club with a boy in a backbrace.

Also, this boy is now a doctor. I mean, after his drunken swinging he’ll never be MY doctor, but ya know.

Dylan is awesome! Look at him go! I LOVE that you are letting him risk a little bit of limb now, it will pay off in the long term when he has coping skills that his coddled peers lack. Science says so.

“I broke my collarbone when crashed my bike doing ramp tricks” is vastly more awesome than any of my several broken bone stories. It’s immeasurably more awesome than “I developed type 2 diabetes because my mom was too scared to let me play outside.”

When I was 6 my dad threw me a softball I wasn’t ready for and I caught it with my face. 24 years later I find out that he really did break my nose (you can bet I called my parents to say I told you so) and that’s why I can only breathe out of my right nostril most of the time. I’m mulling over whether being able to breathe out of both sides of my face is worth having my nose re-broken.

When I was 14 I slipped on an unmarked wet floor at a movie theater and landed with all my weight right on the point of my left elbow. Not only did my parents refuse to believe it was broken, the hospital did too. It was a year later when I was still complaining of severe pain from any little bump to that elbow when they x-rayed and discovered a pie shaped wedge of bone was displaced and had healed with an edge pressing on the nerve that is my “funny bone.” Surgery to fix it at that point was expensive and without guarantee of success, so I just never lean on that elbow and whimper like a baby when I do accidentally give it a knock.

Uh, my 3-year-old broke his collar bone falling out of bed. Onto carpet. I didn’t know such a thing was possible. I sent him back to bed and told him he would feel better in the morning. And I wasn’t wrong. He did feel better. After we, you know, took him to the ER 8 hours later and found out his arm was broken. Ahem.

Not a broken bone, but when I was about 6 I leaned back in a chair, fell and hit the handle on a sliding glass door, cutting my head open. My mom felt terrible about it (and of course I was hysterical because head wounds bleed a lot) and things got worse when we went to the ER and they took me off by myself to interrogate me because they thought she’d done it!

I broke my first bone (lower arm) at 18 months, after falling while running around indoors. Broke my finger playing tag. Broke my ankle riding a bike. Broke my thumb sitting on the couch. Took a line drive to the collarbone. All that before I could drive. And I was not a daredevil kid and had no brittle bone disease or anything. This stuff happens!

Makes for a good story when he’s older, trust me.

I broke Cameron’s collarbone pushing him out…OF ME. He hated being picked up for the first three days of his life until we visited a new pediatrician who noticed his pokey-outey collarbone and told us it was a sorta common birth injury…which no one noticed at his BIRTH nor his first pediatric check up. Sniff…I broke him right from the start and FAILED TO NOTICE.

When my husband was 3 his parents were having a fancy cocktail party…but kids were still invited. So, the children were gettin rowdy while the parents were getin their buzz on (the 70’s were awesome). At some point in the evening the children were jumping of his parents fancy tall bed and Trevor landed on his feet and began to wail. His Mom & Dad came to his aid, determined he was fine, and promptly tucked him into bed because his wailing must be due to extreme exhaustion. The next morning…when Trevor couldn’t WALK…they took him to the MD who determined both feet had broken bones. So….at least you didn’t drunkenly put your broken boy to bed early to suffer needlessly through out the night :-)

And the typos are insane….I am a poor iPhone Typist

Don’t stress it! It would be worse if you wrapped him in cotton wool and stuffed him in a box!! LOL Boys break things occasionally (girls too). My 3 year old daughter got her finger bone snapped in two by her older brother shutting it in a door jam. 4 of my kids came running to me screaming and I always try to stay super calm and was until I saw her finger point to the side instead of up. I told them to get their shoes on because we were headed to the ER. Luckily one of them asked about their little brother who was due home on the bus in about 30 minutes!! Otherwise I would have left his ass behind because I totally forgot about him. (mother of the year!!) I swung by the school and got him on the way to the ER and guess what?? After surgery inserting a pin, she survived and her finger healed. Kids are resilient! Sending you big hugs!!

There is no need to feel guilty. This how children learn and grow! By beating up their knees, breaking bones, and taking hits. Just think about those crawling helmets you talked about on the Stir (I think it was you, Sundry). We can’t protect our kids from everything and they need to experience the world.

Three broken arms

Two daughters

One emergency surgery to fix an arm that he entire elbow been detached from.

Need I say more?

At least you knew he broke it. My brother busted his collarbone at that age and my dad kept telling him to suck it up (granted, brother was a supreme injury whiner- the kind of kid who would milk a limp until he forget which foot to limp on). It wasn’t until Mom heard him whimpering in his sleep that we realized he was legitimately injured! Hope he heals quickly and that your blood pressure lowers accordingly.

Not mine, but my friend went down a slide with her son on her lap….his leg got caught between her and the slide and broke. They didn’t realize it until several hours later!!

knock, knock, knock…neither of my boys have broken a bone YET. Stitches and ER visits YES. And when I was in 7th grade I was hiding from Richie Hale because I had just kicked him in the walnuts and a fire extinguisher fell off the wall and broke my foot! Instant Karma?

I don’t have any broken bones stories for you, but can I tell you that I’m impressed he has a helmet on…I’d say you’re still in the running for “Parent of the Year”!

My daughter had just started walking when I took her swimming at the YMCA. I was trying to walk next to her, exiting of the locker room after changing back out of our swimsuits, when I failed to notice she had her fingers caught in the hinge of the heavy wooden locker-room door. Cue screaming and lots of blood.

We went directly to her pediatrician’s office, where they got us right in for an X-ray. She broke a bone in her middle finger.

I thought we’d get to at least the age of 2 before her first broken bone. Luckily, it healed just fine, and no broken bones since.

My son fell off the bed in the hotel we were staying in in Cancun and broke his collarbone–he was not quite 2. We couldn’t quite tell what he’d hurt. It was the night before we left Mexico (after a lovely, injury-free week in Tulum, we were staying the last night in the hellhole that is Cancun in order to be closer to the airport) and we had to be at the airport in a few hours at 5 AM. We decided to just fly home instead of trying to find a clinic full of drunk Americans at midnight. Did I mention I also got some gastrointestinal bug that night in Cancun? HATE that place. Fortunately the pediatrician was pretty matter of fact about it (I had visions of her calling child protective services). The good news was it didn’t hurt after just a couple of days. My guilt scars lasted WAY longer.

My injury story: My father was serving with the UN forces in Kashmir the summer I was 13, and after school let out we flew over to join him. Three days after arrival I was running on the “swimboat” which was anchored in the middle of the lake, tripped over the diving board which protruded some way into the boat, landed on my arm and dislocated my left elbow. My mother found someone to take us to the hospital in Srinagar, the one the locals used, and the medical team put me under general anesthesia to fix my arm. I woke up with a cast, which stayed on for several weeks. My father was angry that we hadn’t gone to the hospital used by the Canadian military, and removed the cast himself.

OK, first off, in that bottom picture I love the little swirl in Dylan’s hair. My son has one too and sometimes I can’t help but swirling my fingers around in it. Smooch smooch little redhead boys smooch.

Anyway, aside from the awful falling-off-the-bed incident I was to blame for when J was a baby, I don’t really have any good injury stories as a parent. However! I have a good one as a, um, victim. When I was two, my dad was chasing me around the house tickling me. Fun, right? Except he was in slippers and he slipped on the floor in our kitchen and FELL ON ME and he BROKE MY LEG. Yeah. And of course, when he took me to the ER they thought it was child abuse and it was generally traumatizing for everyone. Especially my poor mom, who had just given birth to my brother and also had shingles at the time holy hell.

Anyway. I’m clearly no worse for the wear. Although I do sometimes think one of my legs is shorter than the other . . .

My son, when he was a sophomore in high school, hit his knee during a football game. It hurt, he complained, he limped through basketball season and we kept telling him to “play through the pain” (because we are awesome parents.) We decided to bring him to the doctor at the beginning of TRACK season (so…more than 6 months after the initial injury) and found out he’d torn his meniscus and required surgery. (He’s 24 now and reminds us of that quite often.)

Also, not injury related, but one of the daycare teachers informed us that our two year old daughter needed bigger shoes. And she’s not our first child, so you’d think we’d have known better.

Wito has knocked out three teeth (at separate times, mind you) and has broken his hand. All before four years old. (All injuries were caused by over-dramatic flailing and fit-throwing in our kitchen. The kid needs to take a deep breath and take it down a notch.)

Hope Dylan mends quickly. :)

When I was sixteen, I broke my right foot jumping off a three foot rock pile. (It swelled up immediately and started turning blue.) A WEEK later, my mom conceded it wasn’t getting better and took me to get it checked out. Sure enough it was broken. (And there went my summer of learning how to drive.)

Then when I was home one winter visiting from college, I slipped on the ice and rolled my ankle really hard. I thought for sure it was broken but my mom told me to “Walk it off.” Once again, a WEEK later we found out I had been walking around on a broken leg, being treated like I was a wimp.

You’re doing great and I would let him go off that jump again. He’s good at it! And clearly you know when to take a kid to the doctor.

My kids haven’t broken anything (yet) as far as we know. My older one ended up with a nice pediatrician provided bandage and cream when he burned his hand on the steam of the coffee machine. He must have been around 1 year of age. Fast forward 2 years and the same thing happens to the younger one. This time we skipped the pediatrician trip and bandaged ourselves. But my husband felt awful.
I broke my tailbone and toe when I was young. Never saw a doc for any injuries. We only know because my mom is a dr and usually tells me long after the fact. (Her recollection at age 16 when I reminded her of my toe accident at age 14: “Oh, your toe. Yes, I remember that incident. Let me look at it. Yes, I think that was broken. There was no reason to go to the hospital/doctor for something like that.”)
She also broke her collar bone as an adult at least twice and being fashion aware, she just self-diagnoses, mumbles something and bears the pain. She will do anything to not wear one of those “hideous” slings/casts/whatevers. Which means she will not tell my step-dad (orthopedic surgeon) either.
Toes, tailbones and collar bones: they usually heal pretty much on their own.

When I was 2, my dad was doing a somersault out of a chair (don’t ask) and I ran into him. My leg snapped, and I ended up with a cast from my crotch to my toes. And my dad was almost arrested for child abuse.

The week before we were to move to Victoria from Saskatoon when I was a kid, my 13 yr old brother rode my mom’s bike (which only had front brakes as the rear were not working) down to the river with a friend. There is a steep hill leading to the river, he ended up going over the handle bars and breaking both collar bones. Was in the brace for six weeks, which pretty much blew his summer. We used to joke that he was an accident waiting to happen, because he had the most injuries growing up.

My daughter broke her wrist (required surgery, was knocked out to set it as it was broken so bad) when neighbours had filled a water bed bag that they were no longer using with air. The kids n the neighbourhood had a blast with it. One person would sit on a corner, another child would do a running start and jump / flop onto the bag. The person sitting on the corner would be catapulted into the air and experience a moment of flying before gravity took over. No injuries until Rowen, was just a matter of time, but they enjoyed it. The night she was in the hospital, there was another child there who had broken his arm from jumping over the toadstool shaped lamps that are along the inner harbour walkway in Victoria.

Broken bones and stiches are part of growing up. Your child is learning to take risks, but also that there could be some pain with the risk.

Daughter jumped out of a tree and said that her foot her. I told her to walk it off and rub some dirt in it. Standard mom answer. Ten (10. TEN) days later I took her to get an x-ray. Fractured. Son was 18 months old and we were playing with me pulling him over a foam roller by his arms. Yup. I dislocated his elbow. Winner winner.

When I was 7, I climbed up a tree at grandma’s place. I fell down and broke my right arm. That was really terrible.

Took my then 14 month old son down a slide on my lap… Broken tibia resulted (his, not mine). At first, the doctor thought it was a growth plate fracture, which would have been a lot worse. Full leg cast for three weeks during the summer. I still feel guilty almost three years later.

8 days later, my then three year old fell off the bike we bought for him the night before. Another trip to the ER.
I was worried CPS was on their way. I told every nurse and doctor that I had another three year old at home, and promised I would not be back!

Last fall, he cracked his head on the corner of an armoire, and yup, you guessed it… To the ER we went. Three boys, three trips to the ER. It happens.

As so many others have said, broken clavicles are very common, and the healing starts immediately. He will be just fine.