The nation was shocked when successful NFL player Junior Seau committed suicide last May.
National Institutes of Health announced last week that he had a degenerative brain disease when he took his own life.
His chronic brain damage has raised questions for many parents about the risks associated with contact sports.
So your child wants to play football... Or for that matter... Soccer... Maybe a future cheerleader.
But in light of the Junior Seau news, the threat of head injury has become a serious topic of discussion.
"It does have me concerned about the dangers of some of these sports."
Angela Attinger has active 11, 9 and 5 year old children. At this moment, she
doesn't think she'd allow her son to play football.
"Unless
it was a complete passion of his, like 'I have to play football mom',
and then I would try to support him and all that he does, but if its not
a passion, we don't have to do it."
"We
don't want people to become so scared that we avoid the wonderful
benefits of sports and exercise. We want kids to participate."
Dr. Paul Stricker is a pediatric sports medicine specialist with scripps.
He says it boils down to an awareness of the cumulative effect of head
injuries. Players need to do a better job communicating news of their
injuries.
"It
used to be kids would never tell anyone about it because they want to
keep playing, hopefully now, they realize they need to tell somebody."
Dr. Stricker sees that as a hidden benefit to an otherwise tragic story.
"I
think coaches are gonna be more apt to say, hey this kid is not looking
right, lets pull him out. Or a child is gonna be more apt to tell their
coach or their parent they've had a problem."
