What you should do if your child gets injured on the trampoline.

Did you know more kids today are jumping on a trampoline than riding a bike, scooter or skateboard?

Although it’s not a new hobby or activity, according to the The Royal Children’s Hospital, 79 per cent of kids will be jumping on trampolines this summer. Which, in itself, would be quite unremarkable if children weren’t consistently injuring themselves whilst jumping.

In research released in December, the Australian Child Health Poll also revealed that while so many children are injuring themselves while playing on the trampoline, so few parents know the specific first aid that can both know and perform to minimise injury.

So what should parents actually be doing? And how can they make sure that if their child is in the one in six children that has sustained, or will sustain, an injury while on trampoline they know what to do?

For the Director of the Australian Child Health Poll, paediatrician Dr Anthea Rhodes, perhaps the most worrying thing is the fact parents do not see trampolines as an activity that put children at risk if they are not supervised properly.

“Parents are probably not aware of the risks that are involved in using a trampoline even though there are clear safety guidelines that have been issued by the ACCC. What we found in this study is that majority of parents are disregarding those guidelines, and that means it’s less safe for the kids on the trampolines,” she told Mamamia.

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More than that, the study found that two thirds of kids under six years of age use a trampoline, and of that group, around a third are not supervised by a parent.

In addition to ensuring children are adequately supervised while jumping, Dr. Rhodes says there are things parents can both do and learn to minimise injury. The Australian Child Health Poll revealed that only one in two parents know the specific first aid for some trampoline-related injuries.

“Some of the common things that we found parents are not confident in when it comes to first aid are things like bumps to the head, injuries to teeth, and fractured or broken bones,” she said.

As such, its crucial parents are well-versed in first aid that centres on broken bones and head injuries.

“Things like Raising Children Network and Kids Health Info which belongs to the Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, has apps with first aid on them, and it can be really useful to look at those when your child isn’t injured.

When  you’re sitting in front of the telly one evening relaxing, parents should have a look and save it. Then in the moment when something happens and everyone’s panicking, you’ve got a resource that you can go to easily and have a look at what to do,” she says.

More than anything, downloading an app that outlines first aid processes might ease panic when something actually does occur.

“It’s really common to panic when things go wrong, and we don’t expect that parents will remember exactly what to do. So having a system in place so they can look up the information easily at the time that they need it is a really useful way to get prepared,” she says.