Re-thinking sledding after tragic accident
-
- January
- 27
It was my turn to work Saturday. So my husband took the kids ski tubing at a small ski resort in Orange County. Wouldn’t you know that my assignment for the day was to cover a candle light vigil for a 13-year-old girl who died last week while snow tubing?
Aleyris Martinez died when the snow tube she and a friend were riding in crashed into a tree on the Haverstraw town-owned golf course. She shouldn’t probably shouldn’t have been there. Town officials were quick to point out after the tragedy that there were ‘No trespassing’ signs posted at the golf course.
But is a sign really going to keep a kid away? Should it? I’ve let my kids go sledding at public parks. Do we really want to stop kids from a fun, outdoor activity like sledding?
I’m not the kind of parent who panics at every scare. I’d hate to tell my kids they can never sled again. But looking at the grief of the hundreds of people who attended the vigil for Aleyris, I can easily understand why some parents would put sledding on the forbidden list.
Maybe the answer is to create safe zones—public areas with no trees or other obstructions where kids can sled under some type of supervision.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 3:01 pm by Jane Lerner.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Print
| 
Email
When i was a kid, if it looked fun we tried it. I grew up in Brooklyn in the winter we didn’t have hills etc like here. we had the streets. what did we do? skitched.(ski-hitching). what is that; you hide, wait for a car to pass by slow and grab the rear bumper. viola. was it dangerous., uh yeah. did that stop us. uh no!
All one can do is hope your child is smart and safe and hopefully knows when enough is enough. Tragic and not so tragic accidents happen every day. we should all learn from them and move on.
My heart felt condolences to the family, of course!
I agree with Steve – this is yet another sign of the times. Schools, towns and counties are so afraid of getting sued that they have forbidden all sorts of activity from happening on their grounds. We’ve all heard about those schools in Massachussetts and elsewhere that have banned playing tag during recess because someone might get hurt. So what do the kids do? Stop having fun? No. They sneak around anyway and continue to do the things that we have forbidden them to do. THEY’RE KIDS! Only now it’s even MORE dangerous, because the kids know it’s not allowed so they sometimes don’t even tell their parents where they’re going. Now if something happens we don’t even know where to look for them. It’s all getting out of control. But our society is so lawsuit-happy and risk averse that this is what it’s coming to.
One thing strikes me about things like this – the lack of parental responsibility. Everything is dangerous to some degree. Parents need to be more involved, more present and aware of where their kids are. Life will happen and bad things will happen, so all we can do is our best – and not expect everyone else to teach our kids and protect them – then,perhaps, kids can start playing again and it won’t be a disaster when they fall and cut their knee.
My heart goes out to these parents in their loss. I don’t know how a parent goes on after losing a child.
Good points momanon and ginany.
It isn’t always the parent’s fault. I am very involved in all of my kids’ doings. But you know what, I am not omni-potent nor omniscient. I don’t wanna be, they have to learn on their own sometime.
Now I have seen some kids whose parents do nothing but hand them over to the Nanny and that’s the county we live in.. I am not a fan.
I have a Motto many have heard me say:
“Be the Parent”