Eight foods cause 90% of food allergies: peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs, wheat, soy, fish, and shellfish and as many as 8% of children (6 million kids) in the US suffer from at least one food allergy. And while relatively minor symptoms live hives or a scratchy throat have taught many parents to keep their kids away from shellfish or peanuts,  nearly 40% of children with food allergies have suffered from a severe reaction and sadly some of those reactions can be fatal. There is a reason some schools and daycare centers are completely banning peanut butter and jelly sandwiches—even just the smell of peanuts can cause a child’s throat to swell up if their allergy is severe enough.

If you haven’t heard the story yet, Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice was recently fired after videos of him screaming and swearing at, pushing, grabbing, and throwing basketballs at his players surfaced. We’re all familiar with the antics of coaches like Bobby Knight, who are about as famous for their sideline temper as they are for their winning records. And while many sports coaches can probably remember a time or two in their coaching careers when they lost their cool and yelled at a player, the kind of physical bullying Rice was videotaped doing is completely inexcusable.

If you or your child love to play outdoors in the spring and summer (which if you do keep it up!) you’re probably very aware that you need to reapply sunscreen every few hours, drink plenty of water, wear light clothes, pack some sunglasses and so forth. Most sports parents and coaches do a great job of keeping an eye on their youth athletes for signs of dehydration and heat exhaustion but there is another summertime danger that parents and coaches have to be on the lookout for, especially for the runners and bikers that prefer wooded trails—Lyme disease.

Even one case of sexual abuse of a youth athlete by a member of a sports organization is too many in our book. Youth sports teams are supposed to be a safe place for kids to grow and learn, make friends, do what they love and just have fun. It saddens everyone here at SportsSignup to think that there are some people out there who would take advantage of the trust that comes with being a youth sports coach or volunteer and use that power to abuse children. That’s why we believe that every sports organization should have a coach and volunteer background check system in place. While they may not be foolproof, running a background check on a potential volunteer can definitely help deter many would-be predators from joining your organization.

It might sound crazy to be talking about heat exhaustion while most of the US is still blanketed under snow, but with the MLB’s Spring Training underway our minds are already turning towards the summer sports season. And with the summer comes heat! Think about the last time you went for a walk or a jog on a hot summer day. Chances are even in shorts and a tee-shirt you were pretty toasty by the end, right? Now think about the football players up at the local high school---some teams run two-a-day practices in the summer in full equipment. Let’s say that padding doesn’t breathe quite as well as cotton! Regardless of what sport your child plays or how much gear they have to wear in the summertime heat exhaustion is a serious concern and as parents and coaches we need to do everything we can to prevent heat exhaustion, as well as recognize the signs and learn how to treat heat exhaustion should one of our players get sick.

Stories like this just break our hearts here at SportsSignup. We know we can’t keep our kids in a bubble forever, but a youth sports league should be one of the safest places for a child to spend their time. To hear that the president-elect of the New Mexico Young America Football League was arrested on a child pornography charge (and subsequently removed from his position with the league) horrifies us. Once again, we are reminded that you can never be too cautious when it comes to protecting our players from sexual predators. That’s why every sports parent should demand that their organization require coach and volunteer background checks for everyone involved in the league, from the league president down.

Most youth athletes are ecstatic over losing their first tooth. After all, what is cooler than being able to amaze your teammates (and gross out your little sister) than by a swiveling tooth around that is barely connected to the rest of your head? Seeing 8 and 9 year olds missing their two front teeth is a familiar site is youth sports but what if your child lost a baby tooth that wasn’t quite ready to go just yet? Even worse, what if something happens to one of their brand new adult teeth? According to the Massachusetts Dental Society, more than 5 million teeth are knocked out each year through sports injury, accident, or play! That’s a lot of extra trips for the tooth fairy. However, mouthguards have been shown to dramatically reduce the amount of lost teeth (and other oral injuries) to youth athletes, stopping approximately 200,000 oral-facial injuries each year!

Even with the best of intentions and preparations such as first aid classes, CPR certification, AEDs on-site, teaching the proper technique to players, checking the field before every game, buying all the right equipment and more, accidents can and do happen in youth sports. Most of the times these sports injuries are pretty minor—a scraped up knee or elbow, maybe a jammed finger or bloody nose, or a sprained ankle that requires a couple days off their feet. Playing sports, especially full-contact sports, comes with a certain risk and even though 99% of the time nothing goes awry every now and again there is a freak accident that ends in a season ending injury.

When most of us hear that a local youth athlete suffered a concussion over the weekend we usually assume it was a football player. After all, football is a full contact sport and when two 145 pounds 15 year olds run headfirst into each other it’s not that surprising to hear that one of them came out worse because of it. Obviously we don’t ever want to see any of our kids get hurt but football seems like the kind of sport where concussions are most likely. But what might surprise you is that youth football players aren’t the only ones at risk for suffering a concussion while on the field. Here are some crazy facts about concussions in youth sports:

Darkness2Light, an organization committed to ending child sexual abuse has some pretty scary statistics on their site that should stop every sports parent and coach in their tracks.