Soccer and a Sprained Ankle

My 6 year old daughter E loves soccer. It was the first sport that she played and when we found out that she shouldn’t continue to play because of the risk to her eyesight (a head collision could detach her retina), we paused her involvement for a period. She has started up for this whole summer to just okay in a fun camp and has enjoyed the time, especially since she is with her 5 year old little brother C. The two of them are a tag team and they love playing together.

E sprained her ankle a few weeks ago and was apparently healing up well throughout the week. She had to miss her beach field trip and then started to feel well enough to play soccer. When she woke up the morning of the session, everything seemed fine. Most of the session was normal and E was running around well. It wasn’t until the scrimmage section that I noticed her favoring one side of her body.

E was limping around a bit, so I walked over to her and asked if her ankle was feeling fine. She told he it was and I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I still observed her limping a bit, but let her finish the session. When soccer was over, she got to the car, went home, and then the limping got pretty bad.

I talked to her again about whether her ankle was hurting earlier and she said it was. She didn’t want to miss out on soccer because it was the last few sessions, so she continued to play on her sprained ankle. I do think E is a trooper and she is tenacious, but she also needs to listen to her body. Taking a rest won’t knock her out longer-term. If she continues to ignore her body (like I did and regretted many things in the past), it can lead to longer impacting injuries. She said she understood and will likely take more breaks when she is hurt. We ended up canceling on a play date because of her ankle and hopefully after learning this lesson, we don’t have to do that again!