Should Sports Be Revised to Keep Young Children Safer?

Emergency room visits for sports-related brain injuries has risen by 60% over the last ten years.   Should contact sports for children under fourteen be motified to stop this growing trend?   Is this spike directly associated with the fact that children seem to be playing contact sports at younger ages than ever before? There is growing support for these changes because young brains under the age of fourteen are more vulnerable due to neck weakness.  The proposed changes will effect the nature of many sports, but the three "biggies" will incur changes that will change these games significantly if they are adopted.  Here are the proposed changes for children under fourteen:

Football-eliminate tackling, adopt flag football, use tackle dummies to teach tackling
Soccer-no heading as most of the head injuries in soccer are linked to this practice
Hockey-no full body checking
Field Hockey & LaCrosse-use helmets,  most of the injuries are due to being hit with the sticks

I don't think many parents would argue that the use of helmets in LaCrosse and Field Hockey is something that they couldn't live with in order to keep their child safer while playing.  However, I think that this group is going to come up against some significant resistance from parents whose children participate in the "big three".  I think some parents will argue that these changes are going to change the nature of these games too much and their children will not be prepared to play theonce they reach fourteen.  Parents argueing for these changes not only make the point about safety but also the effect these injuries have on the health care system.

The debate begins.  Will child safety win out over sports or will sports be the victor?  Only time will tell.  I think that there are going to be some very heated debates between parents on both sides of this issue before any decision is finalized.