When your child decides they are keen on playing sport, there are lots of factors to consider as a parent.
And after recent news stories about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease known to affect players of high-impact sports, keeping them safe from head injuries may be front of mind.
High-contact sports with a risk of repeated head hits such as Australian Rules, rugby union and rugby league are a huge part of Australian culture, as are many other sports, and all come with some level of general injury risk.
But sport also delivers huge physical and mental benefits for children.
So how can you best support your child to play a sport they enjoy, while protecting them where you can and minimising the risk of head injuries?
Consider non-contact version until the age of 14
Ultimately, choosing the right sport for your child is an individual choice.
However, for parents with children interested in high-contact sports, Swinburne neurophysiologist and adjunct professor Alan Pearce, who works with the Australian Sports Brain Bank, recommends parents consider non-contact versions until their child turns 14.
“So if it’s rugby, for example, encourage the kids to play touch rugby,” he says.
“If we can keep them in a modified form until 14, we’re potentially reducing [repeated head impact] exposure risk for six to eight years,” he says, which can significantly reduce the risk of CTE later in life.
Dr Pearce says CTE is a disease of risk exposure: the higher the number and severity of head knocks, the more likely you are to contract it.
“We’re trying to get parents to think about reducing the exposure to sub-concussive impacts, which are not the concussion injuries, but the bumps and the collisions and the tackles that can add up, even as a kid,” he says.
He says while children and teens may not be playing at the same intensity as adults or professionals, they may still experience a dozen or so impacts during practice or weekend games over time.
To date, research shows that an athlete’s odds of developing CTE do not correlate with the number of concussions they have experienced, but are linked instead to the number of head impacts and their strength.
But isn’t early skill-building important for high-contact sports?
Hunter Bennett, a senior lecturer in sport science at Adelaide University, says sticking with non-contact sports, or non-contact versions of sports until the age of 14, is a “fairly reasonable” rule of thumb.
He says parents shouldn’t be too concerned that participating in non-contact sports, or versions of high-impact sports, before the age of 14 will disadvantage their children.
“Children who engage in a variety of different sports and activities throughout childhood tend to be the ones who excel in sport as they get into adulthood,” he says.
“I think if you did have a child who was very, very keen on a particular [high-contact] sport … you could make the argument that they will actually see a benefit from potentially participating in different variations of that sport, or even different sports altogether, and then as they get older transitioning more formally into that sport.”
Dr Peace agrees there is plenty of evidence to suggest that holding younger children back from high-impact sports will not impede their development.
“Adam Goodes didn’t start playing until he was 16 and he’s considered one of the greatest players in Australian Rules football,” he says.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-01/protect-your-child-from-brain-trauma-while-playing-sport/106856790?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other
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