“Go Ricky go! Go Ricky go! Go Ricky go!”

Hey guys! This is Dr. David with El Paso Manual Physical Therapy.

And I’m here at the playground with my kids.

My son Ricky right here he loves the monkey bars and he loves to show off and go back and forth and hang and swing.

One of the questions that I get all the time about my patients’ kids, my clients’ kids or their grandkids as well, is is it safe to pick them up by their hands and hang them or swing them around because they’ve heard of kids getting hurt like that.

I wanted to just give you some clarity about that because it is true kids can get hurt. You can actually dislocate some joints in the elbow and that’s a situation where you take them to the hospital. It’s not a fun situation. And of

You can actually dislocate some joints in the elbow and that’s a situation where you take them to the hospital. It’s not a fun situation.

It’s not a fun situation.

Of course, as a parent or grandparent, you’ll feel horrible if that ever happens to the kids.

But I wanted to give you a way to find out if it’s okay to do it with your kids because once they get a certain age, it’s really not that big of a deal. And it’s not even the age. It’s

And it’s not even the age. It’s

It’s moreso they’re ability. So come

So come here Ricky. Can you hang real quick? Hold on right there, just hang.

So on his own, he did this. I mean I set him up right now but in the

I mean I set him up right now but in the past he’s done this and I can see that he did the monkey bars on his own. So I know, want to let go?

I know that he can hang pretty well.

So his muscles in his hand that grip, go ahead and squeeze my finger.

The muscles travel down the arm and across the elbow and stabilize the joints here in the elbow so I know that his muscles are strong enough to hang, then they’re strong enough to also keeps his elbow joints together.

Go ahead and hold on with both hands.

Now I know I can pick him up and swing him around and as long as he’s gripping my fingers as you can see, I know he’s engaged those muscles. Hold on.

What is NOT safe to do is grabbing kids by their wrists like so and then picking them up because he is not using his gripping muscles right there and that’s potentially dangerous.

If you swing the kid around, if you grab him by the arms like this and swing him around, you’re gonna potentially hurt their elbows.

I know I can pick him up and swing him around and as long as he’s gripping my fingers as you can see, I know he’s engaged those muscles.

My daughter is too small right now to be able to hang on her own, so I’m not even trying to pick her up by her arms and swing her around right now.

I’m gonna wait until she herself demonstrates and she herself has the confidence to be able to hang.

So watch this hold on.

Hold it right there. Hold on, don’t let go okay?

See I’m gonna just kind of test her here and she looks like she’s gonna fall so I’m not gonna stress her out too much on that.

Before when she was younger, she wouldn’t even hold on for very long at all.

“Bye bye!”

I hope this helps in deciding how to play with your grandkids and kids.

Have a great day.