Teach Your Child How to Use Crutches

I didn't realize how scary it could be to have a child on crutches until my eight-year-old tore some ligaments in his ankle and was put on them for 10 days. It was scary watching him just using the crutches to hobble around on flat ground. It was super scary watching him maneuver stairs. It was terrifying watching him hobble into school and slip on the landing, almost taking a header down the steps. I held my breath for the ten days and thankfully he was back on his own two feet quickly but in the process I learned how to help him handle the crutches which also helped me put aside some of my fears.

Adjust the Crutches

The very first thing I learned as we were leaving the emergency room was to stop and adjust the crutches. I wrongly assumed the ER staff did it correctly but when I was watching him use the crutches something just didn't look right. He was unstable using them, which is understandable, but his arms were bent too much. Right there, in the parking lot, I unscrewed the hand grips and moved them down a notch. This instantly made it easier for my son to use them.

The next day we also adjusted the height on the crutches. This helped to "pull" them in closer to his body and made his hobbling more stable.

Speed

Once my son got used to using crutches, which I think took maybe ten minutes, then he was off and hobbling and I was left jogging beside him. If I said it once, I said it fifty times per day, "Slow down!" Whenever he picked up speed he also lost his concentration on where he was, where the crutches were, and who was around him.

His speed caused him to fall twice at school. We had a rainy spring, the floors were wet, and he saw a long, straight hallway and took off at the speed of light. Wet floors, wet crutches, and speed do not mix well.

Hobble Stride

I'll be honest; I don't know what else to call this. The hobble stride is basically the ''¹..."steps' my son took with his crutches. These strides were huge; or at least I thought they were. He would put his crutches way out in front of him and fling his body forward. This caused him to speed up and it did not look safe by any stretch of the imagination. I could envision him flinging his legs forward and flipping backwards causing a major head injury and the emergency room would get to know our family's name on sight.

To correct his stride I had to add to my constant "slow down" reminders to also take smaller steps. Yes, I sounded like a broken record but he would correct it, for a short time anyway, when I reminded him.

Stair Options

Kids naturally adjust to changes and using crutches is no different. Maneuvering steps was a little more challenging for my son. We had three options for going up and down steps and it all depended on the type of step and where the stairs were.

At home on the carpet we had him scoot up and down the steps on his butt. At school, on the linoleum, he hopped on his good foot while holding the railing and with someone else carrying his crutches. On very wide steps he used his crutches to walk up and down them.

Overall, my son adjusted very well to using crutches. It was almost harder on me watching him hobble around. Luckily, his teacher assigned him a buddy for the ten days so he didn't have to worry about carrying anything around school. He survived ten days on crutches and it was scarier for me than it was for him.

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