Parents' approval of their children playing high-risk sports.

Sport concussions can have deleterious effects on the health of children. Despite the high risk of concussions for certain sports, previous research indicates many parents would let their children play these sports. Understanding which high-risk sports parents will let their children play, and why parents let them play high-risk sports is critical to understanding how best to educate parents about concussion risk and its consequences. The present study replicated previous research by Fedor and Gunstad (2016) and Ferraro et al. (2021) to determine whether parents would let their children play a variety of high-risk sports. It also examined some high-risk sports not previously studied, and how gender and grade level of a child affected parents' decisions. Lastly, it determined if concussion knowledge, gender beliefs, parental history of a concussion diagnosed by a physician, estimates about how many high school athletes play varsity college sports, and demographic variables predicted parental willingness to let their children play high-risk sports. A total of 390 parents participated in the survey. Most parents expressed willingness to let their children play the high-risk sports sampled except for tackle football. Gender beliefs, if a parent had a concussion, and education predicted if parents would let their children play high-risk sports. Recommendations are made about how to improve parents' decisions about whether to let their children play high-risk sports.