By Eric Jusino » Fri, April 27 2012

Shocker: nerf playgrounds are probably stunting your kid’s mental and physical growth. But that’s not the worst of it. You can more directly break your kid by being overly involved in their playing on the slide:

Although nobody keeps national statistics, orthopedic specialists say they treat a number of toddlers and young children each year with broken legs as a result of riding down the slide on a parent’s lap. A study at Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y., found that nearly 14 percent of pediatric leg fractures over an 11-month period involved toddlers riding down the slide with a parent.

This ridiculousness has prompted a doctor to make his own PSA about what happens and how:

So do your kids a favor: stop hovering. Let them play outside. Remember that you and the vast majority of the people that you know somehow survived a childhood full of “dangerous” playgrounds and toys and dirt, and that your perceptions of what is safe and how stupid kids are has probably changed. Your kids are probably not complete idiots looking to throw themselves from extreme heights all the time. Also, stop worrying about your neighbor’s kids. They’ll be fine.

Want more perspective? Check out FreeRangeKids, which will horrify some of you with stories of insanely neglectful parenting (like letting kids play on their own in an unstructured, unscripted environment!) and heartwarming tales about how these kids are still alive and happy and not fucked up.