Question for the Parents

rdanico

rdanico

New Member
Joined
May 12, 2008
Location
Timberlake, NC
So, greg and I are debating about Holley's ability to ride the jeep on the road, and on the trail.....at what age did you have your kids out in an open jeep? and when did you first take them on the trail (what age), and what level of trail I - V with V being the hardest????

Thanks :)
 
Not a parent, but thats an interesting topic.

Ive seen some pretty young kids on the trail. I suppose there are two major things i would be concerned about.

maturity of kid: can your kid behave and be happy all day strapped into the back of a hot jeep? if the kid isnt going to have fun i wouldnt want to force him to go.

Safety of rig: is everything secure, nothing to flyup and smash kid. Is the kid safe from a rollover or catastrophic gravity situation.

Ive seen people out there with dogs i was worried about, let alone kids.
 
I have been riding my daughter around on the trails at URE since she was 12months. Never took any obsticals until she was 5. Had her car seat strapped in to a home made roll cage & had neck support. She still loves to go to URE.
 
My son has been wheeling for 2/3s of his life. He is 6.
Started with easy trails, he gets the passenger seat if he is with me. Used a car seat then, now a booster with harnesses. If we get to an obstacle with flop/roll possibilities, he walks and waits at the top.
 
My daughter is 8 and I will take her anywhere at ure. I would say she is comfortable with a IV
 
good info so far. holley is 5 months now. I want to drive my tj more than I do but I worry about the wind on her in my mall crawled. greg says she's fine.

as for trails im not concerned at all about followers, because even thought some of you would think other wise, greg does have sense about his passengers and makes damn sure he has the best possible roll cages (and he's tested all but 1 of them).

keep the replies coming :)
 
rdanico said:
good info so far. holley is 5 months now. I want to drive my tj more than I do but I worry about the wind on her in my mall crawle. greg says she's fine.
as for trails im not concerned at all about followers, because even thought some of you would think other wise, greg does have sense about his passengers and makes damn sure he has the best possible roll cages (and he's tested all but 1 of them).
keep the replies coming :)
Click to expand...

damn phone auto text. my mall crawler (not crawled) and rollove
 
the one thing my daughter did complain about was the wind when we were driving with no top on. Too much wind for her. She's ok now, but when she was younger she didn't like it.
 
Spoke to my son's doctor about this issue. He told me children do not have the neck muscles required to sustain the constant motion offroad until age 5... Any time before that and your looking at the possibility of neck, head or brain injurys.
 
NCJeepin said:
Spoke to my son's doctor about this issue. He told me children do not have the neck muscles required to sustain the constant motion offroad until age 5... Any time before that and your looking at the possibility of neck, head or brain injurys.
Click to expand...

interesting... I asked my Doc he said after 2years is fine.

my son is 18 months and I have agreed that I will not take him on the trails until after age 2.
Of course I mean URE and easy stuff. I will probably not take him on the hard stuff until older.. I do not want to scare him.
 
ill chime in here along with the significant other. we have 10 years in the health care and field with both with grad degrees practicing in therapy dealing with traumatic brain injury, stroke and orthopedics.

PERSONALLY i would not take a child under 6 on anything other than fire roads. reasons? tons... basilar and temporal skull fractures and axonal shearing of the brain kills people from nascar drivers to people that sky dive to people like billy mays. these injuries are on the rise and unfortunately cant always be detected until its too late. and all the mega million dollar technology sometimes cant protect them.

what might have happened to mays is what did happen to Natasha Richardson. she had a small head trauma and was fine. walked, talked and ate and then died. brain injury doesn't always present as a major TBI. until the autopsy is released on mays, what they are saying is very likely the cause. what looked like a slight bump on the head caused a bleed and eventually death. he was fully aware of his surroundings and totally conscious. got home, made calls, ate and fell asleep and didn't get back up. brain bleeds on the scale that only a high res fMRI can detect kill adults and the time from injury to presentation of a symptom in a child is cut in half due to development.

a seat, belt, etc are all great precautions and the right thing to do for anyone in any vehicle but the movements offroad that can snap the head and neck back and forth make adults sore after a day on the trail. i started wearing a neck support five years ago and it makes tons of difference at the end of the trail day. but i still run a risk, a child only has the adult to make the right choice.
anyone can argue that kids are at risk in any car on any road at any time. true, but with even the cheapest cars now having 4-6 airbags, car seats properly fixed to mounts that are tied to the body of the car, etc I feel that a child is more safe in a car or truck. open top jeeps, factory roll cages and mod's of the stk suspension can make all of our jeeps less stable on road or off.

just my feelings having seen kids and adults from car and truck accidents with all that technology around them and still being in coma's or having some type of TBI that they may or may not recover from. im not a parent but i do have kids that are in the family that i wouldn't put at risk and that's my educated decision that i choose to make. having seen what happens when ignorant adults make bad choices motivates me. seeing a six year old that an adult just couldn't leave at home with a brain injury due to sitting on a lap on a four wheeler. the child with zero protection had to be fed thru a tube for two months. the adult got to leave walking but the child spent eight weeks in an NICU and had to relearn how to tie his shoes and talk. all because the dad was a jackass and hey "it wont happen to my kid".

to each their own.
 
im 16 years old and i have a 93 xj. i've been riding trails sence i was like 6 mo. so my ddad says. i turned out okay... for the most part lol. he had a 80 cj7 with a body lift and one rough ride on and off the trails
 
I've been taking my son around in the CJ since he was 18 months, but no wheeling yet. I'm more worried about the highway than most trails at URE. I plan to do some light trails that get him outdoors without banging him around, but I'll carpool with someone who can take him in a safe highway car and I'll avoid most obstacles or put have him watch from the sidelines with one of my buddies on the ride.

When he gets older and his sister is also old enough I am wanting to do more. I plan to pick up a YJ family cage and tie it into the frame. I won't take him above 45 in it until then. Mostly, we do neighborhood touring and wheeling in the backyard to haul logs and move stumps for his swingset.

For the kiddy DD we have a non-turbo volvo wagon and I'm kinda of the Britax Boulevard and it's head/neck protection.

I can imagine the horror stories Steve (highsociety) has encountered from my own experiences watching the trail fleas at URE. We've all seen toddlers and up riding in laps without helmets up Dutch John or around RML or even Daniel. I have heard of a softball strike causing a similar situation to Mays and Richardson and Sonny Bono too. I will have to keep Steve's statements in mind as I choose routes, etc. As an aside, anyone who was as worked up, wound up and shouting as much as Mays could have brought on a stroke due to blood pressure unrelated to his head injury.

In the end you both are parents and neither should feel uncomfortable about the situation. Greg has a great deal of experience and has learned some limits to his rigs the hard way. It puts him in a position to better know when he's approaching those limits and back off for the sake of his child. Also, he's shown to have a cool head under pressure and he can use that ability to make choices before there is a dangerous situation.

-- My opinion as a software guy and dad, not a medical professional
J
 
I've been taking my son since he was 4 ( he is now 8 ). He rode in a car seat till he couldn't fit in it anymore. On the harder obsticles I took him out and let friends watch him. I am doing the same with my 4 yr old daughter now. The one problem I had was that my son would get tired and try falling asleep. I had to try and keep him awake so that he would hold his head up. They have alot shorter attention span so he would get bored riding. But he loved it when he was able to get out a play with other kids.
 
We took Maycee to URE when she was 7months. My wife took her out of the jeep at the harder obstacles.
She rode all over Callalantee when she was 2 and has riden alot since turning 4.
 
I took Mason(23months now) a couple months ago to Mt city anddid most of the better trails. Welder, armor all, little tellico, even Step trail w/ the big rough hill climb and he was asleep for that one and he loved every second of it when he was awake. One of his first words was Beep(jeep).
 
No doubt kids will love it, I just don't think its worth the risk of long term ill effects.
 
My 9yo son Jake went on his first real ride at age 4 when we went to Windrock.He has been several times since then,Harlan numerous times,Tellico three times,Windrock a couple of times and a lot of local places.He and my wife always get out at the harder stuff.My wife has a herniated(sp) disc in her neck from three car wrecks(people around here can't see taillights) so she don't subject herself to too much abuse. Their are times I put em out cause I'm not real comfortable with the situation.He's kinda the nervous type of kid so if he want's out I let him out.
Jake and Tonya's safety is my main concern,if I get out and get my self hurt thats one thing,but if they got hurt it would really bother me.
 
highsociety said:
brain bleeds on the scale that only a high res fMRI can detect kill adults...
Click to expand...

I agree w/ everything except one very small detailed o/t point - fMRI isn't the least bit "hi res" compared to most MR sequences w/ a conventional scanner and BOLD signal isn't going to tell you sh$t in thsi regard.

I took my son to URE when he was 2, only hit easy trails; he was loving it until he fell asleep, and as soon as he did and gave the f classic "sleepy head bob" we were done.

Ditto on kneck protection, this is the biggest problem (head support).

And BTW your average MD "doc" dosn't know jack shit about real neurophysiology, unless he takes the time to look something up or "get back to you" I wouldn't trust him any more than The Interwebs.
 
Has no one seen a 4yr old on a motor x track with a helmet that weighs as much as their head. I think children are made out of rubber.
 
greg slade said:
damnit JT, you are confused again.....it's rubber that prevents the childrens!
Click to expand...

LMAO.

excellent point about the general MD not really knowing what effects 4x4ing can have on a kid, Dave.

Don't discount his advice but i would assume he has little knowledge of the field ratlab mentioned nor experience in an ofroad situation. be kind of hard for a doc to give advice based on his on experience and all he has to go on is generic reasoning.

Seems 4-5ish is the average and thats limited by the boredom factor.


Just to note...i normally would not participate in this thread cause im not a parent, but my spotter is and we have wondered about bringing his toddler along.
 
As some of you may know, poor Greg didn't get to wheel an incredible amount when I was pregnant, due to my having a high risk pregnancy. After our wedding in Harlan, KY, I was strictly moral support from our home zip code. I'm grateful for your advice and extremely helpful information.

Guess I will have to let greg build me a "mommy" wagon so se can get out to URE and watch him do all the fun stuff until Holley is 5 (or older). Maybe I can convince him to let me drive his rig every once in a while
 
Back
Top