Parenting Through Sports Injuries

 We're getting real about sports injuries and how to handle them when your child has to walk away from the sport they love. 

It's a big deal, and as someone who's been through it all—from my husband's insane injuries to my own kids' scrapes and bruises—I've got some insights and questions for you. Let’s work together through this tough situation!

We face the hardest truth in youth and lifestyle sports: injuries can end a dream and remake a life. We share our family’s injury history, why climbing shapes our days, and how parents can support kids if they have to walk away.

• naming the grief of losing a lifestyle sport
• honest talks with kids about medical realities
• separating identity from performance
• keeping community ties without pressure
• exploring adjacent roles like coaching or route-setting
• building new routines and mental health tools
• finding purpose beyond medals and grades
• inviting stories from other families to learn together

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About This Podcast

It takes a village to raise a pro athlete.

For the first time ever this channel takes you behind the athlete’s ‘unspoken’ road what it really takes to raise athletes.

What to expect when you listen:

Real, Raw Truth

Laughter

The Struggles & Successes

ABOUT YOUR HOST:

Marina Kuperman Villatoro, a mama who is on a mission to help her sons reach their athletic (rock climbing) goals and dreams.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Facing Career-Ending Injuries
• 0:36 Host’s Family And Injury Reality
• 1:52 When A Hobby Isn’t A Career
• 2:07 The Pro Path And Hard Stops
• 2:57 Lifestyle Sports Shape Whole Lives
• 4:11 Community Loss And Identity Shift
• 4:21 Coping, Alternatives, And Fear
• 5:26 Call For Stories And Support

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Injuries in sports and having to walk away. This is a reality, and this is something that we need to understand and to talk about as the parent of athletes and finding the best way to support them, not only in that decision, because a lot of times it has sometimes it's not really up to the decision, but simply from the injury that there's just no way to come back to it. This is a topic that needs to be discussed, and also being able to talk to your child properly when it does happen is a big, big deal. I'm Marina, your host, mother of two aspiring rock climbers, and a wife to an extreme athlete. And I'll tell you one thing injury is no stranger in our household. My husband has had several pretty severe injuries from rock climbing and from mountain biking. Because he has been an extreme athlete for the majority of our time together and even earlier, I have seen quite a lot. But he's not a pro, right? He has been able to walk away. He's amazing in the fact that he has completely bounced back. He had had an injury that put him out literally, he was bedridden for five months, several surgeries. I mean, this was a completely his entire foot because when he crashed, he completely, literally pulverized his heel. His entire foot has been completely changed. He's gonna walk with a limb forever. But he did return to the rock. Like his mental strength and all that it took to go with it. But again, he is a hobbyist. This is not his pro. This is not what he has aspired to do to become a pro. However, what if your child has to go through something like this? And that this kind of an injury definitely would not permit him to continue on and to continue being a pro if he was going into the pros. And in extreme sports, let's face it, guys, the injuries, they're real, they're severe, and a lot of times they do completely stop you from continuing on because you get injured in extreme sports. I'm not really gonna go into that right now because we all understand the complexities of the injuries that could happen with extreme sports, right? So the question really is when that injury does happen, how do we talk with our children properly about how do we support our kids when it's time for them to walk away? Because there is gonna be nothing more painful than them not being able to continue in the sport that they have completely devoted their lives to. And interestingly enough, extreme sports, they're not just sports on the field, they are lifestyle sports, right? Like climbing is a lifestyle sport. What does that mean? It means, yes, they go and my kids go and train at the gym, but lifestyle sport meaning we are our all of our travels are always surrounded around where are they gonna go rock climbing? Where are they gonna go bouldering, right? This is an outdoor thing, like everything we do. If my kids were into track and fields or into bowl, into um football or let's say other or baseball, stuff like that. Chances are we're not gonna be, you know, we're not gonna be traveling to places where they could find, you know, a place where they can play baseball. Definitely not. But when you are surfing, certainly you're gonna be going and traveling where there's the surf. You're gonna be chasing that surf, right? How about mountain biking? You're gonna go where there's great trails, all of that, right? That's what it's called, that's what it means to be part of a lifestyle sport. So if you get injured, not only are you gonna stop with that sport, right? Which is whole your whole community, obviously, but it's also your entire life. Your entire life has been surrounded around that. So this is a very much an open conversation right now, because to be honest with you, everybody manages this differently. And a lot of times there are alternatives to stay in the sport without being in the sport. So I would love to hear your experiences. I would love to hear what if this has happened to you, to your child, what do you do about it? How do you manage it? Because this is constantly a fear for me. I'll be honest with you. I have seen the injuries, I have seen how hard it is, and it's brutal, right? It's brutal. And I am constantly in fear because I have lived through all these injuries with my husband, and even my kids have had several, you know, that something's always gonna happen. That not only are they gonna be injured, but like to manage like their mental state if they have to stop with the climbing, because it is their entire world, and this is something that is so important. Like, how do we manage this? How do we help our kids? And I would love to hear more from you because this is all about that strategic village and helping us raise our kids. I'd love to hear from you. How do you manage this? How do you talk about this? What have you done? Please let me know. Let us come, you know, let us start sharing this topic of conversation. All right. Thanks, guys. Please share this with your friends. Please subscribe. Please leave me a review and let's have this conversation out in the open.