Understanding activities with body contact

Kids and youth can live full, happy lives even if body contact is not recommended!

Encouraging your child to play with friends is an important part of their health. For some children, bumping into people or things could hurt them or the devices that keep them healthy. For these children, activities may need to be adapted or they may need to choose activities carefully. Be safe and active to live a healthy lifestyle!

To help your child or youth make good activity choices, it is important to:

Help children to understand why they must choose their activities carefully, and how to make good choices.
Choose activities that have various levels of intensity so children can ease into the activity and it is not too vigorous.
Help your child understand whether the adaptations and choices they need to make will continue throughout life, or whether they may change in the future.
Find ways that your child can join friends doing restricted activities, such as refereeing, timekeeping, or coaching.

Physical activity = exercise, social interaction and confidence!

Ensure that teachers and coaches are aware of your child's physical activity recommendations. If you have questions, ask your healthcare team to help!

Physical activity guidelines

Activities with little or no body contact

Enjoy activities that usually have little or no body contact, such as:

Walking, jogging, gardening or cross-country running
Table tennis, badminton or billiards
Bowling, cricket, curling, golf or bocce
Tai chi or slides
Swimming
Tap, jazz or ballet dance
Cross-country skiing (classic style)
Bike riding

Avoid activities with a risk of unintentional or occasional body contact, including activities where a person or object might make contact with your child or youth, such as volleyball, soccer, basketball or tether ball.

Activities without deliberate body contact

Enjoy most activities that do not have deliberate body contact. Sports with unintentional or occasional contact are okay. These include:

Basketball, volleyball or tether ball
Cheerleading
Street hockey or ice hockey without body checking
Figure skating
Baseball or softball
Soccer or field hockey
Squash or racquetball
Tobogganing

Avoid sports with deliberate body contact, such as football or kickboxing.

Physical activity restrictions

Your care team will check off the sections below to indicate which restrictions your child or youth should follow.

Body part restrictions

☐ Body contact should be avoided for the child or youth's entire body.
☐ Body contact should be avoided for just the following area (e.g. chest, abdomen):

________________________________________________

Duration of restrictions

☐ The restrictions shown above will remain unchanged until your next clinic visit.
☐ The restrictions shown above are only to remain in place for the following timeline:

________________________________________________

Other details

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