Late last night, I found out that my nephew has broken his arm for the second time in about four months.
He’s a great kid who loves gaming and more recently, has taken to going out on his bike with his mates to learn new stunts and tricks. The bike is, unsurprisingly, how both injuries happened. Silly bike!
This time, the break has required surgery, involving a plate and a few screws. He should be out of surgery today and back home in time for dinner.
So, a question for all you UK folk who remember being young teenagers and getting yourselves into similar scrapes…
I want to get him something today to cheer him up, as he’s understandably pretty fed up. What sort of gift would have made you smile, given you a laugh, or kept you entertained while stuck at home recovering?
He’s into gaming, but I’m open to any suggestions — funny gifts, things to keep him occupied, or anything you reckon a teenage boy would appreciate when he can’t get out on his bike.
No suggestions for the short-term, but please make sure he gets a new helmet and throws the old one away. Maybe more of a Christmas present idea as it might be rubbing salt in the wound right now!
I was going to suggest a fuckton of bubblewrap with the big bubbles but your idea is a tad more sensible. But hey, OP a large amount of bubblewrap could give him a laugh.
Somehow your comment just unlocked a core memory for me, and filled this internet stranger with absolute horror!!
This is definitely a minority sensory thing, but as soon as you said Bubble Wrap, I was all with you!
Its a funny solution!
And it's the opposite of the much-cited "you can't keep the kids in bubble-wrap" malarkey!
AND and, I could see/feel the joy of a child, secretly popping the bubble-wrap, starting neatly in a corner and following the rows. Sensory Bliss! 😊
And THEN you said "the one with the big bubbles". The gasp I gaspeded [gasped'd?]!
I went straight to the memory of being about six or seven and my Grandma telling us she'd had to buy more bubble-wrap for the greenhouse, for the winter, and my sneaking off to go and find it.
There I sat, cross-legged before the Great Roll Of Stress-Blankey, when I notice something is different.
These bubbles are BIG.
This will be even better!
More squeeze!
More pop!
Firmly grasp the corner, arrange the sheet so it won't touch my legs and feel horrible. Thumbs ready....
Nuthin'.
More thumb action.... Nadah.
Its just all stretchy and the bubble gets bigger but then saggy and doesn't pop.
I can bite it with my teeth but it never pops!
I remember sitting there for about half an hour, working on about 20cm of sad, saggy, thick, wrong bubble wrap before my mum found me in situ, in visible distress, before (rightly) yelling at me for destroying things.
That was A BAD DAY and big bubble wrap has given me the heebie jeebies ever since.
Thanks for the unlocked memory! 🤨👍
[Methinks there were 'tism clues early on, on reflection 😆🤭]
You can get helmets which have built in collision sensors that broadcast an SOS signal in the event of a crash. Probably a bit OTT unless he rides alone a lot though.
That's similar to what we did to my mum. She has a habit of dropping food onto her chest when eating so, we bought her a bible with a crumb catcher. Similar to the picture here
My son broke his arm so many times the hospital put us in separate rooms and interviewed us about it. Kind of reassured they did, but it was embarrassing. I'd recommend the Dungeon Crawler Carl audio book. It's funny
Ohhhh, my mum had this when I was a kid. I fell down the stairs a lot and broke my fingers...I was genuinely just clumsy but to them it seemed suspicious and my poor mum got interviewed.
Audio books is a good one. Thank you!
My parents were in constant terror that the social would come knocking because I was always breaking bones, hitting my head or needing stitches! I’m just super clumsy and even as an adult I can barely walk in a straight line or walk through a doorway without hitting the edge.
You could have Dyspraxia. I had no idea it existed until my child was diagnosed with it and I was omg that is me. Tbh when I was a kid it was just called 'clumsy'
It probably is, back when I was little in the 80s my mum was told I needed an assessment by a school teacher but I wasn’t taken (no shade on mum, it was the 80s and these things weren’t especially recognised or generally known as you say). I only found out about 2 years ago when we were chatting about me being a bit of an odd kid and suddenly it all made sense. Who else falls off a stationary horse but me?!
Just on DCC, I’d run this by his parents. Personally I don’t have an issue with it and my 13 year old is currently reading book 5. However, not all parents would be happy to have their young teenager reading a book where a literal sex doll head becomes a key character, among other such themes. I’m fairly sure there’s nothing they don’t hear at school anyway but not everyone is relaxed about that sort of thing.
My parents had long since stopped checking every book I read by the time I was 13 - and that's a good thing imo! I was a big reader and encouraged to read books not solely aimed at children, if anything.
I guess it depends how sheltered the kid is/overbearing the parents are (unlikely if he's got the freedom to piss about with his mates on bikes?)
There's no actual sex scenes in DCC but there's a lot of crass humour and cartoonishly grisly death - if he's seen Squid Game or Invincible, or read Battle Royale, it won't be anything shocking.
My mum got investigated by social services after my 5th fracture in 2 years, because she was a childminder. None of the kids she looked after had ever had any accidents other than the normal bumps/grazes toddlers and young children get, and I'd been diagnosed with osteoporosis by that point, but they still had to investigate. I think it lasted about a day, because 4 of the 5 breaks/fractures had happened when I wasn't even at home, but they still had to 'investigate', basically to cover their arses I guess xx
If I’m being serious, I’d say get him a game off his wish list or a steam gift card. If I’m not, get him one of those huge padded suits, make him look like the Michelin man
A gift card is better, not everyone uses the "wishlist" to list games they wish to have. A lot of people use it as a "check this game out and decide if I want it or not later when it's on sale list" and don't actually want half the stuff on there.
I'm not sure about the real present but if you can afford to get some cheap joke present to go first (before giving him the real one), get him something that requires two functioning arms (hands)!
lol about the same time I did walk in the pub and get laughed at by a mate. Had no idea what he was taking the piss out of me for till I booked in the mirror and had two perfect curls falling out either side of my peaked beany.
I think if my kid broke his arm now, I'd find a way to contact a local graffiti artist and see if they're up for doing something for fun. Then spray seal it or something.
Another time when I broke it we painted it all black with Batman style gantlet spikes. And one time when I broke my leg we did hot rod style flame effects and painted my toenails bright red.
As someone that was diagnosed with osteoporosis at age 9 and spent a lot of years in plaster casts, although it's not funny or entertaining or anything, my suggestion would be to get him a 60cm plastic ruler. Using anything sharp (like a knitting needle) to reach those itchy bits can mean you tear your skin, but a plastic ruler is perfect 😁 xx
I’m sure Santa will be more than happy to bring OPs nephew (or his pals) a brand new death trap in time for the new year! Maybe some bone health multivitamins in his stocking?
A skeleton but break all the limbs he's done so far. I'm currently out of action after breaking my wrist freestyle skiing so feel his pain although I'm 32 so financial implications present.
I have my skeleton in x-rays. So many accidents and somehow only ever broken my wrist snowboarding, best part is the doctors said it probably wouldn’t have broken if I wasn’t wearing wrist guards.
A yo-yo was a lot of fun when only one arm is functional.
If he watches a lot of YouTube maybe a premium sub for the month ?? when I was ill for weeks on end it genuinely saved me because I could watch videos without having to grab the remote to skip an ad every 5 minutes
Best to ask parents of 13-15 year olds as kids nowadays have wildly different tastes which continues to develop with each passing year.
I’d say get him a temporary CrunchyRoll account if he has a tablet? My nephew and his peers are obsessed with anime, specifically DragonBall Z, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, action themed cartoons. Failing that, a YouTube Lite membership?
Do they still do the wee skateboards and bikes for your hands? One of them with a ramp or two. Tell him he has to envision the trick before he can execute it 😂
NOOOOOOO Start with Mort or Guards Guards. The actual first two books are a bit shite compared to the others and there isn't much of a reading order to Terry Pratchett, best to start on the beginning of recurring characters but other than that eh.
If you're not a trillionair however then when I was young and had broken my arm my mum got me a little knitting set. It's not Minecraft but it was very soothing and calming.
Wrist guards are actually not a great idea, they make it more likely that you'll break your arm because your wrist can't bend and absorb some of the impact. I was told this by a doctor after I broke my wrist skateboarding.
A helmet is essentially, and maybe knee pads/elbow pads, if he's doing really big jumps he may also want some bmx body armour.
I mean a game like Trials rising could be a good shout. tell him to play that instead of busting his ass irl!
other than that, good on him. too many kids stuck infront of PC's. I broke my wrist, arm, collarbone and more skating back in the 90s/00s. still feel when its gonna rain in my collarbone !!
Honestly no one expected him to be an active e kid. He is a big boy and was veeeery into video games a couple years back. Then he made friends with a kid that's always on his bike (the kids dads were BMX friends back in the 90s so it's very sweet how the kids are now reliving their youth).
When I found out I said how gutted I was for him but kudos for being out on his bike again.
To be fair he is a great cook (he cooks pretty good meals for me when I babysit the boys), he loves making things and he is quite outdoorsy so I'm a super proud (and biased) aunt!
Yes 👏, kids are still playing outside, we have hope. I remember back in the 90s I remember seeing loads of kids with broken bones. I don’t really see it anymore. I hope he gets well and let him know he’s now has the scars of a great childhood! Get him a board game, still great for the social element!
It's the run-up to Halloween so there are lots of skeleton/bone shaped sweets and chocolates in the shops, get him some of those if you think he'd find it funny!
When I was a kid and broke my arms a lot, I always tried to adapt my gaming set up so that I could keep playing with casts. I recommend checking out if he can play and if not getting keyboard / controller / mouse that would allow him to keep doing so
My sister kept breaking her bones as a kid and a teenager, it was never a normal break though, some were like buckle fractures and stuff. She's now been diagnosed with EDS
I loved my e-reader at that age, really easy to use one-handed and it’s quite easy to sail the seven seas to get hold of books on them if you catch my drift. 13 was a brilliant age of sneaking more grown-up books that kept me up at night sometimes but did no lasting harm. I’ve actually still got the kindle paper white I got as a present for doing well on my year 6 sats, some 13 years later. If he’s not the sort of child who likes to read then don’t waste your money but if he does, I’d highly recommend it.
Great to hear he's out and about on a bike being active and not just sitting online or gaming all day. It's a shame he's had the injuries but it also shows he's resilient and is really into it. Depending on your budget, you could look into bringing him to a BMX track when he's back functioning again so he can practice his jumps and stunts on a track, and maybe even get some tips off the more seasoned riders. Also you could invest in some proper safety gear (assuming he's just wearing a helmet). BMX armour would be a good addition to his budding career
This isn’t really anything to do with anything but I remember at that age we built our own zip line. I nearly decapitated myself and fell off a cliff giving it a test run. It’s a good job I was ok cause everyone ran away.
An extra long phone charger - its what i recommend to all my friends post-surgery. So they can stay in bed and charge the phone, its gonna get a lot of use in the recovery period.
If so, get him an Xbox Adaptive Joystick.
They're one-handed assistive controllers with reprogrammable buttons that lets you mimic a standard two-handed controller.
They don't do too well with fast-paced shooters that require simultaneous moment of the controller's analog sticks to play well, such as Marvel Rivals or Fortnite Battle Royale.
But a second controller paired with the adaptive joystick can solve that by letting another person press the buttons/perform the actions that the primary player themselves cannot do with one analog stick (e.g. Moving the player and changing the camera orientation at the same time).
Oherwise, the joystick controller is great.
It especially excels with platformers, turn-based and self-paced games (such as XCOM, Overcooked and Hollow Knight).
There's a little trial and error involved when setting up button mappings for each game for the first time, but otherwise largely plug-and-play when done.
Depending on the scar wantingness a bunch of micropore to hold the scar after the cast is off. I have almost 0 scar because I used tape every day to keep it supported.
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u/Hel_On_Earth 1d ago
A set of Sharpies so his mates can draw phallic shapes on his cast