We asked some medical experts what advice they would have for parents wondering if they should let their children play tackle football. Here are the responses:

“If it were my little kid, I would make sure that the helmet is fitting snugly and do some neck strengthening exercises, even when they’re younger. We’ve really got to protect these kids, because they’re treasures and we can’t afford to exploit them.”

– Aynsley Smith, associate professor of orthopedics, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.

“At that level, younger than junior high, they don’t need to play tackle football. They need to learn positioning and foot skills and you can do that with flag football. There’s absolutely no reason these kids are tackling. We don’t know the age limit. I think less than junior high, they probably shouldn’t be doing tackle football. But in junior high, it’s probably OK, I’ve seen concussions in children younger than 8 from football. The problem is I have a really tough time dealing with them. It’s hard to evaluate them. It’s hard to test them, and they’re slow to recover.”

– Dr. Bill Heinz, Portland

“I don’t think kids should be playing collision sports below the age of 12. I think it’s just setting us up for problems. I think Pop Warner needs to get out of playing tackle football from ages 6 to 12, but that’s just a personal opinion. There’s no science behind this. We don’t know what having a concussion in any age means for the rest of your life. Period. None of that data is available.”

– Dr. Paul Berkner, Colby College

“I don’t think I could tell somebody not to play football or another sport. However, I would definitely do my best to educate them – these are the risks, these are the things you can do to try to prevent yourself from being injured. But it’s like anything else, you can slip and fall outside. Am I going to tell you not to play basketball because you might sprain your ankle? Everything that you do has risks.”

– Lisa Favreau, athletic trainer, Cape Elizabeth High School