School Backpacks With Wheels For Kids In Malaysia Is Good For Our Children?

School backpacks with wheels for kids in Malaysia is good for our children? If  we take a closer look, our kids going to school with heavy backpacks. And some schools keep on introducing new books for children to buy and take them to school everyday.

Some people suggests that heavy backpacks is not good for our kids health. Heavy backpack will put too much preasure on our kid’s back and spinal. Indeed, heavy backpacks is not good for our kids.

But then what is our option? Should we tell the school to reduce the number of books or we make a suggestion to the government that all school must provide a safety lockers for every single one of of their students?

There are people suggesting that school backpack with wheels for kids is the best alternative to solve this issues. It seems this is one of the brilliant idea. Most importantly the manufacturer for school backpacks with wheel will be laughing all the way to the bank.

Imagine if billions of kids rushing to the mall looking for school backpacks with wheel?

But there are also many opposite opinion. And the reasons for objections seems valid and reasonably true.

So as a parent what do we do now? To allow or not to allow school backpacks with wheels for our kids?

Let take a looks at some suggestion and views about this subject.

Wheels Come Off Backpacks’ Benefits
By KEITH RUSHING Daily Press

NEWPORT NEWS Injuries caused by rolling luggage pulled by kids result in the bags being banned at some schools.

After years of back and spinal injuries caused by heavy backpacks that children tote to school, backpacks with wheels might seem like a good solution.

But some local school officials say school bags on wheels simply get in the way and can cause more problems than they solve.

The bags are banned at Suffolk’s Forest Glen and John Yeates middle schools unless a student has a medical reason for using one.

And the public preschools in Newport News discourage parents from sending children to school with rolling backpacks. Students in Hampton, York, Williamsburg-James City are free to use backpacks with wheels.

“It’s a safety issue in the hallway,” said Dan O’Leary, principal at Forest Glen.

Students can sometimes trip and fall over the bags, which are pulled around like luggage. And many school lockers aren’t big enough for many of the larger bags. If students brought them into classrooms, O’Leary said, they’d clog aisles and make it difficult for students to get out of classrooms quickly, if the need arose.

O’Leary sympathizes with students, who have heavy books to carry. “If I had to carry books that are half my weight,” he said, “I’d have a problem, too.”

School officials also say rolling backpacks present potential hazards on school buses because some students can’t hold them on their laps and they’re more likely to roll around on the buses.

Suffolk elementary school pupils, who have fewer books and less need for larger bags, can come to school with rolling backpacks. So can Suffolk high school students, but the bags aren’t too popular with older teenagers.

A chiropractor who specializes in backpack injuries said the rolling schoolbags were now the primary cause of trips to hospital emergency rooms for backpack-related injuries.

“They present one solution and present one problem,” said Marvin Arnsdorff of Charleston, S.C.

“The solution is you get to roll them. The problem is you have more trips and falls in school.”

Arnsdorff is co-founder of Backpack Safety America, which educates about these issues. He said he began treating a much larger number of children for back, neck and shoulder pains in the 1990s, when backpacks became more popular. Back problems caused by heavy backpacks remain a significant health concern, the chiropractor said. “You end up with a swayback,” he said, “and your head held out in front of your shoulders.”

In Newport News, public preschools — called early childhood centers — discourage parents from sending their children to school with backpacks with wheels because of safety problems that they’ve encountered.

“A few have tripped over them as they struggled with them down the steps,” Newport News schools spokeswoman Michelle Morgan said. Children also have fallen over them in hallways, she said.

Morgan said it’s hard to move 4-year-old children in a group through a corridor when they’re trying to drag bags around.

Furthermore, 4-year-old pup-ils have few books to carry and no need for large bags with wheels, she said.

There’s no ban on using rolling backpacks in Newport News schools, however, so children can come to school with them.

Mary Kay Avis, whose 4-year-old son attends Warwick Early Childhood Center in central Newport News, said discouraging rolling backpacks at the school made sense to her.

Avis said she could envision other children tripping over the bags. Her son needs only a lunchbox and a small backpack with an agenda book for school each day, she said.

“They’re so small and so tiny,” Avis said, referring to the children. “They often don’t see where they’re going. I don’t see why they need a roller backpack.” *

STUDENTS AND BACK PAIN

The number of book-bag toting school children with back problems has risen:

* About 74 percent of children complain of back pain while in elementary, middle or high school, recent studies show.

* About 30 percent of students complained of back pain in 1990.

WAYS TO AVOID BACK STRAIN

* Choose the right size backpack.

* Don’t carry loads that exceed 15 percent of your body weight.

* Bend your knees when picking up your backpack, using your legs to support the weight.

* Use both shoulder straps. Avoid carrying it on one shoulder.

He advises that children avoid carrying bags that exceed 15 percent of their body weight: A child who weighs 100 pounds shouldn’t carry a bag that weighs more than 15 pounds.

So should we introduce school backpacks with wheels for kids in Malaysia?  We have been making observation on this issue and so far our findings remains that it is not a good option for our kids in Malaysia

But what about if there is a better school backpacks with wheels model that safe for our children to use? Well then, let just wait for it, but for now it is probably still not a very good idea.

We need to look at our facilities, surrounding, and situation before introducing school backpacks with wheel to our kids in Malaysia.

Avoid unnecessary danger on your kids, the best thing to do is supervise or check their school backpack everyday to ensure it is fine for your kids. As a parent, it is your responsibility.